Voltaire in His Letters Letters of Horace Walpole The Love Letters of Abelard and Héloise Familiar Letters of John Adams and His Wife Letters of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Browning Love Letters of Thomas Carlyle and Jane Welsh Some Old Puritan Love Letters Selected Letters Letters from Many Pens APPENDIX II EXERCISES ON STANDARD READINGS A. Kidnapped, by Robert Louis Stevenson 1. Show clearly by example and illustration in what ways the beginning of this story is well handled. What two things, at least, does it do which every beginning should do? 2. Write an essay showing the ways by which suspense is secured. Be sure to include illustrations of such devices as surprise, foreshadowing, effective chapter endings, description, and withheld information. 3. Discuss the method of narration used. Show by example the advantages and disadvantages of telling this story in the first person. Show also how Stevenson advances the story rapidly from one episode to the next. Show how each episode is a little narrative in itself, working through various complications and crises up to a climax. 4. Discuss Kidnapped as a typical story of adventure through travel. What characteristics has it which are found in most stories of this type? (Fights, pursuits, disasters, disappointments, concealments, meetings with interesting characters, narrow escapes, etc., are incidents common to such stories. Compare the story with a modern "best-seller" of the same type-such as Scaramouche or The Broad Highway). 5. Show that, although Kidnapped is frankly a story of adventure, it is a human record. Point out the large part that human nature plays in the development of the plot, and the interest that the reader feels in the human quality of David's and Alan's adventures. What little touches in the book seem especially human? (e. g. David's experiences on the island are particularly human. They have the same human quality as Robinson Crusoe's experiences in building his boat). 6. Show by illustration how Stevenson takes pains to individualize interestingly even his minor characters. Give examples of people met by David in his journey who are interesting in themselves even though they have no close connection with the plot. Illustrate Stevenson's tendency to make a character stand out by emphasizing minor peculiarities of voice, gait, appearance, etc. 7. Write an essay on the use of minor characters in this story. 8. Discuss in some detail the human as well as the romantic qualities of David and Alan as revealed in their natural inconsistencies, motives, and reactions. In what ways do they make an interesting contrast? 9. Find examples of character revealed by description, incidents, dress, conversation, comment of others, analysis, little touches. What seem to be Stevenson's favorite methods? Compare Stevenson and George Eliot in this respect. 10. Discuss the influence of setting on plot and characters. Which scenes could not well have occurred in a different setting? Which characters show especially the imprint of the time and place in which they exist? Has the setting any charm of its own apart from its connection with story and character? 11. Which scenes seem especially romantic, that is, in tune with the mood of the story? 12. Find examples of setting revealed by description, local customs or superstitions, costumes, dialect, historical allusions, historical characters. 13. Discuss, with examples, Stevenson's power of rapid, vivid narration as shown in Kidnapped. 14. Analyze Stevenson's descriptions. What is his descriptive method? For what purposes does he use description? Find examples of his fondness for specific words-to convey exactly sounds, colors, scents, facial expressions, gestures, feelings, atmosphere, touch. 15. Find examples in Kidnapped of Stevenson's power to portray weariness and all sorts of physical discomfort and suffering. 16. Explain and illustrate from Kidnapped three qualities of effective description. 17. Do you think that Stevenson goes below the surface of life or does his power lie in chiseling out vivid superficial impressions? Is he concerned with moral issues, problems of human conduct, difficulties in human experience, mysteries of existence? Compare him with George Eliot in this respect; with Thackeray; with Dickens; with Thomas Hardy; with George Meredith; with Joseph Conrad. Sum up as well as you can the attitude of each of these authors toward his art and toward the life about him which his art attempts to represent. Which of them do you think has made the most permanent contribution to literature? 18. In what respects is the ending of Kidnapped somewhat unsatisfactory? Does the sequel, David Balfour, supply the defect? B. Treasure Island, by Robert Louis Stevenson The questions for Kidnapped are so selected that, with very few changes, they can be made to apply to Treasure Island. Numbers 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 9, 10, 11, 13, 14, and 16 can be applied to Treasure Island with almost no change. C. Ivanhoe, by Sir Walter Scott 1. Investigate the history of Ivanhoe. The circumstances under which it was written are interesting, and can hardly fail to awaken your admiration for the author. They serve, too, to explain some of the carelessness apparent in the book. 2. Investigate the historical background of the story. Find out about the historical troubles between the Normans and the Saxons. Learn all that you can about the characters of Richard I and Prince John. Investigate the legend of Robin Hood. Wherein has Scott changed history to suit his purposes? What reasons can you give for such changes? What rather unhistorical emphasis is given to the character of Richard? 3. If you have seen the moving picture Robin Hood, write a brief essay showing how it helped you to visualize certain scenes in Ivanhoe. What special scenes, settings, characters, costumes, or properties could you identify in your imagination with similar ones in Ivanhoe? What historical aspects of the story were made more real to you by the picture? 4. Ivanhoe would make an effective moving picture. Write a scenario of such a picture. What should you have to leave out? How should you arrange the scenes to secure continuity, increasing excitement, and dramatic emphasis? What details of costuming and grouping should you try to make effective? What settings. could you make attractive? 5. Investigate Scott's knowledge of history and legend. What were the sources of this knowledge? In what side of history was he especially interested? Find, if you can, the source of the name Ivanhoe; of the stories of Locksley, Prince John, and Richard; of the scene between Richard and the Clerk of Copmanhurst; of the story of Rebecca and Isaac; of the conversation between Gurth and Wamba about Norman and Saxon names. All these facts help to reveal the interests, the mind, and the personality of the author; and they show how many things go into the writing of a story. Write an essay on the author and his work, using the case of Scott and Ivanhoe as an example. Investigate some of Scott's other historical novels in the same way. 6. Write an essay on Sir Walter Scott as an antiquarian, showing how Ivanhoe reveals the author's interest in old costumes, armor, weapons, utensils, furniture, castles, architecture, sports, etc. Show also how Scott gratified his antiquarian interest by introducing unnecessary details about such things. 7. Discuss Ivanhoe as an historical novel, calling attention to such details as use of material, adaptation of style to the period of history treated, use of historical scenes, costumes, accessories, episodes, and characters. Is the interest mainly in the historical background and characters, or in the imaginary characters who make up the main plot? Compare Ivanhoe with The Talisman, Quentin Durward, and Kenilworth in this respect. 8. How many stories are used in the plot of Ivanhoe? How are they combined so that the action of the whole novel is unified? 9. Discuss the method of narration of Ivanhoe. Show how the interest is centered about three more or less detached episodes (the tournament, the storming of Torquilstone, and the trial of Rebecca). Show also how the fortunes of the different groups of characters are carried along separately for a period till they all converge at some one climactic point. 10. Enumerate the various motives of the various people which make the complications of this story. At what points do these motives cross or unite to create action? What element of chance enters the story, sometimes defeating the plans of the characters? Point out places where chance is used at a dramatic moment to arrest or change the action of the story. 11. Make a list of the episodes unfolding the plot, of the most striking scenes in the novel, of the purely preparatory or transitional scenes, and of the scenes which serve mainly to enrich the picture or to give additional reality to the setting. Point out some scenes which, although they add nothing to the plot, are among the best in the book. 12. Show how the story illustrates the manners and customs of a |