The weary eye of the toastmaster looks apologetically down long rows of tables as he says with a sorry-but-it-must-be-done air, “We will now sing ‘The Star Spangled Banner’”; the orchestra starts, the diners reach frantically for their menus and each, according to his musical inheritance and patriotic fervor, plunges into the unknown with a resolute determination to be in on the death of the sad rite.

    Some are wrecked among the dizzy altitudes, others persevere through
    uncharted shoals, all make some kind of a noisy noise, and lo, it is
    accomplished; and intense relief sits enthroned on every dewy brow.

In the crowded church, the minister announces the “Battle Hymn of the Republic,” and the organist, armed with plenary powers, crashes into the giddy old tune, dragging the congregation resistingly along at a hurdy gurdy pace till all semblance of text or meaning is irretrievably lost.

Happy are they when the refrain, “Glory, Glory, Hallelujah,” provides a temporary respite from the shredded syllables and scrambled periods, and one may light, as it were, and catch up with himself and the organist.

At the close of an outdoor public meeting the chairman, with fatuous ineptitude, shouts that everybody will sing three verses of “America.”  Granting that the tune is pitched comfortably, the first verse marches with vigor and certitude, but not for long; dismay soon smites the crowd in sections as the individual consciousness backs and fills amid half learned lines.

The trick of catching hopefully at a neighbor’s phrase usually serves to defeat itself, as it unmasks the ignorance of said neighbor, and the tune ends in a sort of polyglot mouthing which is not at all flattering to the denizens of an enlightened community.

These glimpses are not a whit over-drawn, and it is safe to say that they mirror practically every corner of our land to-day.  Why is it, then, that the people make such a sorry exhibition of themselves when they attempt to sing the patriotic songs of our country?  Is it the tunes or the words or we ourselves?

BEGINNING WITH A STRIKING STATEMENT.  When the thought expressed in the first sentence of an article is sufficiently unusual, or is presented in a sufficiently striking form, it at once commands attention.  By stimulating interest and curiosity, it leads the average person to read on until he is satisfied.

A striking statement of this sort may serve as the first sentence of one of the other types of beginning, such as the narrative or the descriptive introduction, the quotation, the question, or the direct address.  But it may also be used entirely alone.

Since great size is impressive, a statement of the magnitude of something is usually striking.  Numerical figures are often used in the opening sentences to produce the impression of enormous size.  If these figures are so large that the mind cannot grasp them, it is well, by means of comparisons, to translate them into terms of the reader’s own experience.  There is always danger of overwhelming and confusing a person with statistics that in the mass mean little or nothing to him.