=Exercise 210=
Paragraph the following so that the paragraphs will represent the
divisions in thought. If there are any topic sentences, underline them.
1
I have often noticed that every one has his own
individual small economies, careful habits of saving
fractions of pennies in some one peculiar direction,
any disturbance of which annoys him more than spending
shillings or pounds on some real extravagance. An old
gentleman of my acquaintance, who took the
intelligence of the failure of a Joint Stock Bank, in
which some of his money was invested, with a stoical
mildness, worried his family all through a long
summer's day because one of them had torn (instead of
cutting) out the written leaves of his now useless
bankbook. Of course, the corresponding pages at the
other end came out as well, and this little
unnecessary waste of paper (his private economy)
chafed him more than all the loss of his money.
Envelopes fretted his soul terribly when they came in.
The only way in which he could reconcile himself to
such a waste of his cherished article was by patiently
turning inside out all that were sent to him, and so
making them serve again. Even now, though tamed by
age, I see him casting wistful glances at his
daughters when they send a whole inside of a
half-sheet of note paper, with the three lines of
acceptance to an invitation written on only one of the
sides. I am not above owning that I have this human
weakness myself. String is my foible. My pockets get
full of little hanks of it, picked up and twisted
together, ready for uses that never come. I am
seriously annoyed if any one cuts a string of a parcel
instead of patiently and faithfully undoing it fold by
fold. How people can bring themselves to use
India-rubber bands, which are a sort of deification of
string, as lightly as they do I cannot imagine. To me
an India-rubber band is a precious treasure. I have
one which is not new--one that I picked up off the
floor nearly five years ago. I have really tried to
use it, but my heart failed me, and I could not commit
the extravagance. Small pieces of butter grieve
others. They cannot attend to conversation because of
the annoyance occasioned by the habit which some
people have of invariably taking more butter than they
want. Have you ever seen the anxious look (almost
mesmeric) which such persons fix on the article? They
would feel it a relief if they might bury it out of
their sight by popping it into their own mouths and
swallowing it down; and they are really made happy if
the person on whose plate it lies unused suddenly
breaks off a piece of toast (which he does not want at
all) and eats up his butter. They think that this is
not waste. Now, Miss Matty Jenkins was chary of
candles: We had many devices to use as few as
possible. In the winter afternoons she would sit
knitting for two or three hours--she could do this in
the dark or by firelight--and when I asked if I might
not ring for candles to finish stitching my
wristbands, she told me to "keep blind man's holiday."
They were usually brought in with tea, but we burnt
only one at a time. As we lived in constant
preparation for a friend who might come in any evening
(but who never did), it required some contrivance to
keep our two candles of the same length, ready to be
lighted, and to look as if we burnt two always. The
candles took it in turns; and then, whatever we might
be talking of or doing, Miss Matty kept her eyes
habitually fixed upon the candle, ready to jump up and
extinguish it and light the other before they had
become too uneven in length to be restored to equality
in the course of the evening.
--Adapted from Mrs. Gaskell's _Cranford_.
2
Dear Madam:
We are sorry to say that we have no more house coats
No. SP62 in size 38 at $4.50. As we advertised, SP62
is not a regular stock number, but represents a
collection of $5, $6, and $7.50 coats remaining after
the holiday sales and reduced to insure their being
sold before spring. At the opening of the sale there
were only a few coats in size 38, and they were sold
almost at once. In our catalogue, pages 68 to 71
inclusive, you will find descriptions of all our stock
house coats. On page 68 you will see No. 450HC, our
regular $4.50 coat. If you would like us to send you
one of these in size 38, we shall forward it to you at
once. However, if you would like a $5, $6, or $7.50
coat, you will, no doubt, send us the difference in
price on receipt of this letter. Of course, the more
expensive garments are made of better materials, but
all our coats show the same excellent workmanship. The
best way for you to get the exact shade of trimming
that you wish is to send us a sample of the goods that
you would like to match. We assure you that we shall
take all possible care to send you the proper color.
Yours truly,
=Exercise 211=
Paragraphs may be developed in different ways. For example, if you were
going to write on the process of making a layer cake, you would explain
in detail the different ingredients in the mixture, the proportion of
each, and the steps in the process before the product could be sold as a
layer cake.
By the use of explanatory details develop the following: