The Description of Mode of Life

MO¬TIVE IV

The Description of Mode of Life.—. Unity of effect is gained in the following quotations by making a single quality fundamental to the description:

A.	MODE OF LIFE OF AN INDIVIDUAL. MODEL

No life, my honest scholar! no life so happy and so pleasant, as the life of a well-governed angler; for when the lawyer is swallowed up with business,— and the statesman is preventing, or contriving, plots,— then, we sit on cowslip-banks, hear the birds sing, and possess ourselves in as much quietness as these silent silver streams, which we now see glide so quietly by us. Indeed, my good scholar, we may say of angling—as Dr. Boteler said of strawberries, "Doubtless God could have made a better berry, but doubtless God never did"; and so, if I might be judge,—"God never did make a more calm, quiet, innocent recreation, than angling."

-IZAAK WALTON AND CHARLES COTTON,

The Comfilete Angler.

ANALYSIS OF THE MODEL

I. The paraeraph structure is the same as in Description- motive I. Prove this statement. R. The materials used to develoft the fundamental quality are: The customary actions of an individual. What is the funda mental quality ? What are the actions mentioned in this model? 3. The devices used in Me handling of the material: Find a direct quotation.

B.	MODE OF LIFE OF A COMMUNITY. MODEL

They [the peasants of the Valais] do not understand so much as the name of beauty, or of knowledge. They understand dimly that of virtue. Love, patience, hospi¬tality, faith,—these things they know. To glean their meadows side by side, so happier ; to bear the burden up the breathless mountain flank, nnmurmnringly ; to bid the stranger drink from their vessel of milk ; to see at the foot of their low deathbeds a pale figure upon a cross, dying also, patiently ;—in this they are different from the cattle and from the stones, but in all this unrewarded so far as concerns the present life. For them, there is neither hope nor passion of spirit ; for them neither advance nor exultation. Black bread, rude roof, dark night, laborious day, weary arm at sun¬set ; and life ebbs away. No books, no thoughts, no attainments, no rest ; except only sometimes a little sit¬ting in the sun under the church wall, as the bell tolls thin and far in the mountain air ; a pattering of a few prayers, not understood, by the altar rails of the dimly gilded chapel, and so bath to the somber home, with the cloud upon them still unbroken—that cloud of rocky gloom, born out of the wild torrents and ruinous stones, and unlightened, even in their religion, except by the vague promise of some better thing unknown.

-JOHN RUSKIN, Modern Painters, Vol. IV.

ANALYSIS OF THE MODEL

I. The paragrafth structure is the same as that of Descrip¬tion-motive I. 2.	The materials used are : The habits, occupations, or tastes of a community. What is the fundamental quality? What details mentioned enforce this? What are the habits and occupations of this community?

3.	The devices used in the handling of material are Enumeration and Metaphor.

The trouble with the boy's life is that he has no time that he can call his own. He is, like a barrel of beer, always on draft. The men-folks, having worked in the regular hours, lie down and rest, stretch themselves idly in the shade at noon, or lounge about after supper. Then the boy, who has done nothing all day but turn grindstone, and spread hay, and rake after, and run his little legs off at everybody's beck and call, is sent on some errand or some household chore, in order that time shall not hang heavy on his hands. The boy comes nearer to perpetual motion than anything else in nature, only it is not altogether a voluntary motion.

— CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER, Being a Boy.