Examples for Study. Find the paragraph divisions in the following letter:

DEAR GERTIE: When the little children in Venice want to take a bath, they just go down to the front steps of the house and jump off and swim about in the street. Yesterday I saw a nurse standing on the front steps, holding one end of a string, and the other was tied to a little fellow who was swimming up the street. When he went too far the nurse pulled in the string, and got her baby home again. Then I met another youngster swimming in the street, whose mother had tied him to a post by the side of the door, so that when he tried to swim away to see another boy who was tied to another door-post up the street, he couldn't, and they had to sing out to one another over the water. Is not this a queer

city? You are always in danger of running over some of the people and drowning them, for you go about in a boat instead of a carriage, and use an oar instead of a horse. But it is ever so pretty, and the people, especially the children, are very bright and gay and handsome. When you are sitting in your room at night, you hear some music under your window, and look out, and there is a boat with a man with a fiddle, and a woman with a voice, and they are serenading you. To be sure they want some money when they are done, for everybody begs here, but they do it very prettily and are full of fun. Tell Susie I did not see the queen this time. She was out of town. But ever so many noblemen and princes have sent to know how Toody was, and how she looked, and I have sent them all her love. There must be lots of pleasant things to do at Andover, and I think you must have had a beautiful summer there. Pretty soon you will go back to Boston. Do go into my house when you get there and see if the doll and her baby are well and happy, but do not carry them off; and make the musicbox play a tune, and remember your affectionate uncle, Phillips.

Letters of Phillips Brooks.

Very often a letter may treat briefly a single topic,

and should, therefore, consist of a single paragraph Observe the following examples :—

1. A FORMAL INVITATION.

Mrs. James White requests the pleasure of Mr. Edwin Dudley's company at dinner on Saturday evening, June the twenty-eighth, at seven o'clock.

55 Elm Street, June the tenth.

2. A FORMAL REGRET.

Mr. Edwin Dudley regrets that absence from the city will prevent his acceptance of Mrs. James White's kind invitation to dinner on Saturday, June the twenty-eighth.

70 Lorrimer Street, June the eleventh.

3. AN INFORMAL NOTE OF INVITATION.

My dear Jane:

70 ELLERTON STREET, CHICAGO.

Can you come over to-morrow afternoon and go with us - Tom, Julia and me- to the shop? Tom has just finished binding a copy of Omar in red morocco with an intricate pattern of tooling, and we are anxious to look at it. He has also some books from Branley's which you may enjoy seeing.

This is just a line to say I am well and happy. I am here in my dear forest all day long in the open air. It is very be— no, not beautiful exactly, just now, but very bright and living.

There are one or two song-birds and a cuckoo; all the fruit-trees are in flower, and the beeches make sunshine in a shady place. I begin to go all right; you need not be vexed about my health; I really was ill at first, as bad as I have been for nearly a year; but the forest begins to work, and the air, and the sun, and the smell of the pines. If I could stay a month here, I should be as right as possible. Thanks for your letter.

Your faithful

R. L. S.

5. A BUSINESS LETTER.

27 CORNELL STREET, CHICAGO, ILL., SEPTEMBER 20, 1903.

J. C. ANSON AND COMPANY,

742 MASTER STREET, CHICAGO, ILL. Gentlemen:

I want to have two sets of book-cases made for my library. Each book-case is to be six feet long and five feet high. There must be five shelves, each one foot wide. Let the bottom shelf of each case stand one inch from the floor; have the next fourteen inches higher up; the third twelve; divide the remaining space equally between the fourth and the fifth. The material must be the best Spanish oak in your shop. If I have not made my requirements thoroughly clear, please let me know. In any case, kindly write me, telling me the cost of the book-cases, and when you can have them ready.

Yours truly,

JOHN WILLIAMS.

Observe about these letters the following points:

1. The tone and style throughout depend, first, upon the relations existing between the writer and the person to whom he writes; secondly, upon the circumstances under which he writes; thirdly, upon the matters about which he writes.

2. The letters begin and end courteously and appropriately.

3. Each states to whom it is written, by whom it is written, where it is written, and when it is written.

Characteris

Letter.

It is by no means easy to write a good letter. Few even of the great writers have succeeded in making their correspondence interesting to others than tics of Good those whom it immediately concerned. The letter, except where it is designedly formal, should have some of the qualities of good conversation. On the other hand, in the endeavor to secure these very desirable and elusive qualities, the writer should not allow his work to become slipshod.

Exercise in Writing. the following letters :

I. A formal invitation.

2. A formal acceptance. 3. A friendly note.

4. An order for a book.

Write, in one paragraph each,

The student will be interested in observing how natural and unstilted is the correspondence of the best writers. Read the letters of Stevenson, Lamb, Keats, Grey, and Horace Walpole.

CHAPTER IV

THE WHOLE COMPOSITION AND THE PARAGRAPH:

COHERENCE

We have seen that every piece of good writing deals with one subject only. It is equally clear that every piece of good writing is well arranged, follows Coherence an order which is natural and logical. The as Order. thought goes steadily forward, not round and round, or back and forth, and not by sudden leaps and starts. Certain ideas in any "chain of thought," certain events in any series, occur before others. Accordingly, in explaining a process, in telling a story, or in describing an object, the explanation, or the story, or the description should proceed in a suitable order. The principle which requires this orderly arrangement is called the Principle of Coherence.

It may seem simple to put ideas in their proper order, and yet it requires careful thinking, careful planning. For example, in the sonnet on The Human Logical Seasons, p. 36, Keats shows a clear plan: first Order. he makes a general statement; then he gives a description of each of the seasons named in the general statement. If we remove the general statement, the poem falls apart. Keats treated his ideas in logical order. It is more difficult to find the logical order in dealing with