nature of a picnic. 3A walking tour should be gone upon alone, because freedom is of the essence; because you should be able to stop and go on, and follow this way or that, as the freak takes you; and because you must have your own pace, and neither trot alongside a champion walker, nor mince in time with a girl. 4And you must be open to all impressions' and let your thoughts take colour from what you see. 5You should be as a pipe for any wind to play upon. 6"I cannot see the wit," says Hazlitt, "of walking and talking at the same time. 7When I am in the country, I wish to vegetate like the country," which is the gist of all that can be said upon the matter. 8There should be no cackle of voices at your elbow, to jar on the meditative silence of the morning. 9And so long as a man is reasoning he cannot surrender himself to that fine intoxication that comes of much motion in the open air, that begins in a sort of dazzle and sluggishness of the brain, and ends in a peace that passes comprehension. — Stevenson, Walking Tours.
1Topic sentence. 2The meaning made clearer by denial of the contrary. 3The topic sentence repeated, in abridged form, and supported by three reasons; the meaning of the third ("you must have your own pace") made clearer by denying the contrary. 4A fourth reason, stated in two forms. 5The same reason, stated in still another form. 6—7The same reason as stated by Hazlitt. 8Repetition, in paraphrase, of the quotation from Hazlitt. 9Final statement of the fourth reason, in language amplified and heightened to form a strong conclusion.
1It was chiefly in the eighteenth century that a very different conception of history grew up. 2Historians then came to believe that their task was not so much to paint a picture as to solve a problem; to explain or illustrate the successive phases of national growth, prosperity, and adversity. 3The history of morals, of industry, of intellect, and of art; the changes that take place in manners or beliefs; the dominant ideas that prevailed in successive periods; the rise, fall, and modification of political constitutions; in a word, all the conditions of national well-being became the subject of their works. 4They sought rather to write a history of peoples than a history of kings. 5They looked especially in history for the chain of causes and effects. 6They undertook to study in the past the physiology of nations, and hoped by applying the experimental method on a large scale to deduce some lessons of real value about the conditions on which the welfare of society mainly depend.—Lecky, The Political Value of History.
1Topic sentence. 2The meaning of the topic sentence made clearer; the new conception of history defined. 3The definition expanded. 4The definition explained by contrast. 5The definition supplemented: another element in the new conception of history. 6Conclusion: an important consequence of the new conception of history.
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