search of C. D. L.? One letter is directed to "Kunstauzer Brauerei, S. I., Amerika." Mr. Stone recollects the fact that Constance's Brewery is at Stapleton, Staten Island, and the letter is sent there. He reads "Iolel" into Iowa, and "te Pella, in Yomah," he makes to go to Pella, in the same State. Nor does Here is one letter that wants to go Strasse 15,"-that is to the State of But that is not all. This other one Ohio get off with one miss. to " Stadt Hioh Zunsounati, Ohio, Cincinnati, Street 15. wants to reach the same city; but it has a bad spell of another kind, for its direction runs 66 Scitznaty." And then " Pizzo Burg Messessip," is sent to Vicksburg. Michigan is spelled "mutting." "Glass works Berkshire" is sent to Pittsfield, in Berkshire County, Massachusetts, where there is a glass factory. But the hardest one I saw was addressed to "John Hermann Schirmen," in one line, with the wonderful word " Staguekaundo" for the rest. Mr. Stone cut the word in twain, and read it "Chautauqua County," while he translated the whole into "John Hermann, Sherman P. O., Chautauqua County, N. Y."-The Century. Care should be taken that abbreviations used in titles, etc., are correct and free from ambiguity. A letter addressed as follows was received by a gentleman attending a deaf and dumb association: Henry H. Johnson, M.D., Deaf and Dumb Ass, (6) Finally, don't forget to seal your letter, and to stamp it. Commonplace as this direction seems, it is violated every day in almost every city and county of the land, and not unfrequently by those whose position and experience should render it ludicrously impossible. TOPICAL ANALYSIS. GENERAL RULES. a. Answer promptly, p. 196. b. Write frankly but discreetly, p. 196. c. Write naturally and directly, p. 197. d. Be sure your penmanship is distinct, p.198. e. Be careful where you put your signature, p. 200. g. Direct carefully, p. 203. (1) Stamp, p. 203. (2) Name and titles, p. 203. (3) Official position, p. 204. (4) Slant, p. 204. (5) Write distinctly, p. 205. DEAR SIR: EXAMPLES OF LETTERS. On the eve of my departure to visit all parts of the island, and afterward the principal cities of the continent, I feel an ardent desire to be honored by being the bearer of a few lines from your own hand to whomever you may please to introduce me. I beg this of you with the hope that my efforts to advance ornithological studies, by the publication of my collections and manuscripts, may be thought worthy of your kind attentions, and an excuse for thus intruding on your precious moments. Should you feel the least scruple, please frankly decline it, and believe me, dear sir, that I value so highly my first reception, when presented to you by my good friend Captain Basil Hall, and your subsequent civilities, that I never shall cease to be, with the highest respect and admiration, Your most obedient, humble servant, DEAR MR. AUDUBON. JOHN J. AUDUBON. I am sure you will find many persons better qualified than myself to give you a passport to foreign countries, since circumstances have prevented our oftener meeting, and my ignorance does not permit me to say anything on the branches of natural history of which you are so well possessed. But I can easily and truly say, that what I have had the pleasure of seeing, touching your talents and manners, corresponds with all I have heard in your favor; and that I am a sincere believer in the extent of your scientific attainments, though I have not the knowledge necessary to form an accurate judgment on the subject. I sincerely wish your travels may prove agreeable, and remain Very much your obedient servant, WALTER SCOTT. CHAPTER XII. NARRATION. A tale should be judicious, clear, succinct; And, new or old, still hasten to a close. There centering in a focus, round and neat, Let all your rays of information meet.-Cowper. The Subject Defined. As used in this chapter, the word Narration will be limited to the relation of incidents for the sake of the incidents themselves. It thus differs from what we have called Story-Telling (see Chapter VI., page 81), where the end in view is a forcible climax, and the incidents are selected and arranged solely with reference to that climax. In like manner it differs from what in the division of an oration is commonly called the Narration, where facts are stated only as an element of the persuasion to some conviction the speaker desires to enforce. In Narration as here treated there is no ulterior object. The writer has no climax to reach, no conviction to enforce, no moral to teach. His aim is to tell the story as it is, impartially, accurately, and forcibly. Of all Composition the Easiest. He that tells a story well is sure of listeners. When a man proposes to state his views of a given subject, some effort of attention is required; indeed, one need entertain considerable respect for the man, to feel that his views are enough better than one's own to make it worth while to listen. So in description: one either has been there, or may go there, or can read of it or hear of it at any time and in a dozen ways, and therefore feels no immediate necessity of listening. But the combination of circumstances that forms a personal experience is unique. This man can tell us what no other man can tell in the same way. It is now,-or never. Besides, there is constant variety. An essay is logical. There is method in it. One sentence, one paragraph, suggests another. One knows in a general way what will come next. So in description. The whole is named, and the description of the parts, however vivid, must follow a certain general order. But in narration, the incidents are individual, united by their having happened in succession to somebody, but otherwise distinct. If a man begins to tell me about Mount Monadnock, the very name calls up its loneliness, its rocky sides, the bare region it is lifted up from, the toilsome ascent, the glorious sunset. The description may be vivid, but in a general way I have anticipated it. No such prevision occurs when a man full of excitement comes up to me and exclaims: "O you should have been with me just now! I was crossing the bridge, when a little girl—.” Well, what? My imagination does not help me. I must listen, or I shall not know whether she was drowned, or rescued, or run over, or abducted, or what happened. Narration may be divided into three kinds, according to the source of the interest it excites. Narration of Incident depends for its interest upon the rapid and unexpected succession of events that it narrates. The reader's curiosity is kept on the alert. He is greedy for the marvellous, and enjoys it the more keenly as it approaches without quite reaching the improbable and the unnatural. In fiction, this is the peculiar field of the Romance, and is the basis of Fairy Tales, and of the Melodrama. In history, it chronicles in Annals only the unusual occurrences, and weaves into Legends and Myths events that the imaginative have been busy with for generations. In biography, it appears in Travels and Voyages, the Adventures of noted people, and in such autobiography as is based on a Diary of mere incidents. Events that surprise by being unexpected, and yet are natural, enliven greatly an epic poem; but in such a poem, if it pretend to copy human manners and actions, no improbable incident ought to be admitted: that is, no incident contrary to the order and course of nature. A chain of imagined incidents, linked together according to the order of nature, finds easy admittance into the mind; and a lively narrative of such incidents occasions complete images, or, in other words, ideal presence: but our judgment revolts against an improbable incident; and, if we once begin to doubt of its reality, farewell relish and concern- -an unhappy effect; for it will require more than an ordinary effort to restore the waking dream, and to make the reader conceive even the more probable incidents as passing in his presence.--KAMES. The Unnatural and the Improbable.-There is a distinction to be made between the unnatural and the merely improbable. A fiction is unnatural when there is some assignable reason against the events taking place as described, when men are represented as acting contrary to the character assigned them, or to human nature in general; as when a young lady of seventeen, brought up in ease, luxury, and retirement, with no companions but the narrow-minded and illiterate, displays (as a heroine usually does), under the most trying circumstances, such wisdom, fortitude, and knowledge of the world, as the best instructors and the best examples can rarely produce without the aid of more mature age and longer experience. On the other hand a fiction is still improbable, though not unnatural, when there is no reason to be assigned why things should not take place as represented, except that the overbalance of chances is against it. The hero meets, in his utmost distress, most opportunely with the very person to whom he had formerly done a signal service, and who happens to communicate to him a piece of intelligence which sets all to rights. Why should he not meet him as well as any one else? All that can be said is that there is no reason why he should. The infant who is saved from a wreck, and who afterward becomes such a constellation of virtues and accomplishments, turns out to be no other than the nephew of the very gentleman on whose estate the waves had cast him, and whose lovely daughter he had so long sighed for in vain. There is no reason to be given, except from the calculation of chances, why he should not have been thrown on one part of the coast as well as another. Nay, it would be nothing unnatural, though the most determined novel-reader would be shocked at its improbability, if all the hero's enemies, while they were conspiring his ruin, were to be struck dead together by a lucky flash of lightning; yet many dénouements which are de |