The resolutions would be sent to Mr. Stirling in a letter like the following:—
Reverend George S. Stirling,
Dear Sir,—
At a meeting of the ——— Club, held ———, the following resolutions were unanimously adopted:—
Whereas, the Reverend George S. Stirling, etc. ———
George Oldham, Henry Miller,
Secretary. President.
CHAPTER XVI
VERSIFICATION
94. Poetry is the most beautiful and attractive form of writing, and in the highest sense is by far the most difficult, since it is not only complicated in form, but is highly emotional and stirs deeply the feelings of the reader. To write real poetry is, therefore, out of the reach of most of us, but to write verse is not so difficult as it is usually thought, and it is an excellent exercise in learning control of words. Verse making gives skill in manipulating language and, because of the need for ingenuity and flexibility in sentence construction and for variety in the choice of words, it helps in writing prose. More than this, you will find that some practice in managing verse-forms yourself will enable you to understand and admire more intelligently the poetry you read.
I wander'd lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o'er vales and hills;
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host of golden daffodils,
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.
What is the difference between the sentences in this extract and ordinary prose sentences? If you read them over aloud, you will see that they are constructed on a definite plan. You notice that, as in pronouncing aloud every word of more than one syllable, you accent one of them more than the others (páragraph, assúming), just so you accent some syllables in each line of the verse. Your voice naturally falls four times, thus, "I wánder'd lónely ás a cloúd" and in every line it falls the same number of times. The fact that there is a fixed and regular number of accents in each line makes it verse and not prose, and to write correct verse you must keep to a regular recurrence of accents in your lines. A line to which you naturally give three accents is said to have three feet; four accents, four feet, etc. A foot or pattern of syllables which is repeated to make up the line consists of an accented syllable and one or more unaccented ones. The foot is named according to the arrangement of syllables in it, but it is not necessary for you now to know the names, which come from the Greek and are hard to remember. Four of the best-known feet are mentioned here, with examples. The accented syllable is marked ´ and the unaccented [)].
[)I] wánde[)r']d lónel[)y] ás [)a] cloúd. Iambic [) ´].
Téll m[)e] nót [)in] moúrnf[)u]l númb[)e]rs. Trochaic [´ )].
B[)u]t [)we] steádf[)as]tl[)y] gázed [)o]n t[)h]e fáce th[)a]t w[)a]s déad. Anapestic [) ) ´].
Bírd [)o]f t[)h]e wíld[)er]n[)e]ss, blíthes[)o]me a[)n]d cúmb[)e]rl[)e]ss. Dactylic [´ ) )].