3. To show the picturesque qualities in the gradual action.
VIII. What is the controlling purpose in the following selection? Point out the influence upon the writer of knowing that Bostonians would read his words. Indicate how the selection would differ if the controlling object were to be bitter jealousy expressed by a resident in a newer, larger, envious city.
Boston has a rather old-fashioned habit of speaking the English language. It came upon us rather suddenly one day as we journeyed out Huntington Avenue to the smart new gray and red opera house. The very coloring of the _foyer_ of that house--soft and simple--bespoke the refinement of the Boston of to-day.
In the Metropolitan Opera House, New York, in every other one of the glib opera houses that are springing up mushroom-fashion across the land, our ears would have been assailed by "Librettos! Get your Librettos!" Not so in Boston. At the Boston Opera House the young woman back of the _foyer_ stand calmly announced at clocklike intervals:
And the head usher, whom the older Bostonians grasped by the hand and seemed to regard as a long-lost friend, did not sip out, "Checks, please."
"Locations," he requested, as he condescended to the hand-grasps of the socially elect.
"The nearer door for those stepping out," announces the guard upon the elevated train, and as for the surface and trolley-cars, those wonderful green perambulators laden down with more signs than nine ordinary trolley-cars would carry at one time, they do not speak of the newest type in Boston as "Pay-as-you-enter-cars," after the fashion of less cultured communities. In the Hub they are known as Prepayment cars--its precision is unrelenting.[10]
[10] Edward Hungerford: _The Personality of American Cities_. By courtesy of the publisher, Robert M. McBride & Co., New York City.
IX. What is the controlling purpose in the following selection from Mr. John Masefield's volume of _Gallipoli_? Analyze this controlling purpose as to the subject itself, the author's personal reaction, and the intended readers--largely perhaps, the American people.