PROSE COMPOSITION EDITED, WITH INTRODUCTION AND NOTES BY CHARLES READ NUTTER, A.B. INSTRUCTOR IN ENGLISH AT HARVARD COLLEGE, FORMERLY FRANK WILSON CHENEY HERSEY, A.M INSTRUCTOR IN ENGLISH AT HARVARD COLLEGE AND CHESTER NOYES GREENOUGH, PH.D. PROFESSOR OF ENGLISH IN THE UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS PROSE COMPOSITION EDITED, WITH INTRODUCTION AND NOTES BY CHARLES READ NUTTER, A.B. INSTRUCTOR IN ENGLISH AT HARVARD College, FORMERLY FRANK WILSON CHENEY HERSEY, A.M. INSTRUCTOR IN ENGLISH AT HARVARD COLLEGE AND CHESTER NOYES GREENOUGH, PH.D. PROFESSOR OF ENGLISH IN THE UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS GINN & COMPANY BOSTON • NEW YORK CHICAGO LONDON 595409 COPYRIGHT, 1906, 1907 BY GINN & COMPANY ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 78.1 The Athenæum Press GINN & COMPANY. PRO- PREFACE The editors of this book have compiled these specimens of prose composition because they have not found an entirely satisfactory volume of a similar nature. They have tested this book by actual use in their own class-room practice. The book has several special features. In one volume it illustrates all the kinds of writing. It includes good compositions by students themselves. Its classification is more explicit and suggestive than can be found elsewhere. Its introduction points out, with special reference to these particular selections, that the principles of composition, usually studied as if they applied inflexibly to all kinds of writing, really undergo important modifications according as the writer's purpose is to analyze or to depict. In choosing these selections careful attention has been paid to length and to quality. Most of the specimens are so short that the student is able to get a total impression of structure and of style, and to make a careful analysis of entire selections, in a single recitation. Many others, of greater length and of greater complexity, permit the study of problems of material and of structure, notably in the case of Argument and of Narration, which the shorter selections do not afford. As regards quality, these models have been drawn from the writings of the best authors, |