+TO THE TEACHER+.—The pupil has now reached a point where he can afford to drop the diagram—its mission for him is fulfilled. For him to continue its use with these "Additional Examples," unless it be to outline the relations of clauses or illustrate peculiar constructions, is needless; he will merely be repeating that with which he is already familiar.
These extracts are not given for full analysis or parsing. This, also, the pupil would find profitless, and for the same reason. One gains nothing in doing what he already does well enough—progress is not made in climbing the wheel of a treadmill. But the pupil may here review what has been taught him of the uses of adjective pronouns, of the relatives in restrictive and in unrestrictive clauses, of certain idioms, of double negatives, of the split infinitive, of the subjunctive mode, of the distinctions in meaning between allied verbs, as lie and lay, of certain prepositions, of punctuation, etc. He should study the general character of each sentence, its divisions and subdivisions, the relations of the independent and the dependent parts, and their connection, order, etc. He should note the +periodic structure+ of some of these sentences—of (4) or (19), for instance—the meaning of which remains in suspense till near or at the close. He should note in contrast the +loose structure+ of others—for example, the last sentence in (20)—a sentence that has several points at any one of which a complete thought has been expressed, but the part of the sentence following does not, by itself, make complete sense. Let him try to see which structure is the more natural, and which is the more forcible, and why; and what style gains by a judicious blending of the two.
Especially should the pupil look at the thought in these prose extracts and at the manner in which it is expressed. This will lead him to take a step or two over into the field of literature. If the attempt is made, one condition seems imperative—the pupil should thoroughly understand what the author says. We know no better way to secure this than to exact of him a careful reproduction in his own words of the author's thought. This will reveal to him the differences between his work and the original; and bring into relief the peculiarity of each author's style—the stateliness of De Quincey's, for instance, the vividness of Webster's, the oratorical character of Macaulay's, the ruggedness of Carlyle's, the poetical beauty of Emerson's, the humor of Irving's, and the brilliancy of Holmes's—the last lines from whom are purposely stilted, as we learn from the context.
The pupil may see how ellipses and transpositions and imagery abound in poetry, and how, in the use of these particulars, poets differ from each other. He may note that poems are not pitched in the same key—that the extracts from Wordsworth and Goldsmith and Cowper, for example, deal with common facts and in a homely way, that the one from Lowell is in a higher key, while that from Shelley is all imagination, and is crowded with audacious imagery, all exquisite except in the first line, where the moon, converted by metaphor into a maiden, has that said of her that is inconsistent with her in her new character.
1. It is thought by some people that all those stars which you see glittering so restlessly on a keen, frosty night in a high latitude, and which seem to have been sown broadcast with as much carelessness as grain lies on a threshing-floor, here showing vast zaarahs of desert blue sky, there again lying close, and to some eyes presenting
"The beauteous semblance of a flock at rest,"
are, in fact, gathered into zones or strata; that our own wicked little earth, with the whole of our peculiar solar system, is a part of such a zone; and that all this perfect geometry of the heavens, these radii in the mighty wheel, would become apparent, if we, the spectators, could but survey it from the true center; which center may be far too distant for any vision of man, naked or armed, to reach.—De Quincey
2. On this question of principle, while actual suffering was yet afar off,
they [our fathers] raised their flag against a power to which, for
purposes of foreign conquest and subjugation, Rome, in the height of her
glory, is not to be compared—a power which has dotted over the surface
of the whole globe with her possessions and military posts; whose
morning drum-beat, following the sun and keeping company with the hours,
circles the earth with one continuous and unbroken strain of the martial
airs of England.—Webster.
3. In some far-away and yet undreamt-of hour, I can even imagine that
England may cast all thoughts of possessive wealth back to the barbaric
nations among whom they first arose; and that, while the sands of the
Indus and adamant of Golconda may yet stiffen the housings of the
charger and flash from the turban of the slave, she, as a Christian
mother, may at last attain to the virtues and the treasures of a Heathen
one, and be able to lead forth her Sons, saying, "These are my
Jewels."—Ruskin.
4. And, when those who have rivaled her [Athens's] greatness shall have shared her fate; when civilization and knowledge shall have fixed their abode in distant continents; when the scepter shall have passed away from England; when, perhaps, travelers from distant regions shall in vain labor to decipher on some moldering pedestal the name of our proudest chief, shall hear savage hymns chanted to some misshapen idol over the ruined dome of our proudest temple, and shall see a single naked fisherman wash his nets in the river of the ten thousand masts,—her influence and her glory will still survive, fresh in eternal youth, exempt from mutability and decay, immortal as the intellectual principle from which they derived their origin, and over which they exercise their control.—Macaulay.