Composition Rhetoric by Stratton D. Brooks

S >> Stratton D. Brooks >> Composition Rhetoric

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 | 31

+131. Word Selection.+--The effectiveness of our description will depend
largely upon our right choice of words. If our range of vocabulary is
limited, the possibility of effective description is correspondingly
limited. Only when our working vocabulary contains many words may we hope
to choose with ease the one most suitable for the effective expression of
the idea we wish to convey. To prepare a list of words that may apply and
then attempt to write a theme that shall make use of them is a mechanical
process of little value. The idea we wish to express should call up the
word that exactly expresses it. If our ideas are not clear or our
vocabulary is limited, we may be satisfied with the trite and commonplace;
but if our experience has been broad or our reading extended, we may have
at command the word which, because it is just the right one, gives
individuality and force to our phrasing. Every one is familiar with dogs,
and has in his vocabulary many words which he applies to them, but a
reading of one or two good dog stories, such as _Bob, Son of Battle_, or
_The Call of the Wild_, will show how wide is the range of such words and
how much the description is enhanced by their careful use.

EXERCISE

Consider the following selections with reference to the choice of words
which add to the effectiveness of the descriptions:--

1. She was a little, brown, thin, almost skinny woman with big, rolling,
violet-blue eyes and the sweetest manners in the world.

2. The sounds and the straits and the sea with its plump, sleepy islands
lay north and east and south.

3. The mists of the Cuchullins are not fat, dull, and still, like lowland
and inland mists, but haggard, and streaming from the black peaks, and
full of gusty lines. We saw them first from the top of Beimna-Caillach, a
red, round-headed mountain hard by Bradford, in the isle of Skye.

Shortly after noon the rain came up from the sea and drew long delicate
gray lines against the cliffs. It came up licking and lisping over the
surface of Cornisk, and drove us to the lee of rocks and the shelter of
our ponchos, to watch the mists drifting, to listen to the swell and lull
of the wind and the patter of the cold rain. There were glimpses now and
then of the inner Cuchullins, a fragment of ragged sky line, the sudden
jab of a black pinnacle through the mist, the open mouth of a gorge
steaming with mist.

We climbed the great ridge, at length, of rock and wet heath that
separates Cornisk from Glen Sligachan, slowly through the fitful rain and
driving cloud, and saw Sgurr-nan-Gillian, sharp, black, and pitiless, the
northernmost peak and sentinel of the Cuchullins. The yellow trail could
be seen twisting along the flat, empty glen. Seven miles away was a white
spot, the Sligachan Hotel.

I think it must be the dreariest glen in Scotland. The trail twists in a
futile manner, and, after all, is mainly bog holes and rolling rocks. The
Red Hills are on the right, rusty, reddish, of the color of dried blood,
and gashed with sliding bowlders. Their heads seem beaten down, a Helot
population, and the Cuchullins stand back like an army of iron conquerors.
The Red Hills will be a vanished race one day, and the Cuchullins remain.

Arthur Colton: _The Mists o' Skye_ ("Harper's").

+132. Additional Aids to Effectiveness.+--Comparison and figures of speech
not only aid in making our picture clear and vivid, but they may add
a spice and flavor to our language, which counts for much in the
effectiveness and beauty of our description. Notice the following
descriptions:--

He was a mongoose, rather like a little cat in his fur and his tail, but
quite like a weasel in his head and his habits. His eyes and the end of
his restless nose were pink; he could scratch himself anywhere he pleased,
with any leg, front or back, that he chose to use; he could fluff up his
tail till it looked like a bottle brush, and his war cry as he scuttled
through the long grass was Rikk-tikk-tikki-tikki-tikk.

--Kipling: _Jungle Book_.

Ichabod was a suitable figure for such a steed. He rode with short
stirrups, which brought his knees nearly up to the pommel of his saddle;
his sharp elbows stuck out like grasshoppers' legs; he carried his whip
perpendicularly in his hand, like a scepter, and, as his horse jogged on,
the motion of his arms was not unlike the flapping of a pair of wings. A
small wool hat rested on the top of his nose, for so his scanty strip of
forehead might be called; and the skirts of his black coat fluttered out
almost to the horse's tail. Such was the appearance of Ichabod and his
steed, as they shambled out of the gate of Hans Van Ripper, and it was
altogether such an apparition as is seldom to be met with in broad
daylight.

--Irving: _Legend of Sleepy Hollow_.

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

1. My cat.
2. The pony at the farm.
3. The glen.
4. The prairie.
5. The milldam.
6. The motorman.
7. The picture on this page.

[Illustration]

(Consider the effectiveness of your description. Can you improve your
choice of words? Have you used comparisons or figures, and if so, do they
improve your description? Consider your theme with reference to euphony.
Section 16.)

+133. Classes of Objects Frequently Described.+--There is no limit to the
things that we may wish to describe, but there are certain general classes
of objects that are described more frequently than others. We have greater
occasion to describe men or places than we have to describe pictures or
trees. A person may be an accurate observer having a large vocabulary
applicable to one class of objects, and thus be able to describe objects
of that class clearly and effectively; though at the same time, on account
of limited experience and small vocabulary, he cannot well describe
objects belonging to some other class. The ability to observe accurately
the classes of objects named below, and to appreciate descriptions of such
objects when made by others, is a desirable acquisition. Every effort
should be made to master as many as possible of the words applicable to
each class of objects. A slight investigation will show how great is the
number of such words with which we are unfamiliar.

1. _Descriptions of buildings or portions of buildings._

In most buildings the basement story is heaviest, and each succeeding
story increases in lightness; in the Ducal palace this is reversed, making
it unique amongst buildings. The outer walls rest upon the pillars of open
colonnades, which have a more stumpy appearance than was intended, owing
to the raising of the pavement in the piazza. They had, however, no base,
but were supported by a continuous stylobate. The chief decorations of the
palace were employed upon the capitals of these thirty-six pillars, and it
was felt that the peculiar prominence and importance given to its angles
rendered it necessary that they should be enriched and softened by
sculpture, which is interesting and often most beautiful. The throned
figure of Venice above bears a scroll inscribed: _Fortis, justa, trono
furias, mare sub pede, pono_. (Strong and just, I put the furies beneath
my throne, and the sea beneath my foot.) One of the corners of the palace
joined the irregular buildings connected with St. Mark's, and is not
generally seen. There remained, therefore, only three angles to be
decorated. The first main sculpture may be called the "Fig-tree angle,"
and its subject is the "Fall of Man." The second is "the Vine angle," and
represents the "Drunkenness of Noah." The third sculpture is "the Judgment
angle," and portrays the "Judgment of Solomon."

--Hare: _Venice_.

+Theme LIX.+--_Write a description of the exterior of some building._

+Theme LX.+--_Write a description of some room._

+Theme LXI.+--_Write a description of some portion of a building, such as
an entrance, spire, window, or stairway._

(Consider each description with reference to--
_a._ Point of view.
_b._ Fundamental image.
_c._ Selection of essential details.
_d._ Selection and subordination of minor details.
_e._ Arrangement of details with reference to their natural positions in
space.
_f._ Effective choice of words and comparisons.)

2. _Natural features: valleys, rivers, mountains, etc._

Beyond the great prairies and in the shadow of the Rockies lie
the Foothills. For nine hundred miles the prairies spread themselves
out in vast level reaches, and then begin to climb over softly
rounded mounds that ever grow higher and sharper, till here and
there, they break into jagged points and at last rest upon the great
bases of the mighty mountains. These rounded hills that join the
prairies to the mountains form the Foothill Country. They extend
for about a hundred miles only, but no other hundred miles of the
great West are so full of interest and romance. The natural features
of the country combine the beauties of prairie and of mountain
scenery. There are valleys so wide that the farther side melts into
the horizon, and uplands so vast as to suggest the unbroken prairie.
Nearer the mountains the valleys dip deep and ever deeper till they
narrow into canyons through which mountain torrents pour their
blue-gray waters from glaciers that lie glistening between the white
peaks far away.

--Connor: _The Sky Pilot_.

Long lines of cliff breaking have left a chasm;
And in the chasm are foam and yellow sands;
Beyond, red roofs about a narrow wharf
In cluster; then a molder'd church; and higher
A long street climbs to one tall tower'd mill;
And high in heaven behind it a gray down
With Danish barrows, and a hazelwood,
By autumn nutters haunted, flourishes
Green in a cuplike hollow of the down.

--Tennyson: _Enoch Arden_.

+Theme LXII.+--_Write a description of some valley, mountain, field,
woods, or prairie._

+Theme LXIII.+--_Write a description of some stream, pond, lake, dam, or
waterfall._

(Consider especially your choice of words.)

3. _Sounds or the use of sounds._

And the noise of Niagara? Alarming things have been said about it, but
they are not true. It is a great and mighty noise, but it is not, as
Hennepin thought, an "outrageous noise." It is not a roar. It does not
drown the voice or stun the ear. Even at the actual foot of the falls it
is not oppressive. It is much less rough than the sound of heavy surf--
steadier, more homogeneous, less metallic, very deep and strong, yet
mellow and soft; soft, I mean, in its quality. As to the noise of the
rapids, there is none more musical. It is neither rumbling nor sharp. It
is clear, plangent, silvery. It is so like the voice of a steep brook--
much magnified, but not made coarser or more harsh--that, after we have
known it, each liquid call from a forest hillside will seem, like the odor
of grapevines, a greeting from Niagara. It is an inspiriting, an
exhilarating sound, like freshness, coolness, vitality itself made
audible. And yet it is a lulling sound. When we have looked out upon the
American rapids for many days, it is hard to remember contented life amid
motionless surroundings; and so, when we have slept beside them for many
nights, it is hard to think of happy sleep in an empty silence.

--Mrs. Van Rensselaer: _Niagara_ ("Century").

Yell'd on the view the opening pack;
Rock, glen, and cavern, paid them back;
To many a mingled sound at once
The awaken'd mountain gave response.
A hundred dogs bay'd deep and strong,
Clatter'd a hundred steeds along,
Their peal the merry horns rung out,
A hundred voices join'd the shout;
With hark, and whoop, and wild halloo,
No rest Benvoirlich's echoes knew.
Far from the tumult fled the roe,
Close in her covert cower'd the doe;
The falcon, from her cairn on high,
Cast on the rout a wondering eye,
Till far beyond her piercing ken
The hurricane had swept the glen.
Faint, and more faint, its failing din
Return'd from cavern, cliff, and linn,
And silence settled, wide and still,
On the lone wood and mighty hill.

--SCOTT: _Lady of the Lake_.

+Theme LXIV.+--_Describe some sound or combination of sounds, or write a
description introducing sounds._

Suggested subjects:--
1. Alone in the house.
2. In the woods at night.
3. Beside the brook.
4. In the factory.
5. A day at the beach.
6. Before the Fourth.
7. On the seashore.

(Notice especially the words that indicate sound.)

4. _Color or the use of color._

A gray day! soft gray sky, like the breast of a dove; sheeny gray sea with
gleams of steel running across; trailing skirts of mist shutting off the
mainland, leaving Light Island alone with the ocean; the white tower
gleaming spectral among the folding mists; the dark pine tree pointing a
somber finger to heaven; the wet, black rocks, from which the tide had
gone down, huddling together in fantastic groups as if to hide their
nakedness.

--Laura E. Richards: _Captain January_.

The large branch of the Po we crossed came down from the mountains which
we were approaching. As we reached the post road again they were glowing
in the last rays of the sun, and the evening vapors that settled over the
plain concealed the distant Alps, although the snowy top of the Jungfrau
and her companions the Wetterhorn and Schreckhorn rose above it like the
hills of another world. A castle or church of brilliant white marble
glittered on the summit of one of the mountains near us, and, as the sun
went down without a cloud, the distant summits changed in hue to a glowing
purple, mounting almost to crimson, which afterwards darkened into a deep
violet. The western half of the sky was of a pale orange and the eastern a
dark red, which blended together in the blue of the zenith, that deepened
as twilight came on.

--Taylor: _Views Afoot_.

+Theme LXV.+--_Write a description in which the color element enters
largely._

5. _Animals, birds, fishes, etc._

The Tailless Tyke had now grown into an immense dog, heavy of muscle and
huge of bone. A great bull head; undershot jaw, square and lengthy and
terrible; vicious yellow gleaming eyes; cropped ears; and an expression
incomparably savage. His coat was a tawny lionlike yellow, short, harsh,
dense; and his back running up from shoulder to loins ended abruptly in a
knoblike tail. He looked like the devil of a dog's hell, and his
reputation was as bad as his looks. He never attacked unprovoked; but a
challenge was never ignored and he was greedy of insults.

--Alfred Ollivant: _Bob, Son of Battle_.
(Copyright, Doubleday and McClure.)

Read the description of the kingbird (page 224), and of the mongoose (page
242).

+Theme LXVI.+--_Write a description of some animal, bird, or fish._

(What questions should you ask yourself about each description you write?)

6. _Trees and plants._

How shall kinnikinnick be told to them who know it not? To a New Englander
it might be said that a whortleberry bush changed its mind one day and
decided to be a vine, with leaves as glossy as laurel, bells pink-striped
and sweet like the arbutus, and berries in clusters and of scarlet instead
of black. The Indians call it kinnikinnick, and smoke it in their pipes.
White men call it bearberry, I believe; and there is a Latin name for it,
no doubt, in the books. But kinnikinnick is the best,--dainty, sturdy,
indefatigable kinnikinnick, green and glossy all the year round, lovely at
Christmas and lovely among flowers at midsummer, as content and thrifty on
bare, rocky hillsides as in grassy nooks, growing in long, trailing
wreaths, five feet long, or in tangled mats, five feet across, as the rock
or the valley may need, and living bravely many weeks without water, to
make a house beautiful. I doubt if there be in the world a vine I should
hold so precious, indoors and out.

--Helen Hunt Jackson: _Bits of Travel at Home_.

A mango tree is beautiful and attractive. It grows as large as the oak,
and has a rich and glossy foliage. The fruit is shaped something like a
short, thick cucumber, and is as large as a large pear. It has a thick,
tough skin, and a delicious, juicy pulp. When ripe it is a golden color. A
tree often bears a hundred bushels of mangoes.

--Marian M. George.

+Theme LXVII.+--_Write a description of some tree that you have seen._

(Consider your theme with reference to the general principles of
composition treated in Chapter V.)

+134. Description of Persons: Character Sketches.+--The general principles
of description are applicable to the description of a person, and should
be followed for the purpose of presenting a clear and vivid image. Our
interest, however, so naturally runs beyond the appearance and is
concerned with the character, that most descriptions of persons become
character sketches. Even the commonest terms of description, such as _keen
gray eyes, square chin, rugged countenance_, are interpreted as showing
character, and depart to some degree from pure description. Often the sole
purpose of description is to show character, and only those details are
introduced which accomplish this purpose.

In life we judge a man's character by his actions, and so in the character
sketch we are led to infer his character from what he does. The character
indicated by his appearance is corroborated by a statement of his actions
and especially by showing how he acts. (See Section 10.) Sometimes no
descriptive matter is given, but we are left to make our own picture to
fit the character indicated by the actions. In many books the descriptive
elements which would enable us to form an image of some person are
distributed over several pages, each being introduced where it supplements
and emphasizes the character shown by the actions.

Notice the following examples:--

The Rev. Daniel True stood beside the holy table. For such a scene,
perhaps for any scene, he was a memorable figure. He had the dignity of
early middle life, but none of its signs of advancing age. His hair was
quite black, and curled on his temples boyishly; his mustache, not without
a worldly cut, was as dark as his hair, and concealed a mouth so clean and
fine that it was an ethical mistake to cover it. He had sturdy shoulders,
although not quite straight; they had the scholar's stoop; his hands were
thin, with long fingers; his gestures were sparing and significant; his
expression was so sincere that its evident devoutness commanded respect;
so did his voice, which was authoritative enough to be a little priestly
and lacking somewhat in elocutionary finish as the voices of ministers are
apt to be, but genuine, musical, persuasive, at moments vibrant with
oratorical power. He had a warm eye and a lovable smile. He was every inch
a minister, but he was every nerve a man.

--Elizabeth Stuart Phelps: _A Sacrament_ ("Harper's").

She was not more than fifteen. Her form, voice, and manner belonged to the
period of transition from girlhood. Her face was perfectly oval, her
complexion more pale than fair. The nose was faultless; the lips, slightly
parted, were full and ripe, giving to the lines of the mouth warmth,
tenderness, and trust; the eyes were blue and large, and shaded by
drooping lids and long lashes; and, in harmony with all, a flood of golden
hair, in the style permitted to Jewish brides, fell unconfined down her
back to the pillion on which she sat. The throat and neck had the downy
softness sometimes seen which leaves the artist in doubt whether it is an
effect of contour or color. To these charms of feature and person were
added others more--an indefinable air of purity which only the soul can
impart, and of abstraction natural to such as think much of things
impalpable. Often, with trembling lips, she raised her eyes to heaven,
itself not more deeply blue; often she crossed her hands upon her breast,
as in adoration and prayer; often she raised her head like one listening
eagerly for a calling voice. Now and then midst his slow utterance, Joseph
turned to look at her, and, catching the expression kindling her face as
with light, forgot his theme, and with bowed head, wondering, plodded on.

--Lew Wallace: _Ben-Hur_.
(Copyright, 1880, Harper and Bros.)

When Washington was elected general of the army he was forty-three years
of age. In stature he a little exceeded six feet; his limbs were sinewy
and well proportioned; his chest broad, his figure stately, blending
dignity of presence with ease of manner. His robust constitution had been
tried and invigorated by his early life in the wilderness, his habit of
occupation out of doors, and his rigid temperance, so that few equalled
him in strength of arm or power of endurance. His complexion was florid,
his hair dark brown, his head in shape perfectly round. His broad nostrils
seemed formed to give expression and escape to scornful anger. His dark
blue eyes, which were deeply set, had an expression of resignation and an
earnestness that was almost sad.

--Bancroft.

There were many Englishmen of great distinction there, and Tennyson was
the most conspicuous among the guests. Tennyson's appearance was very
striking and his figure might have been taken as a living illustration of
romantic poetry. He was tall and stately, wore a great mass of thick, long
hair--long hair was then still worn even by men who did not affect
originality; his frame was slightly stooping, his shoulders were bent as
if with the weight of thought; there was something entirely out of the
common and very commanding in his whole presence, and a stranger meeting
him in whatever crowd would probably have assumed at once that he must be
a literary king.

--Justin McCarthy: _Literary Portraits from the Sixties_ ("Harper's").

The door opened and there appeared to these two a visitor. He was a young
man, and tall,--so tall that, even with his hat off, his head barely
cleared the ceiling of the low-studded room. He was slim and fair-haired
and round-shouldered. He had the pink and white complexion of a girl;
soft, fair hair; dark, serious eyes; the high, white brow of a thinker;
the nose of an aristocrat; and he was in clerical garb.

--Sewall Ford: _The Renunciation of Petruo_ ("Harper's").

EXERCISE

Notice the pictures on page 253. Can you determine from the picture
anything about the character of the person? Just what feature in each
helps you in this?

+Theme LXVIII.+--_Describe some person known to most of the class._

(Do not name the person, but combine description and character sketching
so that the class may be able to tell whom you mean.)

[Illustrations]

+135. Impression of a Description.+--Often the effectiveness of a
description is determined more by the impression which it makes upon our
feelings than by the vividness of the picture which it presents. Read the
following description of the Battery in New York by Howells. Notice how
the details which have been selected emphasize the "impression of
forlornness." The sickly trees, the decrepit shade, the mangy grass plots,
hungry-eyed and hollow children, the jaded women, silent and hopeless, the
shameless houses, the hard-looking men, unite to give the one impression.
Even the fresh blue water of the bay, which laughs and dances beyond, by
its very contrast gives greater emphasis to the melancholy and forlorn
appearance of the Battery.

All places that fashion has once loved and abandoned are very melancholy;
but of all such places, I think the Battery is the most forlorn. Are there
some sickly locust trees there that cast a tremulous and decrepit shade
upon the mangy grass plots? I believe so, but I do not make sure; I am
certain only of the mangy grass plots, or rather the spaces between the
paths, thinly overgrown with some kind of refuse and opprobrious weed, a
stunted and pauper vegetation proper solely to the New York Battery. At
that hour of the summer morning when our friends, with the aimlessness of
strangers who are waiting to do something else, saw the ancient promenade,
a few scant and hungry-eyed little boys and girls were wandering over this
weedy growth, not playing, but moving listlessly to and fro, fantastic in
the wild inaptness of their costumes. One of these little creatures wore,
with an odd, involuntary jauntiness, the cast-off best dress of some
happier child, a gay little garment cut low in the neck and short in the
sleeves, which gave her the grotesque effect of having been at a party the
night before. Presently came two jaded women, a mother and a grandmother,
that appeared, when they crawled out of their beds, to have put on only so
much clothing as the law compelled. They abandoned themselves upon the
green stuff, whatever it was, and, with their lean hands clasped outside
their knees, sat and stared, silent and hopeless, at the eastern sky, at
the heart of the terrible furnace, into which in those days the world
seemed cast to be burnt up, while the child which the younger woman had
brought with her feebly wailed unheeded at her side. On one side of the
women were the shameless houses out of which they might have crept, and
which somehow suggested riotous maritime dissipation; on the other side
were those houses in which had once dwelt rich and famous folk, but which
were now dropping down to the boarding-house scale through various
unhomelike occupations to final dishonor and despair. Down nearer the
water, and not far from the castle that was once a playhouse and is now
the depot of emigration, stood certain express wagons, and about these
lounged a few hard-looking men. Beyond laughed and danced the fresh blue
water of the bay, dotted with sails and smokestacks.

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 | 31