Exercises and Assignments. I. Speak on the syntactical structure of the sentences throughout the essay

I. Speak on the syntactical structure of the sentences throughout the essay. What syntactical means does the author use to sound emotional and expressive? Do you think the long sentences used by the author give a heavy ponderous effect?

II. What vocabulary do the words wrought and yonder belong to? What role do they play in the description? Give their definitions.

III. Study lexical stylistic devices prevailing in the text. Comment on the brightest examples explaining the functions of the tropes. Have you managed to retain all of these devices in your translation?

IV. What effect do the rhetorical questions at the end of the essay produce? Is the ending expressive and effective? What conclusion can you make for yourself after reading “Two Views of the River”?

V. Translate the following set expressions. Supply the context for these expressions from the essay:

from one’s heart, far and near, to master the language.

VI. Match each of the words in the first column with a suitable definition from the second column and give their translation.

1) unwholesome	a) a feeling of intense pleasure or joy
2) rapture	b) a sandbank or shoal at the mouth of a harbor, bay, or estuary
3) log	c) be a source of; provide
4) bar	d) a branch of a tree
5) acquisition	e) cause to appear or spread
6) bough	f) not characterized by or conducive to health or moral well-being
7) sow	g) a part of the trunk or a large branch of a tree that has fallen or been cut off
8) furnish	h) the learning or developing of a skill, habit, or quality

VII. Match each word from the first column with an antonym from the second column. Use these words in the sentences of your own.

1) cease 2) rippled 3) sombre 4) acquisition 5) conspicuous 6) trifling 7) restore 8) enrich 9) bewitched

a) impoverish b) significant c) indifferent d) begin e) slick f) bright g) loss h) hidden i) take away

VIII. Paraphrase the following sentences from Twain’s essay.

1. Now when I had mastered the language of this water and had come to know every trifling feature that bordered the great river as familiarly as I knew the letters of the alphabet, I had made a valuable acquisition.

2. I stood like one bewitched. I drank it in, in a speechless rapture.

3. But as I have said, a day came when I began to cease from noting the glories and the charms which the moon and the sun and the twilight wrought upon the river’s face; another day came when I ceased altogether to note them.

4. All the value any feature of it had for me now was the amount of usefulness it could furnish toward compassing the safe piloting of a steamboat.

IX. Fill in the gaps choosing a suitable word from the synonymic row. Change the grammatical form of a word where necessary.