on; that has never, as far as
you know, been described in print; and that is sufficiently
unique to present a good contrast to the usual course of events.

2. _Collecting Material._ Get as many concrete details as possible.
Generalities never glitter. They are useful only to cure
insomnia.

3. _Arranging Material._ Look out for the "Four W's." Make a
framework that is definite. It should be determined, in the last
analysis, not by the model but by the material.

4. _Oral Composition._ Rehearse your article to your mother or to
any other person whom you can induce to listen.

5. _Written Composition._ "Festina lente." "Hasten slowly." When a
French student takes his college entrance examinations, he is
plucked if he misspells one word, misplaces one capital letter,
or makes a single mistake in punctuation. Lord Bacon somewhere
says: "Let us proceed slowly that we may sooner make an end."
Sheridan wrote:

"You write with ease to show your breeding,
But easy writing's curst hard reading."

Care in No. 5 will eliminate No. 6.

6. _Revision and rewriting._

VI. Suggested Reading

Coleridge's _The Rime of the Ancient Mariner_.

VII. Memorize

MUSIC

Let me go where'er I will,
I hear a sky-born music still:
It sounds from all things old,
It sounds from all things young,
From all that's fair, from all that's foul,
Peals out a cheerful song.

It is not only in the rose,
It is not only in the bird,
Not only where the rainbow glows,
Nor in the song of woman heard,
But in the darkest, meanest things
There alway, alway something sings.

'Tis not in the high stars alone,
Nor in the cup of budding flowers,
Nor in the redbreast's mellow tone,
Nor in the bow that smiles in showers,
But in the mud and scum of things
There alway, alway something sings.
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES.

TO TEACHERS. At this point a review of Chapter XII, "Vade Mecum, or
Catechism," of _Practical English Composition_, Book I, will be found an
invaluable exercise.

CHAPTER VIII

THRILLERS

"'Tis strange, but true; for truth is always strange,
Stranger than fiction."
BYRON.

I. Assignments

1. Relate the most exciting adventure that has occurred to you. Use
the third person. Reporters usually are not allowed to use the
pronoun "I."

2. Relate the