awful tempests. The comedy descends through various
forms to the travesty and farce whose purpose is solely to excite
laughter by ludicrous scenes and absurd incidents. The melodrama abounds
in thrilling situations and extravagant efforts to excite emotions, but
its final outcome is a happy one, and the villain is punished and virtue
is comfortably rewarded.

Dramas may be written in prose or in poetic form. The tendency is toward
prose in comedy and poetry in tragedy, though in the same play both
prose and poetry are sometimes used. The most common form for the poetic
composition is the unrhymed iambic pentameter or blank verse (heroic
measure). Rhymes are in use but usually their purpose is definite and
specific and they may occur occasionally in plays which are otherwise in
blank verse. Lyrics are often introduced, and in them both rhyme and
meter are varied at the pleasure of the author.

_Journeys Through Bookland_ contains numerous illustrations of the facts
of this chapter and plentiful examples of every form of literature
except the sonnet, of which a type has just been given. The outline
which follows will summarize this chapter and show a few of the examples
that may be formed.

[Illustration: ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON
PAUL DU CHAILLU
RUDYARD KIPLING
THOMAS HUGHES
HANS CHRISTIAN ANDERSEN
JAKOB GRIMM
WILHELM GRIMM]

LITERATURE

I. PROSE.
1. Forms of Prose Composition.
A. Narration.
_The Pine Tree Shillings_: IV, 192.
_A Christmas Carol_: VI, 244.

B. Description.
_Brute Neighbors_: VII, 260.
_The Alhambra_: VIII, 153.
_Children's Books of the Past_: V, 101.

C. Exposition.
_Imitation of Christ_: VI, 134.
_The Cubes of Truth_: VII, 406.
_Reading History_: V, 394.

D. Argument.
_Poor Richard's Almanac_: VI, 407.

2. Kinds of Prose.
A. Fiction.
_Aladdin_: III, 288.
_Tom Brown at Rugby_: V, 469.
_The Adventure of the Windmills_: VII, 438.

B. Essays.
_Childhood_: VI, 124.
_Dream Children_: VIII, 335.
_The Vision of Mirza_: IX, 285.

C. Orations.
_The Gettysburg Address_: IX, 321.
_Abraham Lincoln_: IX, 324.

II. POETRY.
1. Structure of Poetry.
A. Rhyme.
_The Country Squire_: VI, 474.
_To My Infant Son_: VI, 478.

B. Meter.
_The Daffodils_: V