Composition Rhetoric by Stratton D. Brooks

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Slow though their march had been, by this time _they had come to the end
of the avenue, and were in the wide circular sweep before the castle._
They stopped here and stood looking off over the garden, with its somber
cypresses and bright beds of geranium, down upon the valley, dim and
luminous in a mist of gold. Great, heavy, fantastic-shaped clouds,
pearl-white with pearl-gray shadows, piled themselves up against the
scintillant dark blue of the sky. In and out among the rose trees _near at
hand_, where the sun was hottest, heavily flew, with a loud bourdonnement,
the cockchafers promised by Annunziata,--big, blundering, clumsy, the
scorn of their light-winged and businesslike competitors, the bees.
Lizards lay immobile as lizards cast in bronze, only their little
glittering, watchful pin heads of eyes giving sign of life. And of course
the blackcaps never for a moment left off singing.

--Henry Habland: _My Friend Prospero_ ("McClure's").

_We round a corner of the valley, and beyond, far below us, looms the town
of Sorata. From this distance_ the red tile roofs, the soft blue, green,
and yellow of its stuccoed walls, look indescribably fresh and grateful. A
closer inspection will probably dissipate this impression; it will be
squalid and dirty, the river-stone paving of its street will be deep in
the accumulation of filth, dirty Indian children will swarm in them with
mangy dogs and bedraggled ducks, the gay frescoes of its walls will peel
in ragged patches, revealing the 'dobe of their base, and the tile roofs
will be cracked and broken. But from the heights at this distance and in
the warm glow of the afternoon sun it looks like a dainty fairy village
glistening in a magic splendor against the Titanic setting of the Andes.

--Charles Johnson Post: _Across the Highlands of the World_
("Harper's").

Come on, sir; here's the place. Stand still. How fearful
And dizzy 'tis to cast one's eyes so low!
The crows and choughs that wing the midway air
Show scarce so gross as beetles. Halfway down
Hangs one that gathers sampire, dreadful trade!
Methinks he seems no bigger than his head.
The fishermen that walk upon the beach
Appear like mice; and yond tall anchoring bark
Diminish'd to her cock; her cock, a buoy
Almost too small for sight. The murmuring surge
That on the unnumber'd idle pebble chafes,
Cannot be heard so high. I'll look no more,
Lest my brain turn and the deficient sight
Topple down headlong.

--Shakespear: _King Lear_

+123. Implied Point of View.+--Often the point of view is not specifically
stated, but the language of the description shows where the observer is
located. Often such an implied point of view gives a delicate touch to a
description that could not be obtained by direct statements.

In which of the following selections is the point of view merely implied?

1. Thus pondering and dreaming, he came by the road down a gentle hill
with close woods on either hand; and so into the valley with a swift river
flowing through it; and on the river a mill. So white it stood among the
trees, and so merrily whirred the wheel as the water turned it, and so
bright blossomed the flowers in the garden, that Martimor had joy of the
sight, for it reminded him of his own country.

--Henry Van Dyke: _The Blue Flower_. (Copyright, 1902. Charles Scribner's
Sons.)

2. There is an island off a certain part of the coast of Maine,--a little
rocky island, heaped and tumbled together as if Dame Nature had shaken
down a heap of stones at random from her apron, when she had finished
making the larger islands, which lie between it and the mainland. At one
end, the shoreward end, there is a tiny cove, and a bit of silver sand
beach, with a green meadow beyond it, and a single great pine; but all the
rest is rocks, rocks. At the farther end the rocks are piled high, like a
castle wall, making a brave barrier against the Atlantic waves; and on top
of this cairn rises the lighthouse, rugged and sturdy as the rocks
themselves; but painted white, and with its windows shining like great,
smooth diamonds. This is Light Island.

--Laura E. Richards: _Captain January_.

+124. Changing Point of View.+--We cannot see the four sides of a house
from the same place, though we may wish to have our reader know how each
side looks. It is, therefore, necessary to change our point of view. It is
immaterial whether the successive points of view are named or merely
implied, providing the reader has due notice that we have changed from one
to the other, and that for each we describe only what can be seen from
that position. A description of a cottage that by its wording leads us to
think ourselves inside of the building and then tells about the yard would
be defective.

Notice the changing point of view in the following:--

At long distance, looking over the blue waters of the Gulf of St. Lawrence
in clear weather, you might think that you saw a lonely sea gull,
snow-white, perching motionless on a cobble of gray rock. Then, as your
boat drifted in, following the languid tide and the soft southern breeze,
you would perceive that the cobble of rock was a rugged hill with a few
bushes and stunted trees growing in the crevices, and that the gleaming
speck near the summit must be some kind of a building,--if you were on the
coast of Italy or Spain you would say a villa or a farmhouse. Then as you
floated still farther north and drew nearer to the coast, the desolate
hill would detach itself from the mainland and become a little mountain
isle, with a flock of smaller islets clustering around it as a brood of
wild ducks keep close to their mother, and with deep water, nearly two
miles wide, flowing between it and the shore; while the shining speck on
the seaward side stood clearly as a low, whitewashed dwelling with a
sturdy, round tower at one end, crowned with a big eight-sided lantern--a
solitary lighthouse.

--Henry Van Dyke: _The Keeper of the Light_.
(Copyright, 1905. Charles Scribner's Sons.)

+125. Place of Point of View in Paragraph.+--The point of view may be
expressed or only implied or wholly omitted, but in any case the reader
must assume one in order to form a clear and accurate image. Beginners
will find that they can best cause their readers to form the desired
images by stating a point of view. When the point of view is stated it
must of necessity come early in the paragraph. We have already learned
that the beginning of a description should present the fundamental image.
For this reason the first sentence of a description frequently includes
both the point of view and the fundamental image.

EXERCISES

_A._ Consider the following selections with reference to--
(_a_) The point of view.
(_b_) The fundamental image.
(_c_) The completeness of the images which you have formed (see
Sections 26, 27).

1. The Lunardi [balloon], mounting through a stagnant calm in a line
almost vertical, had pierced the morning mists, and now swam emancipated
in a heaven of exquisite blue. Below us by some trick of eyesight, the
country had grown concave, its horizon curving up like the rim of a
shallow bowl--a bowl heaped, in point of fact, with sea fog, but to our
eyes with a froth delicate and dazzling as a whipped syllabub of snow.
Upon it the traveling shadow of the balloon became no shadow, but a stain;
an amethyst (you might call it) purged of all grosser properties than
color and lucency. At times thrilled by no perceptible wind, rather by the
pulse of the sun's rays, the froth shook and parted; and then behold, deep
in the crevasses vignetted and shining, an acre or two of the earth of
man's business and fret--tilled slopes of the Lothians, ships dotted on
the Firth, the capital like a hive that some child had smoked--the ear of
fancy could almost hear it buzzing.

--Stevenson: _St. Ives_.
(Copyright, 1897. Charles Scribner's Sons.)

2. When Aswald and Corinne had gained the top of the Capitol, she showed
him the Seven Hills and the city, bound first by Mount Palatinus, then by
the walls of Servius Tullius, which inclose the hills, and by those of
Aurelian, which still surround the greatest part of Rome. Mount Palatinus
once contained all Rome, but soon did the imperial palace fill the space
that had sufficed for a nation. The Seven Hills are far less lofty now
than when they deserted the title of steep mountains, modern Rome being
forty feet higher than its predecessor, and the valleys which separated
them almost filled up by ruins; but what is still more strange, two heaps
of shattered vases have formed new hills, Cestario and Testacio. Thus, in
time, the very refuse of civilization levels the rock with the plain,
effacing in the moral, as in the material world, all the pleasing
inequalities of nature.

--Madame De Stael: _Corinne: Italy_.

_B._--Select five descriptions from the following books and note whether
each has a point of view expressed or implied:--

Cooper: Last of the Mohicans.
Scott: Ivanhoe.
Scott: Lady of the Lake.
Irving: Sketch Book.
Burroughs: Wake Robin.
Van Dyke: The Blue Flower.
Howells: The Rise of Silas Lapham.
Muir: Our National Parks.
Kate Douglas Wiggin: Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm.

+Theme LIII.+--_Write a descriptive paragraph beginning with a point of
view and a fundamental image._

Suggested subjects:--
1. The crossroads inn.
2. A historical building.
3. The shoe factory.
4. The gristmill.
5. The largest store in town.
6. The union station.

(In your description underscore the sentence giving the point of view. Can
you improve the description by using a different point of view? Will the
reader form at once a correct general outline? Will the entire description
enable the reader to form a clear and accurate image?)

+126. Clear Seeing.+-Clear statement depends upon clear seeing. Not only
must we choose an advantageous point of view, but we must be able to
reproduce what can be seen from that location. We may write a description
while we are looking at the object, but it is frequently convenient to do
the writing when the object is not visible. Oral descriptions are nearly
always made without having the object at hand. When we attempt to describe
we examine not the object itself, but our mental image of it. It is
evident that at least the essential features of this mental picture must
stand out clearly and definitely, or we shall be unable to make our
description accurate.

The habit of accurate observation is a desirable acquisition, and our
ability in this direction can be improved by effort. It is not the
province of this book to provide a series of exercises which shall
strengthen habits of accurate observation. Many of your studies,
particularly the sciences, devote much attention to training the observing
powers, and will furnish many suitable exercises. A few have been
suggested below merely to emphasize the point that every successful effort
in description must be preceded by a definite exercise in clear seeing.

EXERCISE

1. Walk rapidly past a building. Form a mental picture of it. Write down
as many of the details as you can. Now look at the building again and
determine what you have left out.

2. Call to mind some building with which you are familiar. Write a list of
the details that you recall. Now visit the building and see what important
ones you have omitted.

3. While looking at some scene make a note of the important details. Lay
this list away for a day. Then recall the scene. After picturing the scene
as vividly as you can, read your notes. Do they add anything to your
picture?

4. Make a list of the things on some desk that you cannot see but with
which you are familiar; for example, the teacher's desk. At the first
opportunity notice how accurate your list is.

5. Look for some time at the stained glass windows of a church or at the
wall paper of the room. What patterns do you notice that you did not see
at first? What colors?

6. Make a list of the objects visible from your bedroom window. When you
go home notice what you have omitted.

7. Practice observation contests similar to the following: Let two or more
persons pass a store window. Each shall then make a list of what the
window contains. Compare lists with one another.

+Theme LIV.+--_Write a description of some dwelling._

(Select a house that you can see on the way home. Choose a point of view
and notice carefully what can be seen from it. When you are ready to
write, form as vivid a mental picture of the house as you can. Write the
sentence that gives the fundamental image. Add such of the details as will
enable the reader to form an accurate image.)

+127. Selection of Essential Details.+--After deciding upon a point of
view and such general characteristics as are essential to the forming of a
correct outline of the object to be described, we must next give our
attention to the selection of the details. If our description has been
properly begun, this general outline will not be changed, but each
succeeding phrase or sentence will add to the clearness and distinctness
of the picture. Our first impression of a house may include windows, but
the mention of them later will bring them out clearly on our mental
picture much as the details appear when one is developing a negative in
photography.

If the peculiarities of an object are such as to effect its general form,
they need to be stated in the opening sentence; but when the peculiar or
distinguishing characteristic does not affect the form, it may be
introduced later. If we say, "On the corner across the street from the
post office there is a large, two-story, red brick store," the reader can
form at once a general picture of such a store. Only those things which
give a general outline have been included. As yet nothing has been
mentioned to distinguish the store from any other similar one. If some
following sentence should be, "Though not wider, it yet presents a more
imposing appearance than its neighbors, because the door is placed at one
side, thus making room for a single wide display window instead of two
stuffy, narrow ones," a detail has been added which, though not changing
the general outline, makes the picture clearer and at the same time
emphasizes the distinguishing feature of this particular store.

EXERCISES

1. Observe your neighbor's barn. What would you select as its
characteristic feature?

2. Take a rapid glance at some stranger whom you meet. What did you notice
most vividly?

3. In what respect does the Methodist church in your city differ from the
other church buildings?

4. Does your pet dog differ from others of the same breed in appearance?
In actions?

+Theme LV.+--_Write a descriptive paragraph, using one of the following
subjects:_--

1. A mountain view.
2. An omnibus.
3. A fort.
4. A lighthouse.
5. A Dutch windmill.
6. A bend in the river.
7. A peculiar structure.
8. The picture on this page.

(Underscore the sentence that pictures the details most essential to the
description. Consider the unity of your paragraph. Section 81.)

[Illustration]

+128. Selection and Subordination of Minor Details.+--In many descriptions
the minor details are wholly omitted, and in all descriptions many that
might have been included have been omitted. A proper number of such
details adds interest and clearness to the images; too many but serve to
render the whole obscure. If properly selected and effectively presented,
minor details add much to the beauty or usefulness of a description, but
if strung together in short sentences, the effect may be both tiresome and
confusing. A mere catalogue of facts is not a good description. They must
be arranged so that those which are the more important shall have the
greater prominence, while those of less importance shall be properly
subordinated.

Often minor details may be stated in a word or phrase inserted in the
sentence which gives the general view. Notice the italicized portion of
the following: "Opposite the church, _and partly screened by the scraggly
evergreens of a broad, unkempt lawn_, there is a large, octagonal, brick
house, with a conservatory on the left." This arrangement adds to the
general view and gives a better result than would be obtained by
describing the lawn in a separate sentence. Often a single adjective adds
some element to a description more effectively than can be done with a
whole sentence. Notice how much is added by the use of _scraggly_ and
_unkempt_.

EXERCISES

Make a careful study of the following selections with reference to the way
in which the minor details are presented. Can any of them be improved by
re-arranging them?

1. At night, as I look from my windows over Kassim Pasha, I never tire of
that dull, soft coloring, green and brown, in which the brown of roofs and
walls is hardly more than a shading of the green of the trees. There is
the lonely curve of the hollow, with its small, square, flat houses of
wood; and above, a sharp line of blue-black cypresses on the spine of the
hill; then the long desert plain, with its sandy road, shutting in the
horizon. Mists thicken over the valley, and wipe out its colors before the
lights begin to glimmer out of it. Below, under my windows, are the
cypresses of the Little Field of the Dead, vast, motionless, different
every night. Last night each stood clear, tall, apart; to-night they
huddle together in the mist, and seem to shudder. The sunset was brief,
and the water has grown dull, like slate. Stamboul fades to a level mass
of smoky purple, out of which a few minarets rise black against a gray sky
with bands of orange fire. Last night, after a golden sunset, a fog of
rusty iron came down, and hung poised over the jagged level of the hill.
The whole mass of Stamboul was like black smoke; the water dim gray, a
little flushed, and then like pure light, lucid, transparent, every ship
and every boat sharply outlined in black on its surface; the boats seemed
to crawl like flies on a lighted pane.

--Arthur Symons: _Constantinople: An Impression_ ("Harper's").

2. The boy was advancing up the road, carrying a half-filled pail of milk.
He was a child of perhaps ten years, exceedingly frail and thin, with a
drawn, waxen face, and sick, colorless lips and ears. On his head he wore
a thick plush cap, and coarse, heavy shoes upon his feet. A faded coat,
too long in the arms, drooped from his shoulders, and long, loose overalls
of gray jeans broke and wrinkled about his slender ankles.

--George Kibbe Turner: _Across the State_ ("McClure's").

3. They met few people abroad, even on passing from the retired
neighborhood of the House of the Seven Gables into what was ordinarily the
more thronged and busier portion of the town. Glistening sidewalks, with
little pools of rain, here and there, along their unequal surface;
umbrellas displayed ostentatiously in the shop windows, as if the life of
trade had concentered itself in that one article; wet leaves of the
horse-chestnut or elm trees, torn off untimely by the blast, and scattered
along the public way; an unsightly accumulation of mud in the middle of
the street, which perversely grew the more unclean for its long and
laborious washing;--these were the more definable points of a very somber
picture. In the way of movement, and human life, there was the hasty
rattle of a cab or coach, its driver protected by a water-proof cap over
his head and shoulders; the forlorn figure of an old man, who seemed to
have crept out of some subterranean sewer, and was stooping along the
kennel, and poking the wet rubbish with a stick, in quest of rusty nails;
a merchant or two, at the door of the post office, together with an
editor, and a miscellaneous politician, awaiting a dilatory mail; a few
visages of retired sea captains at the window of an insurance office,
looking out vacantly at the vacant street, blaspheming at the weather, and
fretting at the dearth as well of public news as local gossip. What a
treasure trove to these venerable quidnuncs, could they have guessed the
secret which Hepzibah and Clifford were carrying along with them!

--Hawthorne: _The House of the Seven Gables_.

+Theme LVI.+--_Write a description of one of the following:_--

1. A steamboat.
2. An orchard.
3. A colonial mansion.
4. A wharf.
5. A stone quarry.
6. A shop.

(Consider what you have written with reference to the point of view,
fundamental image, and essential details. After these have been arranged
to suit you, notice the way in which the minor details have been
introduced. Have you given undue prominence to any? Can a single adjective
or phrase be substituted for a whole sentence? Think of the image which
your words will produce in the mind of the reader. Consider your theme
with reference to unity. Section 81.)

+129. Arrangement of Details.+--The quality of a description depends as
much upon the arrangement of the material as upon the selection. Under
paragraph development we have discussed the necessity of arranging the
details with reference to their natural position in space (see Sections 47
and 86). Such an arrangement is the most desirable one and should be
departed from only with good reason. Such departures may, however, be
made, as shown in the following selection:--

A pretty picture the lad made as he lay there dreaming over his earthly
possessions--a pretty picture in the shade of the great elm, that sultry
morning of August, three quarters of a century ago. The presence of the
crutch showed there was something sad about it; and so there was; for if
you had glanced at the little bare brown foot, set toes upward on the
curbstone, you would have discovered that the fellow to it was missing--
cut off about two inches above the ankle. And if this had caused you to
throw a look of sympathy at his face, something yet sadder must long
have held your attention. Set jauntily on the back of his head was a
weather-beaten dark blue cloth cap, the patent leather frontlet of which
was gone; and beneath the ragged edge of this there fell down over his
forehead and temples and ears a tangled mass of soft yellow hair, slightly
curling. His eyes were large and of a blue to match the depths of a calm
sky above the treetops: the long lashes which curtained them were brown;
his lips were red, his nose delicate and fine, and his cheek tanned to the
color of ripe peaches. It was a singularly winning face, intelligent,
frank, not describable. On it now rested a smile, half joyous, half sad,
as though his mind was full of bright hopes, the realization of which was
far away. From the neck fell the wide collar of a white cotton shirt,
clean but frayed at the elbows, and open and buttonless down to his bosom.
Over this he wore an old-fashioned satin waistcoat of a man, also frayed
and buttonless. His dress was completed by a pair of baggy tow breeches,
held up by a single tow suspender fastened to big brown horn buttons.

--James Lane Allen: _Flute and Violin_.
(Copyright, 1892, Harper and Brothers.)

The details are not stated with reference to their natural position in
space, but they are given in the probable order of observation. If we were
to look upon such a boy, the crutch would attract our attention and would
lead us to look at once for the reason why a crutch was needed. The writer
skillfully uses the sympathy thus aroused as a means of transition to the
face. In the remainder of the description the natural position in space is
closely followed.

+Theme LVII.+-_Write a description of one of the following:_--

1. The bayou.
2. Looking down the mountain.
3. Looking up the mountain.
4. The floorwalker.
5. An old-fashioned rig.
6. A house said to be haunted.
7. The deacon.

(Consider the arrangement of details with reference to their position in
space. Consider your paragraphs with reference to coherence and emphasis.
Sections 82 and 83.)

+130. Effectiveness in Description.+--Every part of a description should
aid in rendering it effective, and this effectiveness is as much
the purpose of the principles previously discussed as it is of those
which follow. This paragraph is inserted here to separate more or less
definitely those things which can be done under direction from those which
cannot be determined by rule. Up to this point emphasis has been laid upon
the clear presentation of a mental image as the object of description.
But the clear presentation of mental images is not all there is to
description. A point of view, a fundamental image, a judicious selection
of essential and minor details and the relating of them with reference to
their natural position in space, may set forth an image clearly and yet
fail to be satisfactory as a description.

For the practical affairs of life it may be sufficient to limit ourselves
to clear images set forth barely and sparely, but there is a pleasure
and a profit in using the subtler arts of language, in placing a word
here or a phrase there that shall give a touch of beauty or a flash of
suggestiveness and so save our descriptions from the commonplace. It is to
these less easily demonstrated methods of giving strength and beauty that
we wish now to turn our attention.

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