860. Practice.
Paragraph and punctuate the following passages.
I
I had been going to St Lukes Hospital in Charleston S C every day for two weeks to visit my brother John who had to undergo a serious operation Dr R L Spitzenberg one of the best surgeons in the city was in charge of the case one day it was I think March 12 1919 I asked the doctor when John might be taken home he exclaimed my dear sir how can you expect to move a man who is as weak as your brother is naturally I was disappointed but John was more then disappointed for he had become very tired of the hospital routine he sighed deeply he turned his face to the wall and wept sobbingly when he had become somewhat quieted a nurse came in with his evening meal she was rather small not particularly pretty and unusually brusque I thought in manner the meal consisted of a small well-cooked steak hot baked potatoes and a combination salad I sat beside the bed as he tried to eat and wondered why they gave him such heavy food if he were so weak finally I said nurse are all patients given the same diet not two minutes before she had been staring out the window in a vacuous sort of way at my question however she turned and with no apparent change in her manner remarked how should I know Ive just been taken on.
II
The lecturer said in part let me begin by quoting the hounds of spring are on winters traces and the mother of months in meadow and plain fills the shadows and windy places with lisp of leaves and ripple of rain could anything more precisely convey the restless sensitive mood of spring I can think of nothing he Swinburne the author seems to have grasped the very essence of spring here and made it live forever in his lines let me pause here a moment to suggest that if anyone of you is looking for poetry that really sings try Swinburne he will always satisfy the ear but poetry is not all sound however it must if it is to appeal popularly have rhythm to be sure nevertheless this rhythm must never be allowed to become monotonous try reading Popes Rape of the Lock for instance aloud what was it Wordsworth said poetry was emotion recollected in tranquillity or something like that wasn’t it indeed nothing could be more easily demonstrable Bret Harte for example in Gabriel Conroy describes a snow storm to perfection one finds himself floundering through the drifts as truly as if he were actually in the midst of the storm yet Harte wrote the passage long after he had undergone the experience set forth and far from the scene itself in fact he wrote of a storm in the West in midwinter while sitting calmly at his desk in New York in midsummer.
Chapter XIII
MECHANICS
In putting your ideas upon paper you must follow certain customs which good taste and convenience have established as correct at the present time. Since manners change from generation to generation, however, and since writing machines and printing methods are constantly being improved, some of these customs necessarily vary. The ensuing rules, therefore, have been composed in accordance with the best present usage and are passed on to you as describing those customs which are least subject to change.