COMPOSITION.
Arrange for it beforehand, and therefore have the requisite slips of paper, and nicely sharpened lead pencils ready for all, but if you are not ready there is a certain satisfaction in knowing that part of the amusement may be in the preparation. In the latter case, have a competition as to who will make the sharpest points on the pencils, or cut the papers the most accurately; when all is prepared, however, give slips of paper and lead pencils to your friends, and ask them to write the words you will name. State that they will have fifteen minutes in which to write a composition, and put into the same every word you have mentioned. No one can look over his neighbor’s paper, and each composition must be signed with the writer’s full name.
When the time has expired, all the compositions are collected and read aloud, votes are taken as to which is the best, and the individual having received the highest number of votes is entitled to a prize.
Example: Wreath, Mausoleum, suicide, farewell, another, conjointly, starred, huntsman’s song, early, queen, historical, many, dramas.
Alfred, Lord Tennyson, was for many years Poet Laureate. He wrote several poems, descriptive, historical, national and otherwise. He also wrote three notable dramas, one called Becket, known as Thomas à Becket, Chancellor of England, afterwards Archbishop of Canterbury, another called Queen Mary, the ill-starred daughter of Henry the Eighth, and Harold, who was Earl of Wessex, afterwards King of England.
Early in life Tennyson wrote several poems, conjointly with his brother Charles. Among these were the Huntsman’s Song, The Grave of a Suicide, The Fall of Jerusalem, and the Bard’s Farewell.
Tennyson’s monument is in that great English mausoleum, Westminster Abbey. On the dark stone slab, the visitor may frequently see a wreath of laurel, so placed in grateful memory.
As this game would oftener than otherwise be played informally, the matter of prizes cannot be too simple. If you are in the birch-bark section, why not make a bookmark or a napkin ring out of the bark? Should you be at the seashore make a nest of shells. For example, find a large mussel shell, and next to it put one a size smaller, and so on fit in the others, graduating them evenly, the top one being very small. Or give a curious shell, which may be used as an ornament or receptacle.