TRANSCRIBER'S NOTES
In the plain text version words in Italics are denoted by _underscores_ and bold text like =this=.
The book cover was modified by the Transcriber and has been added tothe public domain.
A number of words in this book have both hyphenated and non-hyphenatedvariants. For the words with both variants present the one more usedhas been kept.
Obvious punctuation and other printing errors have been corrected.
[Pg ii]
“Havelok had all he wanted to eat.”
[Pg iii]
MODERN ESSAYS
AND STORIES
A BOOK TO AWAKEN APPRECIATION OF
MODERN PROSE, AND TO DEVELOP
ABILITY AND ORIGINALITY IN WRITING
EDITED, WITH INTRODUCTION, NOTES, SUGGESTIVE
QUESTIONS, SUBJECTS FOR WRITTEN IMITATION, DIRECTIONS
FOR WRITING, AND ORIGINAL ILLUSTRATIONS
BY
FREDERICK HOUK LAW, Ph.D.
Head of the Department of English in the Stuyvesant High School,
New York City, Editor of Modern Short Stories, etc.
NEW YORK
THE CENTURY CO.
[Pg iv]
COPYRIGHT, 1922, BY THE CENTURY CO.
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED, INCLUDING THE
RIGHT TO REPRODUCE THIS BOOK, OR
PORTIONS THEREOF, IN ANY FORM. 3120
[Pg v]
PREFACE
In all schools pupils are expected to write “essays” but,curiously enough, essay-reading and essay-writing are taughtbut little. In spite of that neglect, the essay is so altogethernatural and spontaneous in spirit, so intensely personal inexpression, and so demanding of excellence of prose style, thatit is the form, par excellence, for consideration in school ifteachers are to show pupils much concerning the art of writingwell. The essay is to prose what the lyric is to poetry—complete,genuine and beautiful self-expression, or better still,self-revelation.
Most of the writing done in schools is straightforward narrationof events, without much, if any, attempt to show personalreactions on those events—mere diary-like accounts, atbest; mechanical descriptions that aim to present exteriorappearance without attempting to reveal inner meanings orto show awakened emotions; and stereotyped explanations andarguments drawn, for the most part, from books of referenceor from slight observation.
Beyond all this mechanical work lies a field of throbbingpersonal life, of joyous reactions on all the myriads ofinterests that lie close at hand, of meditations on the wondersof plant and