—­Hare:  Venice.

+Theme LIX.+—­Write a description of the exterior of some building.

+Theme LX.+—­Write a description of some room.

+Theme LXI.+—­Write a description of some portion of a building, such as an entrance, spire, window, or stairway.

(Consider each description with reference to—­
  a. Point of view.
  b. Fundamental image.
  c. Selection of essential details.
  d. Selection and subordination of minor details.
  e. Arrangement of details with reference to their natural positions in
          space.
  f. Effective choice of words and comparisons.)

2. Natural features:  valleys, rivers, mountains, etc.

Beyond the great prairies and in the shadow of the Rockies lie the Foothills.  For nine hundred miles the prairies spread themselves out in vast level reaches, and then begin to climb over softly rounded mounds that ever grow higher and sharper, till here and there, they break into jagged points and at last rest upon the great bases of the mighty mountains.  These rounded hills that join the prairies to the mountains form the Foothill Country.  They extend for about a hundred miles only, but no other hundred miles of the great West are so full of interest and romance.  The natural features of the country combine the beauties of prairie and of mountain scenery.  There are valleys so wide that the farther side melts into the horizon, and uplands so vast as to suggest the unbroken prairie.  Nearer the mountains the valleys dip deep and ever deeper till they narrow into canyons through which mountain torrents pour their blue-gray waters from glaciers that lie glistening between the white peaks far away.

—­Connor:  The Sky Pilot.

Long lines of cliff breaking have left a chasm;
And in the chasm are foam and yellow sands;
Beyond, red roofs about a narrow wharf
In cluster; then a molder’d church; and higher
A long street climbs to one tall tower’d mill;
And high in heaven behind it a gray down
With Danish barrows, and a hazelwood,
By autumn nutters haunted, flourishes
Green in a cuplike hollow of the down.

—­Tennyson:  Enoch Arden.

+Theme LXII.+—­Write a description of some valley, mountain, field, woods, or prairie.

+Theme LXIII.+—­Write a description of some stream, pond, lake, dam, or waterfall.

(Consider especially your choice of words.)

3. Sounds or the use of sounds.

And the noise of Niagara?  Alarming things have been said about it, but they are not true.  It is a great and mighty noise, but it is not, as Hennepin thought, an “outrageous noise.”  It is not a roar.  It does not drown the voice or stun the ear.  Even at the actual foot of the falls it is not oppressive.  It is much less rough than the sound of heavy surf—­ steadier, more