from whose point of view is this passage told it is very seldom thatmere ordinary people like john and myself secure ancerstral halls for the summer a colonial mansion a hereditary estate i would say a haunted house, and reach the height of romantic felicity-but that would be asking too much of fate! still i will proudly declare that there is something queer about it

quite an interesting way to teach topic sentences, because the answer to this question is the best definition of a topic sentence that one can present, it is as if answering the questions taught you how to do it, this is some real teaching, it is terribly well-done.

the topic sentence in this paragraph is:

topic sentences writers stay on track and keep a paragraph from becoming an aimless collection of sentences about an idea.

which incidentally tells you what a topic sentence should be.

well stockyards mean a large yard containing pens and sheds, typically adjacent to a slaughterhouse, in which livestock is kept and sorted. and i'm assuming that by party you   mean a large group of people which does make sense because chicago is a very crowded place much like new york. stockyards tend to take up a lot of room due to needing the area for pens to keep animals in and the fact that stockyards are usually right by slaughterhouse where they process and distribute the product. so its much like a zoo but with some dead animal products close by.

wheres the following authors?