The actual time-order of events need not be followed.  It will often make our account clearer to discuss the literary works of a man at one time, his education at another, and his practical achievements at a third.  Certain portions of his life may need to be emphasized while others are neglected.  What we include in a biography and what we emphasize will be determined by the purpose for which it is written.  For pure information, a short account is desirable, but a long account is of greater interest.  If a man is really great, the most insignificant events in his life will be read with interest, but a good biographer will select such events with good taste and then will present them so that they will have a bearing upon the more important phases of the man’s life and character.  Hundreds of the stories told about Lincoln would be trivial but for the fact that they help us better to understand the real character of the man.

EXERCISE

1.  Select some topic briefly mentioned in the history text you study.  Look up a more extended account of it and come to the class prepared to recite the topic orally.  Make your report clear, concise, and interesting.  Decide beforehand just what facts you will relate and in what order. (See Sections 39, 52, 53.)

+Theme LXXXI.+—­Come to class prepared to write upon some topic assigned by the teacher, or upon one of the following:—­

1.  Pontiac’s conspiracy. 2.  The battle of Marathon. 3.  The Boston tea party. 4.  The battle of Bannockburn. 5.  Sherman’s march to the sea. 6.  Passage of the Alps by Napoleon.

(Is your narrative told in an interesting way?  Are any facts necessary to the clear understanding of it omitted?)

EXERCISES

1.  Name an English orator, an English statesman, and an English writer about each of whom an interesting biography might be written.

2.  With the same purpose in view name two American orators, two American writers, and two American statesmen.

+Theme LXXXII.+—­Write a short biography of some prominent person.  Include only well-known and important facts, but do not give his name.  Read the biography before the class and have them tell whose biography it is.

+151.  Description in Narration.+—­The descriptive elements, of narration should always have for their purpose something more than the mere creating of images.  If a house is described, the description should enable us to bring to mind more vividly the events that take place within or around it.  If the description aids us in understanding how or why the events occur, it is helpful; but if it fails to do this, it has no place in the narrative.  Description when thus used serves as a background for the actions told in the story, and has for its purpose the explanation of how or why they occur.