The Mother Tongue (Volume 3) (Paperback)

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: SECTION 6. THE SUBJECT OF A COMPOSITION. If we think of composition, in its simplest form, as the expression of our own thoughts and feelings, we shall readily discern the fact that we speak, or write, because we have something to say, and wish or are impelled to say it. Perhaps you have not yet realized that the same motive underlies every book that is written, every address that is made, every sermon that is preached, ? somebody (the author) has something to say, and says it. We may be interested, or instructed, or amused, both by the thing that is said and by the manner in which it is said. Here we have at once the two main elements or factors of composition: first, the subject; second, the treatment of the subject. We shall have much to say of the second of these elements, but the first is, after all, the more important. To have something worth communicating is the essential point; it is not until this essential is secured that the fashion of our speech or writing becomes of particular consequence. Just here the student ordinarily finds some difficulty. He knows that he himself is intensely interested in Stanley's accounts of his adventures in Africa, or in Peary's description of his life at the frozen North; but it does not occur to him that his own experiences are worth transcribing with pen and ink. Yet they are. Every life has its own history. Everybody has thoughts, feelings, and experiences of his own, which, however trivial they may seem, have a genuine human interest.Franklin tells us about the everyday occurrences in his life, and we find them pf absorbing interest. Mr. Riis saw John Binns's noble deed and admired it; and he makes us, too, see and admire it. Scott steeped his mind in the history and traditions of Scotland, and has left us a record of what h...