A First Manual of Composition

Front Cover
Macmillan, 1902 - 292 pages

From inside the book

Other editions - View all

Common terms and phrases

Popular passages

Page 77 - The thing is true, according to the law of the Medes and Persians, which altereth not.
Page 254 - Electrical fluid agrees with lightning in "these particulars: 1. Giving light. 2. Colour of the light. "3. Crooked direction. 4. Swift motion. 5. Being conducted by metals. 6. Crack or noise in exploding. 7. Sub"sisting in water or ice. 8. Rending bodies it passes "through. 9. Destroying animals. 10. Melting metals, "11. Firing inflammable substances. 12.
Page 156 - Yankee Englishman ; such limbs we make in Yankee-land ! ' As a logic-fencer, advocate, or parliamentary Hercules, one would incline to back him at first sight against all the extant world. The tanned complexion ; that amorphous craglike face, the dull black eyes under...
Page 31 - I pushed back the crowds, and, passing from the rear, walked down a living avenue of people, until I came in front of the semicircle of Arabs, in the front of which stood the white man with the grey beard.
Page 247 - The truth is I am more of a farmer than a soldier. I take little or no interest in military affairs, and, although I entered the army thirtyfive years ago and have been in two wars, in Mexico as a young lieutenant, and later, I never went into the army without regret and never retired without pleasure.
Page 156 - As a Logic-fencer, Advocate, or Parliamentary Hercules, one would incline to back him at first sight against all the extant world. The tanned complexion, that amorphous crag-like face ; the dull black eyes under their precipice of brows, like dull anthracite furnaces, needing only to be blown; the mastiff -mouth, accurately closed: — I have not traced as much of silent Berserkir-rage, that I remember of, in any other man.
Page 233 - It is a condition in which the food, warmth and clothing which are necessary for the mere maintenance of the functions of the body in their normal state cannot be obtained; in which men, women and children are forced to crowd into dens wherein decency is abolished and the most ordinary conditions of healthful existence are impossible of attainment; in which the pleasures within reach are reduced to...
Page 218 - I could swear like an old salt ; could drink a stiff glass of grog as if I had doubled Cape Horn, and could smoke like a locomotive. I was great at cards and fond of gaming in every shape.
Page 267 - Words ending in y preceded by a consonant generally change y to i before a suffix. 3. Monosyllables and words accented on the last syllable ending in a single consonant preceded by a single vowel double the final consonant before a suffix beginning with a vowel.
Page 79 - That a lie which is half a truth is ever the blackest of lies, That a lie which is all a lie may be met and fought with outright, But a lie which is part a truth is a harder matter to fight.

Bibliographic information