Read the excerpt from “Tools of the Spymaster." General Clinton, concerned about what General Howe was planning and doing, made use of a mask to write a secret message in a letter to General Burgoyne.

Before writing the letter, Clinton had placed an hourglass-shaped mask on a piece of paper and then had formed the secret message within that shape.

The unmasked letter had enough false information in it to fool any American who happened to see it. But when Burgoyne viewed the letter with the mask, he read Clinton's view of the real situation: Howe has made a bad move; I don't have enough men to do anything about it.

The author’s main purpose in this excerpt is to

describe a form of code writing using an example.
explain the mistakes of General Howe during the war.
entertain the reader with a humorous story of miscommunication.
argue that using a mask is the best method for sending secret messages.

Which themes are portrayed in this excerpt from leo tolstoy’s the death of ivan ilyich? praskovya fedorovna came of a good family, was not bad looking, and had some little property. ivan ilyich might have aspired to a more brilliant match, but even this was good. he had his salary, and she, he hoped, would have an equal income. she was well connected, and was a sweet, pretty, and thoroughly correct young woman. to say that ivan ilyich married because he fell in love with praskovya fedorovna and found that she sympathized with his views of life would be as incorrect as to say that he married because his social circle approved of the match. he was swayed by both these considerations: the marriage gave him personal satisfaction, and at the same time it was considered the right thing by the most highly placed of his associates. so ivan ilyich got married. conforming to social conventions criticism of a middle class lifestyle the destructive impact of loneliness struggling to face reality the necessity of companionship