ined to
take in the characteristic points of a subject, so as to view in a
single scene, action, experience, or character, a unified impression of
the whole. To describe a thing as a whole you must first see it as a
whole. Master that art and you have mastered description to the last
degree.

SELECTIONS FOR PRACTISE

_THE HOMES OF THE PEOPLE_

I went to Washington the other day, and I stood on the Capitol
Hill; my heart beat quick as I looked at the towering marble of
my country's Capitol and the mist gathered in my eyes as I
thought of its tremendous significance, and the armies and the
treasury, and the judges and the President, and the Congress and
the courts, and all that was gathered there. And I felt that the
sun in all its course could not look down on a better sight than
that majestic home of a republic that had taught the world its
best lessons of liberty. And I felt that if honor and wisdom and
justice abided therein, the world would at last owe to that
great house in which the ark of the covenant of my country is
lodged, its final uplifting and its regeneration.

Two days afterward, I went to visit a friend in the country, a
modest man, with a quiet country home. It was just a simple,
unpretentious house, set about with big trees, encircled in
meadow and field rich with the promise of harvest. The fragrance
of the pink and hollyhock in the front yard was mingled with the
aroma of the orchard and of the gardens, and resonant with the
cluck of poultry and the hum of bees.

Inside was quiet, cleanliness, thrift, and comfort. There was
the old clock that had welcomed, in steady measure, every
newcomer to the family, that had ticked the solemn requiem of
the dead, and had kept company with the watcher at the bedside.
There were the big, restful beds and the old, open fireplace,
and the old family Bible, thumbed with the fingers of hands long
since still, and wet with the tears of eyes long since closed,
holding the simple annals of the family and the heart and the
conscience of the home.

Outside, there stood my friend, the master, a simple, upright
man, with no mortgage on his roof, no lien on his growing crops,
master of his land and master of himself. There was his old
father, an aged, trembling man, but happy in the heart and home
of his son. And as they started to