First lessons in composition : in which the principles of the art are developed in connection with the principles of grammar; embracing full directions on the subject of punctuation, with copious exercises
Hard places in grammar made easy, with a large number of carefully selected sentences and passages for practice : for the use of teachers and students of the high schools and of the public school leaving and continuation classes
Contemporary specimens of compositions, accompanied by explanatory or supplementary letters by the authors themselves, describing their methods, habits of writing, revisions, etc. cf. Pref
A dictionary of correct English : a manual of information and advice concerning grammar, idiom, use of words, points of styles, punctuation, pronunciation, and other practical matters
A new self-teaching course in practical English and effective speech : comprising vocabulary development, grammar, pronunciation, enunciation, and the fundamental principles of effective oral expression
Lesson one. First among the evidences of an education I name correctness and precision in the use of the mother tongue / Nicholas Murray Butler-- Lesson two. The flowering moments of the mind drop half their petals in our speech / Oliver Wendell Holmes-- Lesson three. Those things which now seem frivolous and slight will be of serious consequence to you, when they have made you once ridiculous / Earl of Roscommon-- Lesson four. His words, like so many nimble servitors, trip about him at command / Milton-- Lesson five. Talking is one of the fine arts... and its fluent harmonies may be spolied by the intrusion of a single harsh note / Oliver Wendell Holmes-- Lesson six. Language most shows a man; speak, that I may see thee / Ben Jonson-- Lesson seven. Drawing is speaking to the eye; talking is painting to the ear / Joubert-- Lesson eight. And it is so plain to me that eloquence, like swimming, is an art which all men might learn, though so few do / Emerson-- Lesson nine. Mend your speech a litter, lest it may mar your fortunes / Shakespeare-- Lesson ten. Language is the dress of thought; every time you talk your mind is on parade / Anonymous-- Lesson eleven. Blessed is the man who, having nothing to say, abstains from giving us wordy evidence of the fact / George Eilot-- Lesson twelve. What is not in a man cannot come out of him surely / Goethe-- Lesson thirteen. Language is the armory of the human mind, and at once contains the trophies of its past, and the weapons of its future, conquests / Coleridge-- Lesson fourteen. The greatest of faults, I should say, is to be conscious of none / Carlyle-- Lesson fifteen. He ceas's, but left so pleasing on the ear, his voice, that listening still they seemed to hear / Homer
