Modern Essays and Stories / A book to awaken appreciation of modern prose, and to develop ability and originality in writing

by Unknown

DIRECTIONS FOR WRITING

You are to write of some habit that is common and that is more or less annoying to well-bred people. Make your words, in mock seriousness, appear to defend the habit that you ridicule. Make your style of writing somewhat ponderous, as though you were writing with the utmost gravity, but be sure to write in such a way that your essay will convey your sense of the ridiculous. Let your whole essay so ridicule the annoying habit that you will tend to destroy it.

FOOTNOTES:

[2] From As We Were Saying, by Charles Dudley Warner. Copyright by Harper and Brothers.

[3] Drawer. The Editor's Drawer of Harper's Magazine for which Mr. Warner wrote many of his best essays.