her superior nowhere under heaven with the light streaming in red, level rays through the side streets on a late afternoon in the cold, crisp air of autumn, with the tan of a summer on the New England coast upon her, and her exquisite figure instinct with the vitality which comes of yachting and hard riding, her frock and jacket fitting her like a glove, and her clear, frank eyes looking you straight between your own and making you feel in her presence that a clean, wholesome, manly thing is life! - WYCKOFF: The Workers.

6. His story was as ordinary and prosaic as Mr. and Mrs. Pierce seemed to think his character. Neither riches nor poverty had put a shaping hand to it. The only child of his widowed mother, he had lived in one of the smaller manufacturing cities of New England, a life such as falls to most lads. Unquestionably he had been rather more shielded from several forms of temptation than had most of his playmates, for his mother's isolation had made him not merely her son, but very largely her companion. In certain ways this had tended to make him more manly than the average fellow of his age, but in others it had retarded his development; and this backwardness had been further accentuated by a deliberate mind, which hardly kept pace with his physical growth. His school record was fair: "painstaking, but slow," was the report of his studies. "Exemplary," in conduct. He was not a leader among the boys, but he was very generally liked. A characteristic fact, for good or bad, was that he had no enemies. From the clergyman to the "hired help," everybody had a kind word for him, but tinctured by no enthusiasm. All spoke of him as "a good boy," and when this was said, they had nothing more to say.

One important exception to this statement is worthy of note. The girls of the High School never liked him. If they had been called upon for reasons, few could have

given a tangible one. At their age, everything this world contains, be it the Falls of Niagara, or a stick of chewing gum, is positively or negatively "nice." For some crime of commission or omission, Peter had been weighed and found wanting. "He isn't nice," was the universal verdict of the scholars who daily filed through the door, which the town selectmen, with the fine contempt of the narrow man for his unpaid "help," had labelled, "for females." If they had said that he was "perfectly horrid," there might have been a chance for him. But the subject was begun and ended with these three words.FORD: The Honorable Peter Stirling.

(1) Why does Hawthorne say that Emerson had a "sunbeam" in his face? (2) Does Mr. Morley's effect upon the "certain number of ladies and gentlemen" seem adequate proof of the statements made in the first sentence of the

passage concerning him? (3) What is expounded in the third selection? (4) Which sentences in the fourth selection expound character by direct statements? which by stating effects produced by that character in other persons? (5) Was the character of the girl mentioned by Professor Wyckoff frank, womanly, courageous, pure, or sly, frivolous, cowardly? How do you judge? Which seems to you more artistic-exposition by direct statement, or exposition by suggestive "effects"?

EXERCISE 134. (Theme.) Think of some person whose effect on you is elevating, and set forth the character of that person by telling the effect his (or her) character has on different associates.

Read aloud the following:

1. Julia Welford expected too much of everybody and everything; therefore disappointment was her inalienable portion. She was always overdrawing her account at the bank of life, and consequently having her cheques dishonored. She had never grasped the fact that the measure wherewith we mete is the only measure which we have a right to demand; and that as we can only give of our very best to one person, we should only expect one person to give his or her very best to us. Poor Julia, however, expected to be first in the estimation of people who occupied about the twenty-fifth place in her scale of attachment; and when she found that she was naturally not the primary consideration in these cases, she cried her eyes out, and exclaimed that love was a snare, and friendship vanity. She had no sense of proportion.— ELLEN THORNEYCROFT FOWLER: A Double Thread.

2. Some of the good people of Georgetown, Ripley, and Batavia, go far in their attempt to show how very ordinary Ulysses S. Grant was.

A boy of thirteen who could drive a team six hundred miles across country and arrive safely; who could load a wagon with heavy logs by his own mechanical ingenuity; who insisted on solving all mathematical problems himself; who never whispered or lied or swore or quarrelled; who could train a horse to pace or trot at will; who stood

squarely upon his own knowledge of things, without resorting to trick or mere verbal memory, - such a boy, at this distance, does not appear "ordinary," stupid, dull, or commonplace. That he was not showy or easily valued is true. His unusualness was in the balance of his character, in his poise, in his native judgment, and in his knowledge of things at first hand, and in his ability to persist.

Even at sixteen years of age, he had a superstition that to retreat was fatal. When he set hand to any plan, or started on any journey, he felt the necessity of going to the turn of the lane, or the end of the furrow. He was resolute and unafraid always; a boy to be trusted and counted upon-sturdy, capable of hard knocks. What he was in speech, he was in grain. If he said, "I can do that," he not merely meant that he would try to do it, but also that he had thought his way to the successful end of the undertaking. He was an unusually determined and resourceful boy. — GARLAND: Life of Grant.

3. I was making ginger cakes when Rubina stopped at the door, a small inky splotch against the yellow-pink of the evening sky. The round eyes stared; the teeth showed broadly in a grin; stiff little plaits of hair stood rampantly erect on her head.

The round eyes watched me appreciatively as I cut cake after cake and put it in the pan. In went dough, horses and dogs and elephants, fashioned with a cheerful disregard for the laws of anatomy. The child's grin deepened as I took a panful of the animals, daintily browned, from the stove.

“What is it, Rubina? Do you want a cake?”

She waited a minute, the round eyes unchanged, the teeth still showing. Then she handed me a piece of paper. "No'm; I want you ter write me a composition, please ma'am. De subjec' is, 'Whut de Modern System uv Edu

cation Does Fuh de Human Race.""-IRENE FOWLER BROWN, in Harper's Magazine.

(1, 2) Which selection, the first or the second, shows character by specifying particular acts which grew out of that character? which by stating in general terms the habits of action which grew out of character? Which method is the more vivid? In which passage do figures of speech partly atone for the absence of specific words? (3) In the third selection, whose character is being expounded? Is the person's act mentioned, or merely to be inferred?

EXERCISE 135. (Theme.) Write an exposition of some actual character, specifying definite acts to prove each assertion.

Read aloud the following:

1. Then there was the Commencement at Cambridge, and the full account of the exercises of the graduating of my own class. A list of all those familiar names (beginning as usual with Abbott, and ending with W), which, as I read them over, one by one, brought up their faces and characters as I had known them in the various scenes of college life. Then I imagined them upon the stage, speaking their orations, dissertations, colloquies, etc., with the gestures and tones of each, and tried to fancy the manner in which each would handle his subject. handsome, showy, and superficial; with his strong head, clear brain, cool selfmodest, sensitive, and underrated;

possession;