In Part II instructions were given in word analysis and thought-grouping. Let the student analyze the words, outline the thought-groups and determine just where the pause naturally falls, and whether the interval of rest is long or short, in the following selections. He should also be able to explain just why certain groups are separated by a long, and others by a short, pause.
A MESSAGE TO GARCIA
By Elbert Hubbard
(Extract from The Philistine for March, 1899.)
When war broke out between Spain and the United States, it was necessary to communicate quickly with the leader of the Insurgents. Garcia was somewhere in the mountain fastnesses of Cuba—no one knew where. No mail or telegraph message could reach him. The President must secure his coöperation, and quickly.
What to do!
Some one said to the President, “There’s a fellow by the name of Rowan will find Garcia for you if anybody can.” Rowan was sent for and given a letter to be delivered to Garcia. How “the fellow by the name of Rowan” took the letter, sealed it up in an oilskin pouch, strapped it over his heart, in four days landed by night off the coast of Cuba from an open boat, disappeared into the jungle, and in three weeks came out on the other side of the island, having traversed a hostile country on foot, and delivered his letter to Garcia, are things I have no special desire now to tell in detail.
The point I wish to make is this: McKinley gave Rowan a letter to be delivered to Garcia; Rowan took the letter and did not ask “Where is he at?” By the Eternal! there is a man whose form should be cast in deathless bronze and the statue placed in every college of the land. It is not book-learning young men need, nor instructions about this and that, but a stiffening of the vertebræ which will cause them to be loyal to a trust, to act promptly, concentrate their energies; do the thing—“Carry a message to Garcia!”
The following is a one-minute composition by a student, illustrating the power of tone and also of mood suspense: