1. A favorite diversion was hunting. A favorite diversion was hawking. These were diversions of the Middle Ages. They occurred at intervals. They occurred during the intervals of war.

2. We should suit our behavior to men. We should suit it to the several degrees of men. Of these degrees, there are three. We should suit our behavior to our superiors. We should suit it to our equals. We should suit it to those below us. This is the principal point of good breeding.

3. The Indian wife sailed with her husband for England. She sailed in 1616. She had been instructed in the English language. She bore an English name. She was "the first Christian of her nation."

4. Edward Plantagenet was the eldest son of King Edward III. He was born at Woodstock, in 1330. He was commonly called the Black Prince. He was called the Black Prince from the color of his armor. The color of the armor was specially chosen. It set off the fairness of his skin and hair.

5. The battle of Bunker Hill was fought on the 17th of June. It was fought in the year 1775. It proved the bravery of the Americans. It was followed by great moral results.

6. The natives of Virginia seized on a quantity of gunpowder. It was their first seizure of gunpowder. They sowed it for grain. They expected to reap a plentiful crop of combustion. They expected to reap this by the next harvest. They expected a crop so plentiful as to blow away the whole colony. The gunpowder seized by the natives belonged to the English colony.

7. To behold the peasantry is a pleasing sight. To behold them in their best finery is a pleasing sight. Their ruddy faces are pleasing. Their modest cheerfulness is delightful. To see them on a Sunday morning is a pleasing sight. To see them thronging tranquilly along the green lanes to church is most pleasant. At the time of their going the bell is sending its sober melody across the quiet fields.

8. The fowls of the air furnish sustenance to man, and the beasts of the field furnish sustenance to man, and the dwellers of the deep furnish sustenance to man.

9. It is a sad thing to be born a sneaking fellow. It is much worse than to inherit a hump-back. It is worse than to inherit a couple of club-feet. Looking upon such a fellow causes me sometimes a peculiar feeling. The feeling tells of the necessity of our loving the crippled souls. May I be allowed to use the expression "crippled souls"? We should love them with a certain tenderness. This tenderness we need not waste on noble natures.

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The body of this piece is composed of sentence-combining exercises from Virginia Waddy's Elements of Composition and Rhetoric with Copious Exercises in Both Criticism and Construction (New York: American Book Company, 1889).