Writing a Novel

1895

Marion Crawford Describes His Method of Constructing a Story.

"What," I asked Marion Crawford, "is the germ of a novel for you?"

It is a character, and not a situation, which generally suggests a novel to me. I think that in most cases my characters are portraits of real people in imaginary situations. That is why they cannot be recognized by the originals, because they are out of their usual environment. There are two exceptions to this way of conceiving a novel. As I have already told you, 'The Tale of a Lonely Parish' and 'Marzio's Crucifix' were suggested to me by the real background."

"Won't you tell me," I asked, "how you go to work to construct one of your novels? Do you see the end from the beginning and work toward it?"

"Since my first novel or two I always see the end of the story from the start. When I have thought it over in this way, I take a largo sheet of paper, and having decided on the size of the book I make up my mind that it shall have, say, 24 chapters. Along the left margin I mark the numbers of these chapters, one under the other, a line for each. If it is to be in three volumes, as most of my novels are in England, I place a horizontal mark after each eight chapter numbers. That indicates the volume. Then, after the manner of a playwright choosing what he calls his 'curtain situation,' I decide on the culminating incident in each volume, and also decide in which chapter it shall fall, and place a catchword indicating that situation on the line with the chapter number. Then I fill in for the other chapters a catch word or phrase, which indicates the minor incidents in succession that culminate in the major incident. Of course all these things do not come at once, and I may fill in, from time to time, after I have begun the novel, but when the skeleton is comparatively complete I begin the work. Along the right hand margin I write down the calendar of the novel, as it may be called, from day to day. If it is a novel in which the action takes place in a very short time, I write down not only the day of the month and week, but the hour of the day, so that the action of the story may move logically. With this skeleton of the novel before me I write with great rapidity. Indeed I have found that if I write a novel slowly my conception of the leading characters may change from week to week, so that in the end the novel is not artistically so forcible or so complete as those written rapidly. You will understand, of course, that, after the novel is begun, I may have to shift the position of the leading incidents and alter the general arrangement."

"Do you ever dictate?" I asked.

"I dictated one novel under stress of circumstances, and I do not think that I shall over dictate another, for I consider it a relative failure." — McClure's Magazine.


No Cheese For Lunch

It is wretchedly bad form to serve cheese and wafers at luncheon, although one often sees it done. They are alone permissible with the dessert of a dinner, never of a lunch. — Philadelphia Press.


Festivals

A midwinter festival was known and observed in Europe long before the Christmas era.

A Composition

1895

An exchange reports that a small boy in one of the Germantown (Pa.) public schools wrote a composition on King Henry VIII which reads as follows: "King Henry 8 was the greatest widower that over lived. He was born at Annie Domino in the year 1066. He had 510 wives besides children. The first was beheaded and afterward executed and the 2d was revoked. Henry 8 was succeeded to the throne by his great-grandmother, the beautiful Mary, queen of Scots, sometimes called Lady of the Lake or the Lay of the Last Minstrel."

Writing An Ad

1901

Did you ever stop to think, you who read the advertisement in the newspapers, just what it means to get up the "ad." every day for a big department store? The man in charge usually has a staff of assistants, who are assigned to certain departments of the store each day. They must familiarize themselves with the stock of these departments, while the manager of the advertising department himself is supposed to keep thoroughly in touch with the entire stock of the store. He writes the general introduction to the advertisement each day and edits the copy turned in to him by his assistants, just as an editor handles the copy of his reporters.

"Just as much care is taken with this matter as though it were so much imperishable literature," said the advertising manager of a big department store. "You sometimes hear of a famous author spending hours over one paragraph, writing it and rewriting it to get the best and strongest effect. You wouldn't think that would be necessary in writing an advertisement, but it is. My assistants sometimes spend an hour over one sentence. There is more science in writing an advertisement that will bring results than perhaps in any other form of composition." — Philadelphia Record.

Art of Writing Very Old

1910

New Discoveries Carry Back Existence of Written Documents Centuries Beyond Phoenician Record

The revelations made at the remains of a great prehistoric palace at Knossos, in Crete, which is believed to be the original of the fabled "Labyrinth," would seem to carry back the existence of written documents on Greek soil some eight centuries beyond the earliest known monuments of Greek writing and five centuries beyond the earliest dated Phoenician record as seen on the Moabite stone.

These discoveries, therefore, place the whole question of the origin of writing on a new basis. It is thought that the Cretan hieroglyphs exactly correspond with what, in virtue of their names, we must suppose to have been the pictorial originals of the Phoenician letters on which the alphabet is based.

Among these are Aleph, the ox's head; Beth, the house; Daleth, the door, and so forth. This contravenes the old theory of De Rouge that the Phoenician letters were derived from early Egyptian forms signifying quite different objects.

Professor Pays Tribute to Newspaper English

1915

High Standard of Writing

"I well remember the pleasure with which, as a young man, I heard my venerable and practiced professor of rhetoric say that he supposed there was no work known to man more difficult than writing," said Prof. George H. Palmer, formerly of Harvard University. "Up to that time I had supposed its severities peculiar to myself." He goes on to recount the advantages which children of today enjoy over those of his own generation, and hopes that some of them will find the language he has used about the difficulty of writing extravagant. Then he says:

"Let me say, too, that since frequency has more to do with ease of writing than anything else, I count the newspaper men lucky because they are writing all the time, and I do not think so meanly of their product as the present popular disparagement would seem to require. It is hasty work, undoubtedly, and bears the marks of haste. But in my judgment in no period of the English language has there been so high an average of sensible, vivacious and informing sentences written as appears in our daily press.

"With both good and evil results, the distinction between book literature and speech literature is breaking down. Everybody is writing, apparently in verse and prose; and if the higher graces of style do not often appear, neither on the other hand do the ruder awkwardness and obscurities. A certain straightforward English is becoming established. A whole nation is learning the use of its mother tongue. Under such circumstances it is doubly necessary that anyone who is conscious of feebleness in his command of English should promptly and earnestly begin the cultivation of it."


Man and His Age

After a man reaches the age of fifty he begins to see insults in the newspapers to the effect that he is an old man. — Topeka Capital.

Training for Left-Handedness

1915

Positive Results Not Seen as Anticipated

Some time ago the development of left-handedness in children was warmly advocated by various persons, not only because in this way reliance could be placed on both upper extremities for mechanical work, which would undoubtedly be of advantage in case of serious disturbance of the functions of the right arm, but also because the hope was entertained that by training the left arm a second speech center might develop in the right hemisphere of the brain in the same way as the well-developed right arm corresponds with the speech center place in the left half of the brain.

The Berlin physician, M. Frankel, was especially active in the advocacy of this idea — in fact, experiments in this direction were undertaken in various localities. The practical results which have been so far reported do not correspond in any degree to the optimistic expectations of the advocates of the method, says the Journal of the American Medical Association.

Doctor Schafer, on the basis of permission granted by the school deputation, collected statistics with reference to the left-handedness among about 18,000 pupils of the Berlin public schools. These statistics show that 4.06 per cent of all the children are left-handed, 5.5 per cent of all the boys and 2.98 per cent of the girls. The percentage of children in whom both hands are equally developed is very small, being only .21 per cent. The overwhelming majority, 95.73 per cent of all the children, are distinctly right-handed. In several school districts, among 448 teachers, there were ten who were left-handed.

L. Katscher's work on "Training the Left Hand" was the theoretical basis for the exercises to train the left hand. They included exercises in writing, arithmetic manual training and gymnastics; especially in the last two systematic efforts were made. In general, the result showed that the possibility of employing the hitherto unused left hand at first excited great joy and marked interest, but the physical awkwardness generally was a great hindrance.

The outcome of the whole experiment shows that in no case could a preference for the left hand be developed. It may be trained to be a welcome assistant to the right hand, but never a substitute for it. In teaching writing the complaint is made of a deterioration in handwriting. The children refused to write with the left hand, became nervous and worried over it, and increased intellectual development was in no case observed. Almost all those who gave an opinion were unanimous that the advantages stood in no relation to the expenditure of time, pains and patience.

"Good" Spelling — Simplifying Spelling

1906

Scientific Phonetic Principles Groundwork of the Simplified Spelling Board's Crusade

By Benjamin E. Smith

It is true that the only really good spelling is phonetic spelling; it is unfortunately true that our orthography, though not wholly unphonetic, is from the true phonetic point of view little less than a nightmare; but it is also true that to reform it phonetically would necessitate a radical transformation of the great majority of the familiar forms of English words, because it would involve extensive alterations of the alphabet. To say, as some do, that this alphabetic reconstruction should be the end rather than the beginning — a goal to which a gradual approach may be made — is only to recommend the substitution of prolonged confusion and anarchy for a quick and sweeping revolution.

But that the great mass of English-speakers, who, as Prof. Lounsbury has said, have lost the phonetic sense, will consent to give up at once or gradually, through a transition period of vexatious confusion, their orthographic habits, their prejudices and their convenience, in order that their spelling, or that of their grandchildren, may assume a form which, from its strangeness seems to them utterly repulsive, is a supposition which cannot be entertained unless one relies upon the scientific accuracy of one's principles more than upon one's knowledge of human nature.

The full recognition of this fact by the Simplified Spelling Board is what chiefly distinguishes its program and makes it a practicable and hopeful one. All of its members, probably, heartily believe in the phonetic principle; they may expect or hope that some time it may be embodied in English orthography; but they are agreed that it must be subordinated to other practical principles in any reform for which it is reasonable to work. They have not abandoned the standard of the earlier revolt; but they have changed the point of attack and the plan of campaign. This should be distinctly grasped by all who are interested in their work and plans. — The Century.

Spelling vs. Other Things

1901

The Labors of Teachers Being Added to Daily

Anna Stuart Wroe writes to the Baltimore Sun: "It seems to me if I were a public school teacher — which, thank the fates, I am not — the present vacation would be peculiarly blessed and blissful, inasmuch as it succeeds such weary, harassing and anxious terms as was never known in the history of our public schools. At least, the poor teachers have a short respite from the eternal prod, and their first waking thought in the morning need not be 'What next?' — until September.

"Every day something new is introduced to add to the labors of teachers and scholars, and, it appears to me, so much that could be dispensed with. Of course it is right and proper for children to learn all they can, but surely the line must be drawn somewhere, as it is manifestly impossible to learn everything. Why not cut out a few of the 'isms and ologies' and abstruse studies that are all right in a college course, but needless for the average public school pupil, and pay more attention to such common subjects as spelling, punctuation, grammar and plain English composition?

"I am a typewriter, and during the past 11 years have had in my office 51 girls from the public schools, most of them from the eighth grade, and some having attended the high school one year or more, and I speak whereof know when I say that 49 of the above could not write a letter from dictation correctly to save their lives — correctly so far as spelling, punctuation, capitalization and paragraphing are concerned. Not three of the 49 had the remotest idea of dividing a word according to its syllables, and only today an eighth grade girl wrote the word 'transpose' with 'tr' on one line and the balance of the word on the next. I am told that each teacher is a law unto herself in this matter. What else the 49 girls knew it is not my province to ascertain, but I think everybody will admit that the aforesaid 'common branches' are of more practical value, especially where girls are compelled to support themselves, than so many things now taught, and of which they may at best get but a smattering; so, if there is not time for all, for goodness' sake let them at least be taught enough grammar, spelling and punctuation to enable them to write a decent English letter."

Short Sentences for Him

1914

Writer Gives Good Advice to His Fellows in the Following Simple Words

Writers who wish to impart to their productions power and pungency, who wish to keep the reader's attention upon the tiptoe of activity, who desire to escape the imputation of pedantry and who seek to surcharge their sentiments with sparkle and spirit will do well to bear in mind constantly that long, lingering sentences, unduly overburdened with an abundance of phrases, clauses and parenthetical observations of a more or less digressive character, are apt to be tiresome to the reader, especially if the subject matter be at all profound or ponderous, to place an undue strain upon his powers of concentration and to leave him with a confused concept of the ideas which the writer apparently has been at great pains to concentrate; while short, snappy sentences, on the other hand, with the frequent recurrence of subject and predicate, thus recalling and emphasizing the idea to be expressed as the development of the thought proceeds, like numerous signposts upon an untraveled road, these frequent breaks having the effect of taking a new hold upon the reader's attention, oases in the desert of words, as it were, will be found to be much more effective, much more conducive to clarify and far better calculated to preserve the contact, the wireless connection, so to speak, between the writer and the reader; provided, however, and it is always very easy to err through a too strict and literal application of a general rule, that the sentences are not so short as to give a jerky, choppy and sketchy effect and to scatter the reader's attention so often as to send him wool-gathering completely. — Ellis O. Jones in Life.

Commas and Inflection Make a Difference

1895

Commas and Inflection

A Good Deal Depends on Them Sometimes

We published recently an account of a suit for heavy damages arising from lack of punctuation in a telegram. A man sent the message: "Don't come. Too late." But the doctor received it, "Don't come too late," and immediately engaged a special train to convey him a long distance.

Mr. Story, the sculptor, who began life as a lawyer, tells a good anecdote which illustrates the fact that the emphasis which punctuates has as much to do with determining the sense of a sentence as the meaning of the words. Once, when he was called upon to defend a woman accused of murdering her husband, he adduced as one of the proofs of her innocence the fact of her having attended him on his deathbed, and saying to him, when he was dying, "Goodbye, George!" The counsel for the prosecution declared that that ought rather to be taken as a proof of her guilt, and that the words she had used were "Good! by George!"

A well known clergyman of New York used to make a strong point by reading the verse, "God said, Let there be light, and there was light," with the emphasis on the word light, not on was, as usually rendered.

An elocutionist of considerable note has questioned the method of the great Mrs. Siddons, who in answer to Macbeth's suggestion of possible failure was wont to reply, "Fail!" with a emphatic drop of the voice that implied, "Well, then, fail, that's all there is to it." "Lady Macbeth would never have got him in the world," said this critic, "had she addressed him in that manner. She undoubtedly said, 'Fail,' in a tone of utter contempt for a man who could imagine such an outcome to his villainy. The word should be given in a deep tone, with a falling inflection and then an upward tendency." — Brooklyn Eagle.

Writer Says Age Doesn't Matter, Keep Going for Success

1921

Emerson Hough Says No "Dead Line" at 40, Former S.U.I. Man

By DALE E. CARRELL

There has long been a sort of "unwritten law," or at least common belief, that if a man didn't make his mark in the world or achieve real success by the time he was 40, he never would. After 40, it has been held, a man simply fights to hold his own or start down-grade.

But, along comes Emerson Hough, and proceeds to rip to pieces this so-called iron-clad rule which would end man's climbing of the ladder of fame at the age of 40. Mr. Hough very emphatically says, there is no dead line at two score "milestones," and the noted author points to his own life as an example and illustration to prove his point.

Emerson Hough is well known personally to many Iowans and Iowa City and University people for he is a graduate of S. U. I, having won his degree in 1880, just 41 years ago. The University of Iowa is very proud of her eminent alumnus and he is just as proud of his alma mater. And, those who do not know Mr. Hough personally, know him thru having read his delightful novel, "The Mississippi Bubble," which made him famous, almost overnight. Therefore, Mr. Hough's declaration will make Hawkeyes, especially, sit up and take notice.

Mr. Hough is now 63 years age and his big success in life did not come until he was 45. Up to the time that success came, he had tried numerous occupations and couldn't make good, or keep happy in any of them, but the former S. U. I. man never once gave up. He soon found, in writing, the real star to follow and he hitched his wagon to it. He is now an author and wealthy. He says "It is within your soul — this question of achievement. It is not decided by the clock or the calendar."

Mr. Hough's statement should hearten a lot of fellows who haven't really found themselves after the 40 mark has been passed, and his own career should serve to inspire confidence and instill new energy in some of the faithful plodders who have almost given up hope. Hough didn't give up during the days of adversity — that is the main thing to remember. Keep on trying and even if you are nearer 60 than you are 40, you can still strike, in the vernacular of the oil field, a "gusher" in some field of endeavor, that means real success. Let no one set a "dead line" for you — you have everything to say about that yourself. The movie director continually yells for "action" when he is making the film you are soon to enjoy on the screen. If you can provide plenty of "action" in your struggle for success, you will not only achieve it, but keep pushing that "dead line" farther and farther away. There is no "dead line" at 40!

—Iowa City Press-Citizen, Iowa City, IA April 11, 1921, p. 1.

The School Room

1874

The ringing notes of the school bell at 9 o'clock in the morning echo through every village and hamlet in the land. With books and lunch basket, children, little and large, hasten their response to its call. They gather in rooms of every size and of every grade of comfort, from the log cabin chinked with mud to the elegant and costly structure of brick furnished with apparatus and meeting every physical want.

However, the school-rooms may differ, the course of study is essentially the same in them all. The "three R's, reading, riting, and rithmetic," are the corner stones now, as they were in the olden time, of a good education, and teachers of every grade of culture and experience are drilling the juvenile mind in fractions, interest, and square root, in spelling and reading, in grammar and geography.

The school committee, the trustees, and the teachers are supposed by most parents to be quite competent to take entire charge of the children committed to their care, and when once school taxes are paid, books purchased, and the children entered, the parents are quite ready to throw all further responsibility upon the proper authorities.

Little do most of them trouble themselves about the teacher, whether or not he is competent mentally, morally for the task he has undertaken, for have not the school committee decided that, and who shall appeal from their decision? So the teacher is left quite to himself in his little empire, and without sympathy or co-operation on the part of parents discharges his duties and receives his pay.

In the old days when "boarding round" was the fashion it was not easy for the teacher and the parents to remain unacquainted, but now it is by no means an uncommon circumstance for them never to meet. "Have you been in the school lately?" we ask frequently. "No," is the invariable reply, "I'm intending to go, but haven't got there yet."

Now we believe that intelligent co-operation between parents and teachers is essential to the best results in education, and that every parent should, as far as possible, note the daily progress of his child in his studies, that he should assure the teacher of his cordial and earnest sympathy and support in the arduous labors of the school-room, and by his own occasional presence there, show his interest in the progress of the school.

The Poet Robert Southey — A Look At His Character

1874

Character of Southey

Southey went rarely into society; scarcely knew by sight any of the country-people living near him; never rode on horseback; took no outdoor exercise save that of walking, and this often from a mere sense of duty, and with a book in his hand; and, although living in one of the loveliest spots in England, and not insensible to charms, preferred the shelves of his library to the finest prospect in the world. He found his relaxation where he found his daily labor, within the walls of his study. "I can't afford," wrote, "to do one thing at a time; no, nor two neither; and it is only by doing many things that I contrive to do much; for I cannot work long at any thing without hurting myself, and I do every thing by heats; then, by the time I am tired of one, my inclination for another is at hand."

Southey was an affectionate husband and a fond father; and whenever, in his correspondence, he alludes to his home happiness, it is with a tenderness and warmth of feeling that are eminently beautiful. Moreover, he was a constant, and, at all times, noble friend, ready even when in straits himself to help with money or with his pen those who were more straitened. No one ever acted better the part of the good Samaritan, and while he never forgot a benefit received, it would seem as if his own magnanimous charity had no place in his memory. The story of his life abounds in instances of the most generous self-denial, and of a steadfast goodness of heart which never shrunk from the demands made upon it. Heavily burdened as he was with work, he was continually accepting fresh literary labor in order to benefit others; nor was this all, for he received, under his own roof, his wife's widowed sister, Mrs. Lovell; and when Coleridge, in that strange waywardness of mood which his vice of opium-eating can alone explain, deserted his wife and children, it was with Southey that they found home. There is a beautiful anecdote given by Lockhart of a poor music-master offering Scott all his savings in the hour of his adversity; a similar story may be told of Southey, who, when his friend May, an early benefactor of the poet, fell into difficulties, sent him more than six hundred pounds, which was all the money he possessed.

If the poet had strong and generous affections he was also a good hater, but this feeling was shown to principles rather than to persons, and if, which was not seldom, political animosity led him to write bitterly against his antagonists, there was not one of them for whom, after the moment of writing, he retained an unkindly feeling. It is said that he seldom spoke harshly of any man with whom he had once conversed; he had too large a heart for petty animosities, and he was wholly free from envy. At the time when a whole year's sale of a ponderous epic failed to produce the poet five pounds, Scott was gaining his thousands, but not a word of bitterness falls from Southey on this score; and the praise he bestowed on his contemporaries, a few of them more distinguished than himself, but the larger number men of far inferior power, is frequently more generous than just.

Although not, as we have said, a sociable man, he had the good fortune to know intimately most of the illustrious authors who made the early part of this century so famous, and, long before Wordsworth had received the public recognition which was his due as the greatest poet of the age, Southey, like Coleridge, expressed his admiration of his friend and neighbor in no niggard terms. This noble triumvirate, by-the-way, reminds us that probably not since Shakespeare's day have three men of equal mark lived together on terms of intimacy and affection. Landor called them "three towers of one castle," and, as all the world knows, they have been absurdly classed together as forming a school of poetry.

Southey had but little ear for harmony, and it was therefore all the more unfortunate for his fame that he elected to write his "Thalaba" in a novel metre, which is without the dignity of heroic blank verse, or the soothing, satisfying charm of rhyme. Landor saw his friend's mistake in this respect, and observed, very justly: "Are we not a little too fond of novelty and experiment, and is it not reasonable to prefer those kinds of versification which the best poets have adopted and the best judges have cherished for the longest time?" But Southey, on the contrary, was well pleased with his experiment, thinking that, while it gave the poet a wider range of expression, it satisfied the ear of the reader. So far is this from being the case, that no one familiar with the lovely harmony of Shelley's verse, or with the delicate music of Coleridge, to say nothing of earlier and later poets, is likely to gain delight from the strange and fitful, and sometimes jarring notes of Southey. But there is strength in his verse, if not harmony, and "Thalaba," while it has its wildernesses and arid deserts, can also boast, as indeed all Southey's epics may, many a fair scene of richness and beauty. Splendor of diction and felicity of description occur frequently, but frequently also the action halts, the verse drags, and the reader feels inclined to resign himself to slumber. On the whole, perhaps, the erudition lavished on the poem is more striking than its poetical wealth, and it is sometimes a relief to turn aside from the text to the curious and highly-entertaining notes which serve to illustrate it.

Southey himself judged "Roderick" to be the finest of all his poems, and Landor, in writing to him, said: "There is no poem in existence that I shall read so often." Charles Lamb, however, an admirable judge, and Wordsworth also, preferred "The Curse of Kehama," and, without endeavoring to compare the value of the two works, there can be no doubt that they are the poet's greatest and least wearisome efforts. It is singular that in none of Southey's epics are there passages which lay hold of the memory, and become, as it were, a part of one's life. No doubt, the first consideration of the poet should be to have a worthy action, and the more he strives after this object, the less will he concern himself with the beauty of particular passages, but the lack of what may be called "beauties" in Southey's poetry is due, we think, less to the severity of his taste than to the diffusiveness of his style, which has, as it were, no points for the memory to lay hold of. With all their deficiencies, however, the student of English poetry can never pass by with indifference these elaborate productions but he is not likely to agree with Macaulay that Southey's poems, taken in the mass, rank far higher than his prose works. — Cornhill Magazine.

Sinclair Lewis Warns Writers About Bad Temper

1937

Writers Warned Against Ill Temper By Sinclair Lewis

New London, Conn., June 1 (UP).— Sinclair Lewis thinks it's a sign of bad temper when a writer, having become dissatisfied with a paragraph, tears it off the top of his typewriter.

"When I don't like what I've started to write," said Lewis, "I unroll the entire sheet and put in a fresh one.

"I don't think it's good practice to tear a partly written sheet out of a typewriter, it's a sign of bad temper. When you write you are your own master. A display of temper means you are quarreling with yourself — quarreling with your master. It isn't good to do that."

The novelist, touring New England by motor, recalled his first writing job on a Midwestern newspaper.

"I was fired from that job," he grinned, "but not until my boss was prepared to announce that my successor was already on a train heading for town."

—The Syracuse Herald, Syracuse, NY, June 1, 1937, page 19.

Poetry Said Nourishment To Supplement Daily Bread

Ohio, 1940

A group of about fifty poetry lovers met at the Brumback Library last night to enjoy Rev. John H. Lamy's talk on "Standards of Poetic Excellence."

Rev. Lamy began by saying we need other nourishment than our daily bread and that is poetry. Without it our civilization would soon be at an end. We need not only to read poetry but we should write poetry as a form of self expression. The main value in writing is in what it does to us.

Poetry, according to Rev. Lamy's definition, is "Great thought expressed in artistic language." Verse, he said, is any thought that rhymes, while doggerel has no intention of being great thought. There are many possible standards of poetic excellence, depending on the approach, whether it is as a writer, a critic or an appreciative layman. A good way to judge a poem is to ask, "Is this one I would like to memorize?"

First, great poetry is great though, and Rev. Lamy listed and commented on six great poetic themes — aspiration, or the upward climb of the soul; nature, for beautiful nature does for us what human relations cannot do; home and country, poems that inspire patriotism and love of country, and here Rev. Lamy voiced a public protest against the silly parody on our great poems; courage, poems that make us want to draw in our chins and try again; mercy and justice, showing our responsibility toward our brother; and immortality.

Second, great poetry must be artistic in expression. Such poems make one see things; they paint pictures. All through his talk, Rev. Lamy illustrated his points by reading parts of his favorite poems, many of them learned when a boy, and he closed by commending the reading and memorizing of great poetry and the setting down of one's own thoughts.

—Van Wert Times-Bulletin, Van Wert, OH, Oct. 26, 1940, page 6.

Get Our Your Dictionary and Get Something Out of It

1914

THE STUDY OF WORDS.

It's a Helpful Scheme to Use Your Dictionary Every Day.

Writing an article, "Treasure In Books," in the Woman's Home Companion, Laura Spencer Porter gives the following excellent advice about the advantages to be gained from the study of words:

"The study of words — it may sound to you a dry thing, yet I promise you it is not; very far from it.

"And this brings me to suggest that the habit of one of the great writers of studying carefully from a good dictionary five words each day is one from which we might all of us get a good deal of profit. Or take a good book of synonyms, for instance, and learn from it each day five words somewhat similar, comparing and weighing carefully the meanings and values of them.

"Notice the degrees of force in the following: To dislike, to hate, to loathe, to detest, to abhor. Each note struck is a little stronger, higher. We might say, like an ascending crescendo scale. So to instruct, to teach, to educate, are each quite different in meaning, with a great nicety of difference. So, rebuke, reprimand, censure, blame, are all of one color, but of how different shades of meaning. So, too, misfortune, calamity, disaster; so, weak, feeble, decrepit, and what delicate difference between fame and renown or feminine and womanly and womanish."

Microscopic Writing: Eight Bibles to the Square Inch

1895

MICROSCOPIC WRITING

The Wonders That May Be Accomplished In a Square Inch of Space

Among the collection of microscopic objects in the United States Army Medical museum at Washington is a specimen of microscopic writing on glass which contains the Lord's Prayer, written in characters so small that the entire 227 letters of that petition are engraved within an area measuring 1-294 by 1-441 of an inch.

So far this statement does not trouble us. If, however, we go a little further, we easily find that the area having the above dimensions would be only the 1-129,654 of a square inch, and consequently that an inch square covered with writing of the same size, or counting 227 letters to each such fraction, would contain 29,431,458 letters.

Let us put this figure into a concrete form by seeing how much of a book this number of letters would represent. The Bible is a book of which we may safely assume that every one has an approximate idea as regards its general size or extent. Some one has actually determined the number of letters contained in the entire Old and New Testaments and finds this to be 3,566,480. Hence the number of letters which a square inch of glass would accommodate, written out like the text of the Lord's Prayer on this strip of glass, is more than eight times this last number, or, in other words, a square inch of glass would accommodate the entire text of the Bible eight times over written out as is the Lord's Prayer on this strip of glass.

I am free to confess that, though this fact has been known to me since 1873, and I have had in my possession photographs taken with the microscope of this writing, I cannot say that I fully apprehend or mentally grasp the fact just stated. I can form no mental picture of a square inch of glass with the entire text of eight Bibles engraved upon it, and yet when I have verified the measurements and calculations leading up to this conclusion I feel absolutely certain as to its truth, not as the result of intuition, but as a deduction from experience which has not yet developed into an intuitive consciousness. — Dr. Henry Morton in Cassier's Magazine.

The Romans the First to Use Shorthand

1920

Roman Shorthand

The Romans were the first to use shorthand. They used it throughout the first century, B. C., continuing its practice for at least four centuries. Marcus Tulllus Tiro, the secretary and librarian for Cicero, was the pioneer of Roman shorthand.


Better Than Medicine

Remember that medicine is, for most part, nothing but the substitute of exercise and right thinking. And it does not take a great deal of either right thinking or fresh air to enable you to throw off any ordinary symptom of illness. All that is necessary is for you to hold in your mind the thought that you are both healthy and cheerful.


Watch the Exhaust

A government bulletin is authority for the statement that the greatest single factor in the operation of the steam plant is the way in which the exhaust steam problem is handled.


Bonaparte's Short Career

In 1802, on August 2, Napoleon Bonaparte was declared consul of France for life. Thirteen years to the day, the convention between the representatives of Great Britain, Prussia, Austria and Russia declared Bonaparte, then emperor of the French, to be a prisoner of the allies and entrusted Great Britain with his custody.


Of Course Paul Wasn't Mad

Paul and Billy live in the country. There are two girls in the family also. Their aunts in town are fond of sending them things. One package contained nothing for Paul or Billy. Paul wrote to his grandmother: "What's the matter with my aunts? They sent a package out here and there wasn't a thing for Billy or me in it, and Billy's pretty mad about it."

—Bedford Gazette, Bedford, Pennsylvania, January 2, 1920, page 7.

The Human Nose is An Apologetic Pimple

1902--

The Human Nose

The human nose is an apologetic pimple compared with the magnificent organ of the horse or dog. Our sense of smell is, when contrasted with our sight and hearing, singularly undiscriminating.

We can arrange sounds into series; we know E is between D and F; we appreciate octaves and harmonies. Similarly we can put the colors into order, decide upon the amount of blue in a purple and get almost to emotion at the sight of a white star in the blue of a summer twilight or of the amber sunlight glinting between the blades of glass.

But this serial arrangement, this sorting and selective choice, is entirely beyond our rudimentary senses of smell. To us the idea of the scent of the violet being a rich harmony or the suggestion that the frying of onions is a discord or that patchouli and the new mown bay are pleasant things in different times and keys sounds utter nonsense. Our noses are entirely too dull to effect the analysis necessary before scents can be distinguished as complex and sorted and recombined so as to be made aesthetic pleasure. — London Globe.



Strong Monosyllables

Instructors in the art of literary composition usually condemn a string of monosyllables, but in the well known hymn "Lead, Kindly Light," written by a master of the English language, you may could thirty consecutive words of one syllable only. They offend neither the eye nor the ear.

Milton often uses a series of monosyllables. In the second book of "Paradise Lost" we have

The fiend
O'er bog or steep, through strait, rough, dense or rare,
With head, hands, wings or feet, pursues his way
And swims or sinks or wades or creeps or flies.

Such lines are not uncommon in the book:

Rocks, caves, lakes, fens, bogs, dens and shades of death.

And again:

Of neither sea nor shore nor air nor fire. — Notes and Queries.

--The Marion Daily Star, Marion, Ohio, February 27, 1902, page 7.