choly, sombre] though never [melancholy, sombre]; and doubtless the depressed and [melancholy, sombre] feeling the Pampa inspires in those who are unfamiliar with it is due in a great measure to the paucity of life, and to the profound silence. The wind, as may well be imagined on that extensive level area, is seldom at rest; there, as in the forest, it is a "bard of many breathings," and the strings it breathes upon give out an endless variety of sorrowful sounds, from the sharp fitful sibilations of the dry, wiry grasses on the barren places, to the long mysterious moans that swell and die in the tall polished rushes of the marsh.

CHAPTER VI.

THE FORMS OF PROSE DISCOURSE.

Kinds of Writing.

48. In Burroughs's Squirrels and Other Fur Bearers there is an interesting little story about a squirrel and a weasel. It holds our attention because events are happening in it in rapid succession. We can easily imagine, too, that events happened just before and just after the part that is told.

[Narrative] A hunter of my acquaintance was one day sitting in the woods, when he saw a red squirrel run with great speed up a tree near him, and out upon a branch, from which he leaped to some rocks, disappearing beneath them. In a moment a weasel came in full course upon his trail, ran up the tree, then out along the branch, leaping from these to the rocks, just as the squirrel had done, and pursuing him into their recesses.

In the next selection, which is about the same subject-matter, it is the looks of the squirrel and of the weasel that engage our attention.

[Description] Half opening my eyes at the sound, I see a little red squirrel running with great speed up a tree near me. In a second he is out at the end of the swaying limb. Then I catch a glimpse of him in mid-air, his paws extended, his brush trailing behind him like the luminous tail of a comet. In another second he falls lightly upon a pile of

stones and is gone in a flash. I close my eyes again, but immediately open them. Another animal is going up the tree, not scampering like the squirrel, but gliding, snakelike, with swift undulating motion. By his wedge-shaped head, his round, thin ears, his prominent, glistening, beadlike eyes, and especially by the serpentine motions of his head and neck, I know him for a weasel. Another moment and he too has made the leap and disappeared from view.

In the next our attention is directed, not to a story of a particular squirrel and a particular weasel, nor to a description of either or both of these animals, but to the idea of the enmity which every weasel shows for every red squirrel. This idea is explained or expounded by telling us what any weasel will do to show his hatred for the squirrel kind.

[Exposition] The weasel is a relentless enemy of the red squirrel. Pursuing his game by scent, he will follow the squirrel with great rapidity, tracking him up the trunks of trees, gliding after him out to the ends of branches, fearlessly leaping into the air when he surmises that the squirrel has leaped before him, and pursuing him into the recesses of the rocks.

In the next we have, in the first sentence, a proposition to be proved. The proofs follow in the succeeding

sentences.

[Argument] We know that the weasel is able to track its game by scent. This is proved by the following incident, related to Mr. Burroughs by a hunter of his acquaintance. The hunter was one day sitting in the woods, when he saw a red squirrel run with great speed up a tree near him, and out upon a long branch, from which he leaped to some rocks, disappearing beneath them. In a moment a weasel came in

full course upon his trail, ran up the tree, then out along the branch, leaping from it to the rocks just as the squirrel had done, and pursuing him into their recesses. Since the weasel did not go directly to the rocks, as he would have done if he had been following the squirrel by sight, and since he went out upon the same branch as the squirrel, it seems obvious that he must have been tracking the squirrel by scent.

The four kinds of writing thus illustrated are:

1. Narration, in which the writer aims to make people realize events and processes of growth.

2. Description, in which the writer aims to make people see images of objects.

3. Exposition, in which the writer aims to make people understand ideas.

4. Argument, in which the writer aims to make people believe truths.

49. Assignments in the Kinds of Writing.

A. Which of the four kinds is the following? Make three other versions of the same material to illustrate the other kinds.

The weasel is a subtle and arch enemy of the birds. It climbs trees, and explores them with great ease and nimbleness. I have seen it do so on several occasions. One day my attention was arrested by the angry notes of a pair of brown thrashers that were flitting from bush to bush along an old stone row in a remote field. Presently I saw what it was that excited them —three large red weasels or ermines coming along the stone wall, and leisurely and half playfully exploring every tree that stood near it. They had probably robbed the thrashers. They would go up the trees with great ease, and glide serpentlike out upon the branches. When they descended the tree they were unable to come straight down, like a squirrel, but went around it spirally. How boldly they thrust their heads out of the wall, and eyed

me and sniffed me, as I drew near, - their round, thin ears, their prominent, glistening, beadlike eyes, and the curving, snakelike motions of the head and neck being very noticeable. They looked like blood-suckers and egg-suckers. They suggested something extremely remorseless and cruel. -BURROUGHS: The Tragedies of the Nests.

B. Bring to class a subject that you think can be treated only in the descriptive way, and see if any other member of the class can tell how it might be treated in the expository way.

C. Tell an anecdote, and then suggest how it might be turned into description, or used as argument.

Combination of the Kinds of Writing.

50. Two or more of these kinds of writing are often used in one piece of literature. The writer of a narrative frequently finds it necessary to describe things while telling his story; but his chief aim is the story. The writer of a narrative or of a description may have a purpose to effect some reform by his narrative or his description, as Dickens had in Nicholas Nickleby, but that does not alter the character of the piece as a whole. The story with a purpose remains a story.

So, too, a writer explaining or expounding an idea, or arguing a proposition, may tell an anecdote in order to make his meaning clearer. By itself the anecdote is of course narration, but its presence in the exposition or the argument does not change the nature of the composition.

Description sometimes disguises itself as narration. Robinson Crusoe's description of his home after the shipwreck reads like narrative, because he adopts the