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and raised a confusion in the crowd. I think from the looks of this picture that this horse-fair must have been a country horse-fair, because the surroundings make it look as if they were in the country.

13. I think the committee selected to select theme topics for the class to write upon, should be careful not to select too many topics on one subject, since the nature of one student differs from that of another. I think that the few who are not satisfied with the topics the committee have selected, should be required to select and hand in a list of topics on which they would like to write.

14. There are two distinct stories running through The Merchant of Venice; the story of the pound of flesh and the story of the caskets. These stories run parallel to each other through the play, as far as the third act, where the story of the caskets is ended by the choice of Bassanio. But from here a new story, the story of the' rings, commences, and runs through the rest of the play, crossing the story of the pound of flesh and finally taking the place of this story.

EXERCISE 84. (Written.) Revise the diction of your five themes with regard to the repetition of words. Avoid unnecessary repetition, but. also avoid the excessive use of "one" and "do' as substitutes for repeated nouns and verbs.

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§ 13. Acquisition of Vocabulary. It is possible to have ideas without having words in which to express them. Miss Helen Keller1 had plenty of ideas before anyone taught her

1 See the Century Magazine for November, 1896, for an English theme by Miss Helen.

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the words for them. The painter trains himself to express ideas in paint; the sculptor, in stone. The inventor expresses ideas in machinery. Because words, however, are the commonest means of expression, it is desirable that one should know as many as possible. A person who has ideas will indeed be able to communicate them in some rough-and-ready form of speech; will use a poor word if he cannot think of a good one, and by hook or crook will manage to be understood. But an unread, untrained man trying to communicate some fine shade of thought is commonly a sorry sight, no matter how clever his mind may be.

On the other hand, it is possible to know words without knowing what they stand for. Some persons of quick verbal memory pick up phrases readily, and utter them glibly, with little sense of their meaning. Gratiano, of Shakspere's drama, "spoke an infinite deal of nothing, more than any man in Venice." Such persons as he have given ground for the sarcastic remark that language is the art of concealing thought. The use of meaningless phrases, and the use of words without a care to their exact meaning, is one danger that besets the student of composition. The boy

who fluently remarks that he recently lost his little saturnine (meaning canine, i.e. dog); the lady, Mrs. Malaprop, who walks through Sheridan's play, saying, "You go first, and we'll precede you"; the man, Launcelot Gobbo, who enlivens The Merchant of Venice with such remarks as that "his suit is impertinent to himself," these people need a book of synonyms. Unless a writer is sure that he knows definitely the meaning of the word that his pen is about to trace, he would much better stay his hand.

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Though one mind may have thoughts but lack their names, and though another may have the names but lack the notions for which they stand, yet both thoughts and words are indispensable to the writer. A general recipe for getting ideas is hardly easier to give than a recipe for being great, or for having blue eyes, or for being liked by every one. Thoughts are had through new experiences, new acquaintanceships, new sights; through hard thinking, through hard reading, in short, through living. "If it were only for a vocabulary," says Emerson, "the scholar would be covetous of action. Life is our dictionary. Years are well spent in country labors; in town; in the insight into trades and manufactures; in frank inter

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course with many men and women; in science; in art; to the one end of mastering in all their facts a language by which to illustrate and embody our perceptions. I learn immediately from any speaker how much he has already lived, through the poverty or the splendor of his speech. Life lies behind us as the quarry from whence we get tiles and copestones for the masonry of to-day. This is the way to learn grammar. Colleges and books only copy the language which the field and the work-yard made." Mr. Henry James, the eminent novelist, gives a direction for being a good novelist : Try to be one of those people on whom nothing is lost. The student who is eager to know as much as possible of what is worth knowing in life, and is devoured with curiosity to learn the name of everything, is sure to acquire both new ideas and new words.

It is nevertheless not to be denied that to some extent ideas can be bred by the study of the mere words. How true this is appears when it is remembered that words are the embalmed thoughts of men. A study of such a list as the Curious Words given in the preceding chapter cannot but add to the student's mental stores. Thackeray, it is said, used to

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read the dictionary before he composed. may be presumed that the habit used not merely to acquaint him with new words, but to arouse his mind and set it to fashioning new thoughts. The attempt to discriminate between words that mean nearly, not quite, the same thing, results in a distinct gain in thought, and in power of thought. It is probable that no two words have exactly the same sense; to discover the difference enriches the discoverer's store of knowledge, and develops one of the highest mental powers. A command of words not merely affords relief from the pain of dumbness, not merely loosens the tongue; it aids reasoning. Thinking proceeds more securely the moment a hazy notion is given definite shape in the right word. Indeed, the mere search for the right word is always a means of clearing up the thought. To be tortured in mind by inability to find the unique phrase sometimes means a mere fault in verbal memory; as often it means vagueness of thinking.

Acquisition of ideas furthers acquisition of words, and vice versa. To be poor in thoughts or to be poor in language-either means failure for a writer.

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