Presently, you pick up the section lines. Now that is something. It is really one of the odd sights of the world, and it is strictly an air sight: a whole country laid out in a mathematical gridwork, in sections one mile square each; exact, straight-sided, lined up in endless lanes that run precisely--and I mean precisely--North-South and East-West. I makes the country look like a giant real-estate development: which it is. One section has 640 acres. A quarter section, 160 acres, is the historical Homestead. You sold your goods, you crossed the sea somehow, and they gave you that! "Land-office business" used to be done in this matter, and no wonder.
Get this right. these section lines are not something that an attentive eye can distinguish in the landscape. they are the landscape. Compared with this gridwork, the natural landscape--flat here, a little rolling there, a river valley, a pond--just can't quite catch your attention. In fact, the natural landscape has long fitted itself to this scheme. A man has a woodlot, his neighbor a cornfield; but the fence line is part of the grid. More than people know, all except for the biggest highways--run along the grid. In fact, from the air, the lines are mostly marked by roads.
For flying, the section lines are wonderful. They make this country in reality just what a pilot wants country to be--graph paper.
RECOGNIZE FACT AND OPINION. Your reading of the selection has probably made you realize that it is not, like news items in most newspapers, a mere recital of facts. Facts are present, but there is more: a definite personality is in charge of the writing, and there is a certain amount of excitement in the material itself. Several things contribute to this, but mainly it is the skillful blending of fact with opinion. Statements of fact can be true or false. Usually, anything which can be proved or verified by evidence is accpeted as a true statement of fact, while a false statement can be shown to be innacurate.
USE FACT AND OPINION. Statements of fact provide the skeleton for almost all writing. Writing that concerns itself only with opinion may lack substance, but opinion can make writing seem more real and interesting. Opinion, properly and honorably used, can involve you in a piece of writing by convincing you that you know--and like--the writer. It is through opinion that you get to know the thoughts and minds of other men and women.
ASSIGNMENT. For each of the topics listed below write a paragraph in which you present only statements of fact. Then go back and combine the "facts" with your opinions. Compare and contrast the paragraphs.
1. Regular church attendance
2. Sexual abstinence before marriage
3. Vegitarianism
4. Topic of your choice