If a friend should say, "I enjoyed
my trip to the city," we wish him to relate that which pleased him. These
details assist us in understanding the topic statement, and increase our
interest in it. Notice in the paragraphs below how much is added to our
understanding of the topic statement by the sentences that give the
details:--
1. I left my garden for a week, just at the close of a dry spell. A season
of rain immediately set in, and when I returned the transformation was
wonderful. In one week every vegetable had fairly jumped forward. The
tomatoes, which I left slender plants, eaten of bugs and debating whether
they would go backward or forward, had become stout and lusty, with thick
stems and dark leaves, and some of them had blossomed. The corn waved like
that which grows so rank out of the French-English mixture at Waterloo.
The squashes--I will not speak of the squashes. The most remarkable growth
was the asparagus. There was not a spear above ground when I went away;
and now it had sprung up, and gone to seed, and there were stalks higher
than my head.
--Warner: _My Summer in a Garden_.
2. The wedding ceremony was solemn and beautiful, in the church on the
estate. At the door of the palace stood the mother of the bride, to greet
her return from the ceremony with the blessing, "May you always have bread
and salt," as she served her from a loaf of black bread, with a salt
cellar in the center, as is the Russian custom for prince and peasant.
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