EXERCISES BASED ON PICTURES. Street Scene, Naples.-Stoddard, in his lectures on travel, speaking of Naples says, "This is, indeed, part of the hallowed ground of ancient Italy. The very air seems tremulous with classic memories.” 1. Study this picture. Give your impressions, orally, of this scene. 2. Write a story. Use this scene as the place. Introduce as many characters as you desire. Put interest into your story. 3. "Drifting." Study T. Buchanan Read's poem of this title. It begins with the lines, My soul to-day Is far away, Sailing the Vesuvian Bay. Let a good reader read it or recite it. CHAPTER XVII EFFECTIVE DESCRIPTION The best descriptions are simple and concise. BLAIR. Description Defined. - Description is an effort to convey a picture by means of words. Effective description depends upon (1) clear seeing; (2) a consistent point of view; and (3) the use of a few striking features rather than a long list of uninteresting details. Description does not often occur alone, and as a general thing it is not extended. Its purpose is to ornament and strengthen the speech or writing into which it may be woven. When sparingly used it adds much both to attractiveness and effectiveness. Word Painting. - Description is akin to painting, and the term word painting is sometimes employed with reference to the images produced by good description. How beautiful a picture may be wrought by the skillful use of words, will be seen by a study of Thackeray's much admired description of Beatrix coming down the stairway to meet Henry Esmond, in the novel of that name. From one of these doors, a wax candle in her hand, and illuminating her, came Mistress Beatrix, - the light falling indeed upon the scarlet ribbon which she wore, and upon the most brilliant white neck in the world. Esmond had left a child and found a woman, grown beyond the common height; and arrived at such a dazzling completeness of beauty, that his eyes might well show surprise and delight at beholding her. In hers there was a brightness so lustrous and melting, that I have seen a whole assembly follow her as if by an attraction irresistible; and that night the great Duke was at the playhouse after Ramillies, every soul turned and looked (she chanced to enter at the opposite side of the theater at the same moment) at her, and not at him. She was a brown beauty; that is, her eyes, hair, and eyebrows and eyelashes were dark; her hair curling with rich undulations, and waving over her shoulders; but her complexion was as dazzling white as snow in sunshine; except her cheeks, which were a bright red, and her lips, which were of a still deeper crimson. Her mouth and chin, they said, were too large and full, and so they might be for a goddess in marble, but not for a woman whose eyes were fire, whose look was love, whose voice was the sweetest low song, whose shape was perfect symmetry, health, decision, activity, whose foot as it planted itself on the ground was firm but flexible, and whose motion, whether rapid or slow, was always perfect grace, — agile as a nymph, lofty as a queen, -now melting, now imperious, now sarcastic, there was no single movement of hers but was beautiful. So she came holding her dress with one fair rounded arm, and her taper before her, tripping down the stair to greet Esmond. -The History of Henry Esmond, book ii., chapter vii, Clear Seeing. The first essential in effective description is clear seeing. All great writers and speakers who discuss clear seeing agree in two things. First, that the ability to see any one thing distinctly gives the ability to see everything. And second, that the ability thus to see clearly gives the power to describe it so that others may see the image as clearly as you see it. of human speech ascribe much of their vision. The masters skill to clear Vivid Memory and Imagination. - Akin to ability to see a thing clearly when it is first presented to the mind, is the power of vivid memory and imagination. You should be able to call up at will and hold in the mind a clear vision of the thing described, and pass from part to part of it in an orderly way. This device is especially helpful to the student who aspires to success as an extemporaneous speaker. You will find that you can hold the attention of your audience so long as the thing you are talking about is clearly before your mind in a concrete way, and you can analyze it and pass from part to part, and see the relations clearly. But when this vision goes, you will find that your words, as one gifted speaker expresses it, "become empty and rattling." There is marvelous description in a fragment of six lines, each of which contains a picture of great beauty, the whole making a wonderful series of pictures. How clearly must the poet have seen these pictures, thus to impress them upon our minds. The passage is quoted below. The Eagle He clasps the crag with hooked hands; The wrinkled sea beneath him crawls; Alfred Tennyson La Jacquerie. -The French peasantry in 1358 revolted against the excesses of feudalism. They pillaged castles, murdered their occupants, and committed outrages of all kinds. Here, the mob has broken down the outer doors, killed their defenders, and now stands for the moment abashed at the courage of the mistress of the castle as she stands against them, while endeavoring to encourage the huddling group behind her. It is a glimpse of the storm that burst in all its fury four hundred years later in the French Revolution. Describe what is taking place in the picture. The Point of View. - Next in importance to clear seeing in effective description is the point of view. It may be actual or mental. In the actual, the place from which the writer or speaker views what he is describing is called the |