English: Composition and Literature
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Title: English: Composition and Literature
Author: W. F. Webster
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ENGLISH: COMPOSITION AND LITERATURE
by
W. F. WEBSTER
Principal of the East High School
Minneapolis, Minnesota
Houghton Mifflin Company
Boston: 4 Park Street; New York: 85 Fifth Avenue
Chicago: 378-388 Wabash Avenue
The Riverside Press Cambridge
Copyright, 1900 and 1902, by W. F. Webster
All Rights Reserved
PREFACE
In July, 1898, I presented at the National Educational Association,
convened in Washington, a Course of Study in English. At Los Angeles,
in 1899, the Association indorsed the principles[1] of this course,
and made it the basis of the Course in English for High Schools. At
the request of friends, I have prepared this short text-book,
outlining the method of carrying forward the course, and emphasizing
the principles necessary for the intelligent communication of ideas.
It has not been the purpose to write a rhetoric. The many fine
distinctions and divisions, the rarefied examples of very beautiful
forms of language which a young pupil cannot possibly reproduce, or
even appreciate, have been omitted. To teach the methods of simple,
direct, and accurate expression has been the purpose; and this is all
that can be expected of a high school course in English.
The teaching of composition differs from the teaching of Latin or
mathematics in this point: whereas pupils can be compelled to solve a
definite number of problems or to read a given number of lines, it is
not possible to compel expression of the full thought. The full
thought is made of an intellectual and an emotional element. Whatever
is intellectual may be compelled by dint of sheer purpose; whatever is
emotional must spring undriven by outside authority, and uncompelled
by inside determination. A boy saws a cord of wood because he has been
commanded by his father; but he cannot laugh or cry because directed
to do so by the same authority. There must be the conditions which
call forth smiles or tears. So there must be the conditions which call
forth the full expression of thought, both what is intellectual and
what is emotional. This means that the subject shall be one of which
the writer knows something, and in which he is interested; that the
demands in the composition shall not be made a discouragement; and
that the teacher shall be competent and enthusiastic, inspiring in
each pupil a desire to say truly and adequately the best he thinks and
feels.
These conditions cannot be realized while working with dead fragments
of language; but they are realized while constructing living wholes of
composition. It is not two decades ago when the pupil in drawing was
compelled to make straight lines until he made them all crooked. The
pupil in manual training began by drawing intersecting lines on two
sides of a board; then he drove nails into the intersections on one
side, hoping that they would hit the corresponding points on the
other. Now no single line or exercise is an end in itself; it
contributes to some whole. Under the old method the pupil did not care
or try to draw a straight line, or to drive a nail straight; but now,
in order that he may realize the idea that lies in his mind, he does
care and he does try: so lines are drawn better and nails are driven
straighter than before. In all training that combines intellect and
hand, the principle has been recognized that the best work is done
when the pupil's interest has been enlisted by making each exercise
contribute directly to the construction of some whole. Only in the
range of the spiritual are we twenty years behind time, trying to get
the best construction by compulsion. It is quite time that we
recognized that the best work in composition can be done, not while
the pupil is correcting errors in the use of language which he never
dreamed of, nor while he is writing ten similes or ten periodic
sentences, but when both intellect and feeling combine and work
together to produce some whole. Then into the construction of this
whole the pupil will throw all his strength, using the most apt
comparisons, choosing the best words, framing adequate sentences, in
order that the outward form may worthily present to others what to
himself has appeared worthy of expression.
There are some persons who say that other languages are taught by the
word and sentence method; then why not English? These persons overlook
the fact that we are leaving that method as rapidly as possible, and
adopting a more rational method which at once uses a language to
communicate thought. And they overlook another fact of even greater
importance: the pupil entering the high school is by no means a
beginner in English. He has been using the language ten or twelve
years, and has a fluency of expression in English which he cannot
attain in German throughout a high school and college course. The
conditions under which a pupil begins the study of German in a high
school and the study of English composition are entirely dissimilar;
and a conclusion based upon a fancied analogy is worthless.
It is preferable, then, to practice the construction of wholes rather
than the making of exercises; and it is best at the beginning to study
the different kinds of wholes, one at a time, rather than all
together. No one would attempt to teach elimination by addition and
subtraction, by comparison and by substitution, all together; nor
would an instructor take up heat, light, and electricity together. In
algebra, or physics, certain great principles underlie the whole
subject; and these appear and reappear as the study progresses through
its allied parts. Still the best results are obtained by taking up
these several divisions of the whole one after another. And in English
the most certain and definite results are secured by studying the
forms of discourse separately, learning the method of applying to each
the great principles that underlie all composition.
If the forms of discourse are to be studied one after another, which
shall be taken up first? In general, all composition may be separated
into two divisions: composition which deals with things, including
narration and description; and composition which deals with ideas,
comprising exposition and argument. It needs no argument to justify
the position that an essay which deals with things seen and heard is
easier for a beginner to construct than an essay which deals with
ideas invisible and unheard. Whether narration or description should
precede appears yet to be undetermined; for many text-books treat one
first, and perhaps as many the other. I have thought it wiser to begin
with the short story, because it is easier to gain free, spontaneous
expression with narration than with description. To write a whole page
of description is a task for a master, and very few attempt it; but
for the uninitiated amateur about three sentences of description mark
the limit of his ability to see and describe. To get started, to gain
confidence in one's ability to say something, to acquire freedom and
spontaneity of expression,--this is the first step in the practice of
composition. Afterward, when the pupil has discovered that he really
has something to say,--enough indeed to cover three or four pages of
his tablet paper,--then it may be time to begin the study of
description, and to acquire more careful and accurate forms of
expression. Spontaneity should be acquired first,--crude and unformed
it may be, but spontaneity first; and this spontaneity is best gained
while studying narration.
There can be but little question about the order of the other forms.
Description, still dealing with the concrete, offers an admirable
opportunity for shaping and forming the spontaneous expression gained
in narration. Following description, in order of difficulty, come
exposition and argument.
I should be quite misunderstood, did any one gather from this that
during the time in which wholes are being studied, no attention is to
be given to parts; that is, to paragraphs, sentences, and words. All
things cannot be learned at once and thoroughly; there must be some
order of succession. In the beginning the primary object to be aimed
at is the construction of wholes; yet during their construction, parts
can also be incidentally studied. During this time many errors which
annoy and exasperate must be passed over with but a word, in order
that the weight of the criticism may be concentrated on the point then
under consideration. As a pupil advances, he is more and more
competent to appreciate and to form good paragraphs and well-turned
sentences, and to single out from the multitude of verbal signs the
word that exactly presents his thought. The appreciation and the use
of the stronger as well as the finer and more delicate forms of
language come only with much reading and writing; and to demand
everything at the very beginning is little less than sheer madness.
Moreover there never comes a time when the construction of a
paragraph, the shaping of a phrase, or the choice of a word becomes an
end in itself. Paragraphs, sentences, and words are well chosen when
they serve best the whole composition. He who becomes enamored of one
form of paragraph, who always uses periodic sentences, who chooses
only common words, has not yet recognized that the beauty of a phrase
or a word is determined by its fitness, and that it is most beautiful
because it exactly suits the place it fills. The graceful sweep of a
line by Praxiteles or the glorious radiancy of a color by Angelico is
most beautiful in the place it took from the master's hand. So
Lowell's wealth of figurative language and Stevenson's unerring choice
of delicate words are most beautiful, not when torn from their
original setting to serve as examples in rhetorics, but when
fulfilling their part in a well-planned whole. And it is only as the
beauties of literature are born of the thought that they ever succeed.
No one can say to himself, "I will now make a good simile," and
straightway fulfill his promise. If, however, the thought of a writer
takes fire, and instead of the cold, unimpassioned phraseology of the
logician, glowing images crowd up, and phrases tipped with fire, then
figurative language best suits the thought,--indeed, it is the
thought. But imagery upon compulsion,--never. So that at no time
should one attempt to mould fine phrases for the sake of the phrases
themselves, but he should spare no pains with them when they spring
from the whole, when they harmonize with the whole, and when they give
to the whole added beauty and strength.
It is quite unnecessary at this day to urge the study of literature.
It is in the course of study for every secondary school. Yet a word
may be said of the value of this study to the practice of composition.
There are two classes of artists: geniuses and men of talent. Of
geniuses in literature, one can count the names on his fingers; most
authors are simply men of talent. Talent learns to do by doing, and by
observing how others have done. When Brunelleschi left Rome for
Florence, he had closely observed and had drawn every arch of the
stupendous architecture in that ancient city; and so he was adjudged
by his fellow citizens to be the only man competent to lift the dome
of their Duomo. His observation discovered the secret of Rome's
architectural grandeur; and the slow accumulation of such secrets
marks the development of every art and science. Milton had his method
of writing prose, Macaulay his, and Arnold his,--all different and all
excellent. And just as the architect stands before the cathedrals of
Cologne, Milan, and Salisbury to learn the secret of each; as the
painter searches out the secret of Raphael, Murillo, and Rembrandt; so
the author analyzes the masterpieces of literature to discover the
secret of Irving, of Eliot, and of Burke. Not that an author is to be
a servile imitator of any man's manner; but that, having knowledge of
all the secrets of composition, he shall so be enabled to set forth
for others his own thought in all the beauty and perfection in which
he himself conceives it.
One thing further. A landscape painter would not make a primary study
of Angelo's anatomical drawings; a composer of lyric forms of music
would not study Sousa's marches; nor would a person writing a story
look for much assistance in the arguments of Burke. The most direct
benefit is derived from studying the very thing one wishes to know
about, not from studying something else. That the literature may give
the greatest possible assistance to the composition, the course has
been so arranged that narration shall be taught by Hawthorne and
Irving, description by Ruskin and Stevenson, exposition by Macaulay
and Newman, and argument by Webster and Burke. Literature, arranged in
this manner, is not only a stimulus to renewed effort, by showing what
others have done; it is also the most skillful instructor in the art
of composition, by showing how others have done.
It would be quite impossible for any one at the present time to write
a text-book in English that would not repeat what has already been
said by many others. Nor have I tried to. My purpose has been rather
to select from the whole literature of the subject just those
principles which every author of a book on composition or rhetoric has
thought essential, and to omit minor matters and all those about which
there is a difference of opinion. This limits the contents to topics
already familiar to every teacher. It also makes it necessary to
repeat what has been written before many times. Certain books,
however, have treated special divisions of the whole subject in a
thorough and exhaustive manner. There is nothing new to say of Unity,
Mass, and Coherence; Mr. Wendell said all concerning these in his book
entitled "English Composition." So in paragraph development, Scott and
Denney hold the field. Other books which I have frequently used in the
classroom are "Talks on Writing English," by Arlo Bates, and Genung's
"Practical Rhetoric." These books I have found very helpful in
teaching, and I have drawn upon them often while writing this
text-book.
If the field has been covered, then why write a book at all? The
answer is that the principles which are here treated have not been put
into one book. They may be found in several. These essentials I have
repeated many times with the hope that they will be fixed by this
frequent repetition. The purpose has been to focus the attention upon
these, to apply them in the construction of the different forms of
discourse, paragraphs, and sentences, and to repeat them until it is
impossible for a student to forget them. If the book fulfils this
purpose, it was worth writing.
Acknowledgments are due to Messrs. Charles Scribner's Sons for their
kind permission to use the selections from the writings of Robert
Louis Stevenson contained in this book; also, to Messrs. D. Appleton &
Co., The Century Co., and Doubleday & McClure Co. for selections from
the writings of Rudyard Kipling.
W. F. WEBSTER.
MINNEAPOLIS, 1900.
CONTENTS
Chapter I.--Forms of Discourse
Composition 1
English Composition 1
Composition, Written and Oral 2
Conventions of Composition 2
Five Forms of Discourse 3
Definitions 4
Difficulty in distinguishing 4
Purpose of the Author 6
Chapter II.--Choice of Subject
Form and Material 8
Author's Individuality 8
Knowledge of Subject 9
Common Subjects 10
Interest 11
The Familiar 11
Human Life 12
The Strange 12
Chapter III.--Narration
Material of Narration 13
In Action 14
The Commonest Form of Discourse 14
Language as a Means of Expression 15
Without Plot 15
Plot 16
Unity, Mass, and Coherence 20
Main Incident 20
Its Importance 21
Unity 21
Introductions and Conclusions 23
Tedious Enumerations 23
What to include 24
Consistency 25
An Actor as the Story-teller 26
The Omniscience of an Author 27
The Climax 28
Who? Where? When? Why? 29
In what Order? 29
An Outline 32
Movement 32
Rapidity 32
Slowness 33
Description and Narration 34
Characters few, Time short 35
Simple Plot 36
Suggestive Questions and Exercises 38
Chapter IV.--Description
Difficulties of Language for making Pictures 49
Painting and Sculpture 50
Advantages of Language 50
Enumeration and Suggestion 52
Enumerative Description 54
Suggestive Description 55
Value of Observation 55
The Point of View 56
Moving Point of View 58
The Point of View should be stated 58
Mental Point of View 59
Length of Descriptions 63
Arrangement of Details in Description 64
The End of a Description 70
Proportion 73
Arrangement must be natural 74
Use Familiar Images 75
Simile, Metaphor, Personification 77
Choice of Words. Adjectives and Nouns 78
Use of Verbs 79
Suggestive Questions and Exercises 81
Chapter V.--Exposition
General Terms difficult 89
Definition 91
Exposition and Description distinguished 91
Logical Definition 91
Genus and Differentia 92
Requisites of a Good Definition 93
How do Men explain? First, by Repetition 94
Second, by telling the obverse 95
Third, by Details 96
Fourth, by Illustrations 97
Fifth, by Comparisons 98
The Subject 99
The Subject should allow Concrete Treatment 100
The Theme 100
The Title 102
Selection of Material 102
Scale of Treatment 104
Arrangement 108
Use Cards for Subdivisions 108
An Outline 109
Mass the End 110
The Beginning 112
Proportion in Treatment 114
Emphasis of Emotion 115
Phrases indicating Emphasis 116
Coherence 116
Transition Phrases 118
Summary and Transition 119
Suggestive Questions and Exercises 121
Chapter VI.--Argument
Induction and Deduction 129
Syllogism Premises 129
Terms 129
Enthymeme 130
Definition of Terms 130
Undistributed Middle 131
False Premises 131
Method of Induction 132
Arguments from Cause 133
Arguments from Sign 134
Sequence and Cause 135
Arguments from Example 137
Selection of Material 138
Plan called The Brief 138
Climax 139
Inductive precedes Deductive 140
Cause precedes Sign 140
Example follows Sign 141
Refutation 141
Analysis of Burke's Oration 142
Suggestive Questions 148
Chapter VII.--Paragraphs
Definition 151
Long and Short Paragraphs 151
Topic Sentence 157
No Topic Sentence 161
The Plan 162
Kinds of Paragraphs 163
Details 163
Comparisons 165
Repetition 167
Obverse 169
Examples 171
Combines Two or More Forms 173
Unity 173
Need of Outline 174
Mass 174
What begins and what ends a Paragraph? 175
Length of opening and closing Sentences 178
Proportion 179
Coherence and Clearness 180
Two Arrangements of Sentences in a Paragraph 181
Definite References 187
Use of Pronouns 188
Of Conjunctions 190
Parallel Constructions 192
Summary 195
Suggestive Questions 196
Chapter VIII.--Sentences
Definition and Classification. Simple Sentences 200
Compound Sentences 200
Short Sentences 204
Long Sentences 204
Unity 205
Mass 207
End of a Sentence 208
Effect of Anti-climax 210
Use of Climax 211
Loose and Periodic 212
The Period 212
Periodic and Loose combined 214
Which shall be used? 215
Emphasis by Change of Order 217
Subdue Unimportant Elements 219
The Dynamic Point of a Sentence 221
Good Use 223
Clearness gained by Coherence 224
Parallel Construction 226
Balanced Sentences 227
Use of Connectives 228
Suggestive Questions 231
Chapter IX.--Words
Need of a Large Vocabulary 236
Dictionary 237
Study of Literature 238
Vulgarisms are not reputable 240
Slang is not reputable 240
Words must be National. Provincialisms 242
Technical and Bookish Words 242
Foreign Words 243
Words in Present Use 244
Words in their Present Meaning 245
Words of Latin and Saxon Origin 245
General and Specific 248
Use Words that suggest most 249
Synecdoche, Metonymy 250
Care in Choice of Specific Words 250
Avoid Hackneyed Phrases 253
"Fine Writing" 253
In Prose avoid Poetical Words 254
Chapter X.--Figures of Speech
Figurative Language 257
Figures based upon Likeness 259
Metaphor 260
Epithet 260
Personification 260
Apostrophe 261
Allegory 261
Simile 261
Figures based upon Sentence Structure 262
Inversion 262
Exclamation 262
Interrogation 262
Climax 262
Irony 262
Metonymy 263
Synecdoche 263
Allusion 263
Hyperbole 263
Exercises in Figures 264
Chapter XI.--Verse Forms
Singing Verse 269
Poetic Feet 272
Kinds of Metre 273
Stanzas 275
Scansion 276
Variations in Metres 276
First and Last Foot 281
Kinds of Poetry 284
Exercises in Metres 286
APPENDIX
A. Suggestions to Teachers 293
B. The Form of a Composition 296
C. Marks for Correction of Compositions 300
D. Punctuation 301
E. Supplementary List of Literature 309
A COURSE OF STUDY
IN LITERATURE AND COMPOSITION
The Course of Study which follows is presented, not because it is
better than many others which might be made. For the purposes of this
book it was necessary that some course be adopted as the basis of the
text. The principles which guided in arranging this course I believe
are sound; but the preferences of teachers and the peculiarities of
environment will often make it wise to use other selections from
literature. Of this a large "supplementary list" is given at the back
of the book.
It is now a generally accepted truth that the study of English should
continue through the four years of a high-school course. The division
of time that seems best is to take Narration and Description in the
first year. In connection with Description, Figures of Speech should
be studied. The next year, Exposition and Paragraphs form the major
part of the work. This may be pleasantly broken by a study of Poetry,
following the outline in the chapter on Verse Forms. In the third
year, while the work in literature is mainly the Novel and the Drama,
Sentences and Words should be studied in composition, with a review of
the chapters on Narration and Description. Towards the close of the
year, Exposition should be reviewed and the study of Argument taken
up. The fourth year should be devoted to the study of such College
Requirements as have not been taken in the course, and to the study of
the History of English Literature as given in some good text book.
In some instances, it will be found impossible to give so much time to
the study of English. In such cases, the amount of literature to be
studied should be decreased, and the work in the text book should be
more rapidly done. The sequence of the parts should remain the same,
but the time should be modified to suit the needs of any special
environment.
NARRATION.
Composition.
_To give Spontaneity._
I. External Form of Composition (p. 296).
II. Marks for the Correction of Compositions (p. 300).
III. Simple Rules for Punctuation (pp. 301-309).
IV. Forms of Discourse. Definitions (pp. 1-7).
V. Choice of Subject (pp. 8-12).
VI. Study of Narration (pp. 13-48).
a. Definition and General Discussion.
b. Narration without Plot.
Interest the Essential Feature.
c. Narration with Plot.
1. Selection of Main Incident of first Importance.
It gives to the story
Unity,
ridding it of
Long Introductions and Conclusions,
Tedious Enumerations, and
Irrelevant Details.
2. Arrangement of Material.
Close of Story contains Main Incident.
Opening of Story contains Characters, Place, and Time.
Incidents generally follow in Order of Time.
3. Movement.
4. Use of Description in Narration.
5. Some General Considerations.
Literature.
The Great Stone Face, The Gentle Boy, The Gray Champion, Roger
Malvin's Burial, and other Stories. _Hawthorne._
Tales of a Wayside Inn. _Longfellow._
The Gold Bug. _Poe._
Marmion, or The Lady of the Lake. _Scott._
A Christmas Carol, or The Cricket on the Hearth. _Dickens._
The Vision of Sir Launfal, and other Narrative Poems. _Lowell._
An Incident of the French Camp, Herve Riel, The Pied Piper, How they
brought the Good News from Ghent to Aix. _Browning._
Meaning of the Author, calling for
A Study of Words.
Outline of Story.
Turning Points in the Story.
Central Idea, or Purpose of the Story.
Method of the Author.
Is there a Main Incident?
Do all other Incidents converge to it?
Is the Order a Sequence of Time alone?
Is the Interest centred in Characters or Plot?
Style of the Author.
Compare the Works of the Author.
DESCRIPTION.
Composition.
_To secure Accuracy of Expression_ (pp. 49-88).
I. Definition and General Discussion.
Difficulties in Language as a Means of Picturing.
Value of Observation.
II. Structure of Whole.
a. To secure Unity.
Select a Point of View.
b. To secure Coherence.
Arrange Details in Natural Order.
c. To secure Emphasis.
Arrange and proportion Treatment to effect your Purpose.
III. Paragraph Structure.
Definition.
Length of Paragraphs.
Development of Paragraphs.
IV. Words.
Specific rather than General.
Adjectives, Nouns, and Verbs.
V. Figures Of Speech (pp. 257-268).
Based on Likeness.
Based on Sentence Structure.
Miscellaneous Figures.
Literature.
The Old Manse, The Old Apple Dealer. _Hawthorne._
An Indian-Summer Reverie, The Dandelion, The Birch, The Oak, and other
Descriptive Poems. _Lowell._
The Fall of the House of Usher. _Poe._
The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, Selections from the Sketch Book. _Irving._
Selections from Childe Harold. _Byron._
The Deserted Village. _Goldsmith._
Julius Caesar. _Shakespeare._
Poems selected from Palgrave's Golden Treasury.
Meaning of the Author (as under Narration).
Method of the Author.
Does the Author keep his Point of View?
Are the Details arranged in a Natural Order?
Has any Detail a Supreme Importance?
Are the Details treated in Proper Proportion?
Has the Whole a Unity of Effect? Do you see the Picture
distinctly?
For what Purpose has the Author used Description?
Does the Author employ Figures?
Style of the Author.
EXPOSITION, PARAGRAPHS, VERSE FORMS.
Composition.
_To encourage Logical Thinking and Adequate Expression_
(pp. 89-127).
_Exposition._
I. Definition and General Considerations.
II. Exposition of Terms. Definition.
III. Exposition of Propositions.
a. Clear Statement of the Proposition in a "Key Sentence."
This will limit
b. The Discussion.
1. What shall be included?
2. What shall be excluded?
3. How shall Important Matters be emphasized?
Mass and Proportion.
Expansion and Condensation.
To effect these ends use an
4. Outline.
_Paragraphs_ (pp. 151-199).
I. Definition.
II. Length of Paragraphs.
III. Development of Paragraphs.
IV. Principles of Structure.
Unity.
Mass.
Coherence.
_Verse Forms_ (pp. 269-291).
Poetry Defined.
Kinds of Feet.
Number of Feet in a Verse.
Substitutions and Rests.
Kinds of Poetry.
Literature.
Essay on Milton. _Macaulay._
Essay on Addison. _Macaulay._
Commemoration Ode. _Lowell._
The Rime of the Ancient Mariner. _Coleridge._
Intimations of Immortality, and other Poems. _Wordsworth._
Selections from Palgrave's Golden Treasury.
The Bunker Hill Oration, or Adams and Jefferson. _Webster._
Sesame and Lilies. _Ruskin._
Meaning of the Author.
Outline showing the Main Thesis with the Dependence
of Subordinate Propositions.
Method of the Author.
Does he hold to his Point and so gain Unity
Does he arrange his Material so as to secure Emphasis?
Does one Paragraph grow out of another?
Does each Paragraph treat a Single Topic?
Are the Sentences dovetailed together?
Does the Author use Figures?
Are the Figures Effective?
Are his Words General or Specific?
Style of the Author.
Is it Clear?
Has it Force?
Is the Diction Elegant?
How has he gained these Ends?
SENTENCES, WORDS, ARGUMENT.
Composition.
_Sentences_ (pp. 200-234).
I. Definition and Classification.
II. Principles of Structure.
a. Unity.
b. Mass.
1. Prominent Positions in a Sentence.
2. Periodic Sentences.
3. Loose Sentences.
c. Coherence.
1. Parallel Constructions.
2. Connectives.
_Words_ (pp. 235-256).
Reputable Words.
Latin or Saxon Words.
General or Specific.
Figures of Speech.
The One Rule for the Use of Words.
_Narration and Description Reviewed._
_Exposition Reviewed._
Literature.
_Argument_ (pp. 128-150).
I. Kinds of Argument.
II. Order of Arguments.
III. Refutation.
Sir Roger de Coverley Papers. _Addison._
The Vicar of Wakefield. _Goldsmith._
Silas Marner. _Eliot._
Ivanhoe. _Scott._
Macbeth, The Merchant of Venice, A Midsummer Night's Dream.
_Shakespeare._
Conciliation with the Colonies. _Burke._
COMPOSITION.
In the last year of the course, the compositions should be such as
will test the maturer powers of the pupil. They should be written
under the careful supervision of the teacher. They should be of all
forms of discourse, and the subjects should be drawn from the subjects
of study in the high school, especially from the literature.
LITERATURE.
_Difficult Selections._
L'Allegro, Il Penseroso, Comus, and Lycidas. _Milton._
Paradise Lost. Two Books. _Milton._
Essay on Burns. _Carlyle._
In Memoriam, The Princess, and other Poems. _Tennyson._
Selections. _Browning._
Selections. _Emerson._
A History of English Literature
* * * * *
ENGLISH:
COMPOSITION AND LITERATURE
CHAPTER I
FORMS OF DISCOURSE
Composition.
Composition, from the Latin words _con,_ meaning together, and
_ponere,_ meaning to place, signifies a placing together, a grouping
or arrangement of objects or of ideas. This arrangement is generally
made so that it will produce a desired result. Speaking accurately,
the putting together is the composition. Much of the desired result is
gained by care in the selection of materials. Placing together a
well-worn book, a lamp, and a pair of heavy bowed spectacles makes a
suggestive picture. The selection and grouping of these objects is
spoken of as the composition of the picture. So in music, an author
composes, when he groups certain musical tones and phrases so that
they produce a desired effect. In literature, too, composition is,
strictly speaking, the selection and arrangement of materials, whether
the incidents of a story or the details of a description, to fulfill a
definite purpose.
English Composition.
In practice, however, English composition has come to include more
than the selection and arrangement of the materials,--incidents,
objects, or ideas, as the case may be; the term has been extended to
include the means by which the speaker or writer seeks to convey this
impression to other persons. As a painter must understand drawing, the
value of lights and shades, and the mixing of colors before he can
successfully reproduce for others the idea he has to express, so the
artist in literature needs a knowledge of elementary grammar and of
the simpler usages of language in order clearly to represent to others
the idea which lies in his own mind. As commonly understood, then,
_English composition_ may be defined as _the art of selecting,
arranging, and communicating ideas by means of the English language._
Composition, Written and Oral.
The term "English composition" is now generally understood to mean
written composition, and not oral composition. At first thought they
seem to be the same thing. So far as the selection and arrangement of
matter is concerned, they are the same. Moreover, both use words, and
both employ sentences; but here the likeness ends. If sentences should
be put upon paper exactly as they were spoken, in most instances they
would not convey to a reader the same thought they conveyed to a
listener. It is much more exacting to express the truth one wishes to
convey, by silent, featureless symbols than by that wonderful organ of
communication, the human voice. Now, if to the human voice be added
eyes, features, gestures, and pose, we easily understand the great
advantage a speaker has over a writer.
Conventions of Composition.
Moreover, there are imposed upon a writer certain established rules
which he must follow. He must spell words correctly, and he must use
correctly marks of punctuation. These things need not annoy a speaker;
yet they are conditions which must be obeyed by a writer. A man who
eats with a knife may succeed in getting his food to his mouth, yet
certain conventions exclude such a person from polite society. So in
composition, it is possible for a person to make himself understood,
though he write "alright" instead of "all right," and never use a
semicolon; still, such a person could hardly be considered a highly
cultured writer. To express one's thoughts correctly and with
refinement requires absolute obedience to the common conventions of
good literature.
The study of composition includes, first, the careful selection of
materials and their effective arrangement; and second, a knowledge of
the established conventions of literature: of spelling; of the common
uses of the marks of punctuation,--period, question mark, exclamation
point, colon, semicolon, comma; of the common idioms of our language;
and of the elements of its grammar. From the beginning of the high
school course, the essay, the paragraph, the sentence, the word, are
to be studied with special attention to the effective use of each in
adequately communicating ideas.
Five Forms of Discourse.
All written composition may be arranged in two classes, or groups. The
first group will include all composition that deals with actual
happenings and real things; the second, all that deals with abstract
thoughts and spiritual ideas. The first will include narration and
description; the second, exposition, argument, and persuasion. All
literature, then, may be separated into five classes,--narration,
description, exposition, argument, and persuasion.
Narration tells what things do; description tells how things look.
Narration deals with occurrences; description deals with appearances.
Exposition defines a term, or explains a proposition; argument proves
the truth or falsity of a proposition; persuasion urges to action upon
a proposition. Exposition explains; argument convinces; persuasion
arouses. These are the broad lines of distinction which separate the
five forms of discourse.
Definitions.
_Narration is that form of discourse which recounts events in a
sequence._ It includes stories, novels, romances, biographies, some
books of travel, and some histories.
_Description is that form of discourse which aims to present a
picture._ It seldom occurs alone, but it is usually found in
combination with the other forms of discourse.
_Exposition is that form of discourse which seeks to explain a term or
a proposition._ Text-books, books of information, theses, most
histories, many magazine articles, and newspaper leaders are of this
class of literature.
_Argument is that form of discourse which has for its object the proof
of the truth or falsity of a proposition._
_Persuasion is that form of discourse the purpose of which is to
influence the will._
Difficulty in distinguishing.
Though these definitions seem to set apart the great classes of
literature, and to insure against any danger of confusion, it is not
always easy to place individual pieces of literature in one of these
divisions. Whittier's "Barbara Frietchie" and Stevenson's "Treasure
Island" are narrative beyond any question; but what about "Snow-Bound"
and "Travels with a Donkey" by the same authors? Are they narration or
description? In them the narrative and descriptive portions are so
nearly equal that one hesitates to set them down to either class; the
reader is constantly called from beautiful pictures to delightful
stories. The narrative can easily be separated from the descriptive
portions; but when this has been done, has it been decided whether the
whole piece is narration or description?
When a person takes up the other forms of discourse, the difficulty
becomes still greater. Description and narration are frequently used
in exposition. If a boy should be asked to explain the working of a
steam engine, he would, in all likelihood, begin with a description of
an engine. If his purpose was to explain how an engine works, and was
not to tell how an engine looks, the whole composition would be
exposition. So, too, it is often the easiest way to explain what one
means by telling a story. The expression of such thoughts would be
exposition, although it might contain a number of stories and
descriptions.
Narration and description may be found in a piece of exposition; and
all three may be employed in argument. If a person should wish to
prove the dangers of intemperance, he might enforce his proof by a
story, or by a description of the condition of the nervous system
after a drunken revel. And one does not need to do more than explain
the results of intemperance to a sensible man to prove to him that he
should avoid all excesses. The explanation alone is argument enough
for such a person. Still, is such an explanation exposition or
argument? If the man cared nothing about convincing another that there
are dangers in intemperance, did not wish to prove that the end of
intemperance is death and dishonor, the composition is as much
exposition as the explanation of a steam engine. If, on the other
hand, he explained these results in order to convince another that he
should avoid intemperance, then the piece is argument.
Persuasion introduces a new element into composition; for, while
exposition and argument are directed to a man's reason, persuasion is
addressed to the emotions and the will. Its purpose is to arouse to
action. One can readily imagine that a simple explanation of the evils
of intemperance might be quite enough to convince a man that its
dangers are truly great,--so great that he would determine to fight
these evils with all his strength. In such a case explanation alone
has convinced him; and it has aroused him to do something. Is the
piece exposition, or argument, or persuasion? Here, as before, the
answer is found in the purpose of the author. If he intended only to
explain, the piece is exposition; if to convince, it is argument; if
to arouse to action, it belongs to the literature of persuasion.
It must now be plain that few pieces of literature are purely one form
of discourse. The forms are mingled in most of our literature. Hardly
a story can be found that does not contain some descriptions; and a
description of any considerable length is sure to contain some
narrative portions. So, too, narration and description are often found
in exposition, argument, and persuasion; and these last three forms
are frequently combined.
Purpose of the Author.
It must also be evident that the whole piece of literature will best
be classified by discovering the purpose of the author. If his purpose
is simply to tell a good story, his work is narration; if the purpose
is merely to place a picture before the reader's mind, it is
description; if to explain conditions and nothing more, it is
exposition; if to prove to the reason the truth or falsity of a
proposition, it is argument; while, if the writer addresses himself to
the emotions and the will, no matter whether he tells anecdotes or
paints lurid pictures, explains conditions or convinces of the dangers
of the present course,--if he does all these to urge the reader to do
something, the composition belongs to the literature of persuasion.
The five forms of discourse are most easily distinguished by
discovering the purpose of the author.
One addition should be made. Few novels are written in which there is
nothing more than a story. Nearly all contain some teaching; and it is
a safe conclusion that the authors have taught "on purpose." In "Baa,
Baa, Black Sheep," Kipling has shown the imperative necessity of a
"real, live, lovely mamma;" in "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow," Irving
has placed before us a charming picture of rural life in a dreamy
Dutch village on the Hudson; and in his "Christmas Carol," Dickens
shows plainly that happiness is not bought and sold even in London,
and that the only happy man is he who shares with another's need. Yet
all of these, and the hundreds of their kind, whatever the purpose of
the authors when writing them, belong to the "story" or "novel" class.
The purpose _in telling_ the story is secondary to the purpose _to
tell_ a story. They are to be classified as narration.
English composition, then, is a study of the selection and arrangement
of ideas, and of the methods of using the English language to
communicate them. All composition is divided into five great classes.
These classes have broad lines of distinction, which are most easily
applied by determining the purpose of the author.
* * * * *
CHAPTER II
CHOICE OF SUBJECT
Form and Material.
From the considerations in the preceding chapter may be derived
several principles regarding the choice of subject. If the composition
is to be narrative, it should be upon a subject that readily lends
itself to narrative form. One can tell a story about "A Day's Hunt" or
"What We did Hallowe'en;" but it would try one's powers of imagination
to write a story of "A Tree" or "A Chair." The latter subjects do not
lend themselves to narration, but they may be described. Josiah P.
Cooke has written a brilliant exposition of "Fire" in "The New
Chemistry;" yet a young person would be foolish to take "Fire" as a
subject for exposition, though he might easily write a good
description of "How the Fire looked from My Window," or narrate "How a
Fireman rescued My Sister." So in all work in composition, _select a
subject that readily lends itself to the form of discourse demanded;
or, conversely, select the form of discourse suitable for presenting
most effectively your material._
Author's Individuality.
If an author is writing for other purposes than for conscious
practice, he should choose the form of discourse in which he can best
work, and to which he can best shape his material. Some men tell
stories well; others are debaters; while yet others are wonderfully
gifted with eloquence. Emerson understood life thoroughly. He knew
man's feelings, his motives, his hopes, his strength, his weakness;
yet one cannot imagine Emerson shaping this material into a novel. But
just a little way down the road lived a wizard who could transmute the
commonest events of this workaday world to the most beautiful shapes;
no one wishes that Hawthorne had written essays. The second principle
guiding in the choice of a subject is this: _Select a subject which is
suited to your peculiar ability as an author._
Knowledge of Subject.
The form, then, should suit the matter; and it should be the form in
which the author can work. There is a third principle that should
guide in the choice of a subject. _It should be a subject of which the
author knows something._ Pupils often exclaim, "What can I write
about!" as if they were expected to find something new to write. An
exercise in composition has not for its object the proclaiming of any
new and unheard-of thing; it is an exercise in the expression of
things already known. Even when the subject is known, the treatment
offers difficulties enough. It is not true that what is thoroughly
understood is easily explained. Many excellent scholars have written
very poor text-books because they had not learned the art of
expression. A necessary antecedent of all good composition is a full
and accurate knowledge of the subject; and even when one knows all
about it, the clear expression of the thought will be difficult
enough.
To demand accurate knowledge of the subject before an author begins
work upon it narrows the field from which themes may be drawn.
Burroughs is an authority on all the tenants of our groves;
"Wake-Robin," "Pepacton," and his other books all show a master's
certain hand. So Stedman is an authority in matters relating to
literature. But Burroughs and Stedman alike would find difficulty in
writing an essay on "Electricity in the Treatment of Nervous
Diseases." They do not know about it. A boy in school probably knows
something of fishing; of this he can write. A girl can tell of "The
Last Parlor Concert." Both could write very entertainingly of their
"First Algebra Recitation;" neither could write a convincing essay on
"The Advantages of Free Trade."
Common Subjects.
This will seem to limit the list of subjects to the commonplace. The
fact is that in a composition exercise the purpose is not to startle
the world with some new thing; it is to learn the art of expression.
And here in the region of common things, things thoroughly understood,
every bit of effort can be given to the manner of expression. The
truth is, it does not require much art to make a book containing new
and interesting material popular; the matter in the book carries it in
spite of poor composition. Popular it may be, but popularity is not
immortality. Columns of poorly written articles upon "Dewey" and "The
Philippines" have been eagerly read by thousands of Americans; it
would require a literary artist of great power to write a one-column
article on "Pigs" so that it would be eagerly read by thousands. Real
art in composition is much more manifest when an author takes a common
subject and treats it in such a way that it glows with new life.
Richard Le Gallienne has written about a drove of pigs so beautifully
that one forgets all the traditions about these common animals.[2]
Choose common subjects, then,--subjects that allow every particle of
your strength to go into the manner of saying what you already know.
The requirement that the subject shall be common does not mean that
the subject shall be trivial. "Sliding to First," "How Billy won the
Game," with all of this class of subjects, at once put the writer into
a trifling, careless attitude toward his work. The subjects themselves
seem to call forth a cheap, slangy vocabulary and the vulgar phrases
of sporting life. An equally common subject could be selected which
would call forth serious, earnest effort. If a boy knew nothing except
about ball games, it would be advisable for him to write upon this
subject. Such a condition is hardly possible in a high school. _Choose
common subjects, but subjects that call for earnest thinking and
dignified expression._
Interest.
Interest is another consideration in the choice of a subject. It
applies equally to writer and reader. _Choose subjects that are
interesting._ Not only must an author know about the subject; he must
be interested in it. A pupil may have accurate knowledge of the uses
of a semicolon; but he would not be likely to succeed in a paragraph
about semicolons, largely because he is not much interested in
semicolons. This matter of interest is so important that it is well to
know what things all persons, authors and readers alike, are
interested in. What, then, is generally interesting?
The Familiar.
First, _the familiar is interesting._ When reading a newspaper each
one instinctively turns to the local column, or glances down the
general news columns to see if there is anything from his home town.
To a former resident, Jim Benson's fence in Annandale is more
interesting than the bronze doors of the Congressional Library in
Washington. For the same reason a physician lights upon "a new cure
for consumption," a lawyer devours Supreme Court decisions, while the
dealer in silks is absorbed in the process of making silk without the
aid of the silkworm. Each is interested in that which to him is most
familiar.
Human Life.
Second, _human life in all its phases is interesting._ The account of
a fire or of a railroad accident takes on a new interest when, in
addition to the loss of property, there has been a loss of life. War
is horribly fascinating, not so much because there is a wanton
destruction of property, as because it involves the slaughter of men.
Stories about trees and animals are usually failures, unless handled
by artists who breathe into them the life of man. Andersen's
"Tannenbaum" and Kipling's "Jungle Books" are intensely interesting
because in them trees and animals feel and act just as men do.
The Strange.
Third, _the romantic, the unique, and the impossible are interesting._
A new discovery, a new invention, a people of which little is
known,--anything new is interesting. The stories of Rider Haggard and
Jules Verne have been popular because they deal with things which eye
hath not seen. This peculiar trait of man allows him to relish a good
fish story, or the latest news from the sea-serpent. Just for the same
reason, children love to hear of Little Red Riding Hood and
Cinderella. Children and their parents are equally interested in those
things which are entirely outside of their own experience.
These, then, are the general conditions which govern the choice of a
subject. It shall easily lend itself to the form of discourse chosen;
it shall be suited to the peculiar ability of the author; it shall be
thoroughly understood by the author,--common, but not trivial; it
shall be interesting to both reader and author.
* * * * *
CHAPTER III
NARRATION
Material of Narration.
Narration has been defined as the form of discourse which recounts
events in a sequence. It includes not only letters, journals, memoirs,
biographies, and many histories, but, in addition, that great body of
literature which people generally include in the comprehensive term of
"stories."
If this body of literature be examined, it will be found that it deals
with things as opposed to ideas; incidents as opposed to propositions.
Sometimes, it is true, the author of a story is in reality dealing
with ideas. In the fable about "The Hare and the Tortoise," the
tortoise stands for the idea of slow, steady plodding; while the hare
is the representative of quick wits which depend on their ability to
show a brilliant burst of speed when called upon. The fable teaches
better than an essay can that the dullness which perseveres will
arrive at success sooner than brilliancy of mind which wastes its time
in doing nothing to the purpose. Andersen's "Ugly Duckling," Ruskin's
"King of the Golden River," and Lowell's "Sir Launfal" stand for deep
spiritual ideas, which we understand better for this method of
presentation. In an allegory like "Pilgrim's Progress," the passions
and emotions, the sins and weaknesses of men are treated as if they
were real persons. Ideas are represented by living, breathing persons;
and we may say that all such narratives deal, not with ideas, but, for
want of a better word, with things.
In Action.
Not only does narration deal with things, but with things doing
something. Things inactive might be written of, but this would be
description. It is necessary in narration that the things be in an
active mood; that something be doing. "John struck James," then, is a
narrative sentence; it tells that John has been doing something.
Still, this one sentence would not ordinarily be accepted as
narration. For narration there must be a series, a sequence of
individual actions. _Recounting events in a sequence is narration._
The Commonest Form of Discourse.
Narration is the most popular form of discourse. Between one fourth
and one third of all books published are stories; and more than one
half of the books issued by public libraries belong to the narrative
class. Such a computation does not include the large number of stories
read in our papers and magazines. In addition to being the most
popular form of discourse, it is the most natural. It is the first
form of connected discourse of the child; it is the form employed by
the uncultured in giving his impressions; it is the form most used in
conversation. Moreover, narration is the first form found in great
literatures: the Iliad and the Odyssey, the songs of the troubadours
in France, and the minnesingers in Germany, the chronicles and ballads
of England,--all are narrative.
Language as a Means of Expression.
Narration is especially suited to the conditions imposed by language.
Men do not think in single words, but in groups of words,--phrases,
clauses, and sentences. In hearing, too, men do not consider the
individual words; the mind waits until a group of words, a phrase, or
a simple sentence perhaps,--which expresses a unit of thought, has
been uttered. In narration these groups of words follow in a sequence
exactly as the actions which they represent do. Take this rather lurid
bit from Stevenson:--
"He dropped his cutlass as he jumped, and when he felt the
pistol, whipped straight round and laid hold of me, roaring
out an oath; and at the same time either my courage came
again, or I grew so much afraid as came to the same thing;
for I gave a shriek and shot him in the midst of the body."
("Kidnapped.")
Each phrase or clause here is a unit of thought, and each follows the
others in the same order as the events they tell of occurred. On the
other hand, when one attempts description, and exposition too in many
cases, he realizes the great difficulties imposed by the language
itself; for in these forms of discourse the author not infrequently
wishes to put the whole picture before the reader at once, or to set
out several propositions at the same time, as belonging to one general
truth. In order that the reader may get the complete picture or the
complete thought, he must hold in mind often a whole paragraph before
he unites it into the one conception the author intended. In narration
one action is completed; it can be dropped. Then another follows,
which can also be dropped. They need not be held in mind until the
paragraph is finished. Narration is exactly suited to the means of its
communication. The events which are recorded, and the sentences which
record them, both follow in a sequence.
Without Plot.
The sequence of events in narration may be a simple sequence of time,
in which case the narrative is without plot. This is the form of
narration employed in newspapers in giving the events of the day. It
is used in journals, memoirs, biographies, and many elementary
histories. It makes little demand upon an author further than that he
shall say clearly something that is interesting. Interesting it must
be, if the author wishes it to be read; readers will not stay over
dull material. Newspapers and magazines look out for interesting
material, and it is for the matter in them that they are read. So
memoirs and biographies are read, not to find out what happens at
last,--that is known,--but to pick up information concerning an
interesting subject.
Plot.
Or the sequence may be a more subtle and binding relation of cause and
effect. This is the sequence employed in stories. One thing happens
because another thing has happened. Generally the sequence of time and
the sequence of cause and effect correspond; for effects come after
causes. When, however, more than one cause is introduced, or when some
cause is at work which the author hides until he can most
advantageously produce it, or when an effect is held back for purposes
of creating interest, the events may not be related exactly in the
order in which they occurred. When any sequence is introduced in
addition to the simple sequence of time, or when the time sequence is
disturbed for the purpose of heightening interest, there is an
arrangement of the parts which is generally termed plot.
Plot is a term difficult to define. We feel, however, that Grant's
"Memoirs" have no plot, and we feel just as sure that "King Lear" has
a plot. So, too, we say that "Robinson Crusoe" has little, almost no
plot; that the plot is simple in "Treasure Island," and that "Les
Miserables" has an intricate plot. A plot seems to demand more than a
mere succession of events. _Any arrangement of the parts of a
narrative so that the reader's interest is aroused concerning the
result of the series of events detailed is a plot._
It often occurs that a book which, as a whole, is without a plot,
contains incidents which have a plot. In "Travels with a Donkey," by
Stevenson, no one cares for the plot of the whole book,--in fact there
is none; yet the reader is interested in the purchase of the "neat and
high bred" Modestine up to the "last interview with Father Adam in a
billiard-room at the witching hour of dawn, when I administered the
brandy." This incident has a plot. The following is a paragraph from
"An Autumn Effect" by Mr. Stevenson. The simple events are perfectly
ordered, and there is a delightful surprise at the end. This paragraph
has a plot. Yet the thirty pages of "An Autumn Effect" could not be
said to have a plot.
"Bidding good-morning to my fellow-traveler, I left the road
and struck across country. It was rather a revelation to
pass from between the hedgerows and find quite a bustle on
the other side, a great coming and going of school-children
upon by-paths, and, in every second field, lusty horses and
stout country-folk a-ploughing. The way I followed took me
through many fields thus occupied, and through many strips
of plantation, and then over a little space of smooth turf,
very pleasant to the feet, set with tall fir-trees and
clamorous with rooks, making ready for the winter, and so
back again into the quiet road. I was now not far from the
end of my day's journey. A few hundred yards farther, and,
passing through a gap in the hedge, I began to go down hill
through a pretty extensive tract of young beeches. I was
soon in shadow myself, but the afternoon sun still colored
the upmost boughs of the wood, and made a fire over my head
in the autumnal foliage. A little faint vapor lay among the
slim tree-stems in the bottom of the hollow; and from
farther up I heard from time to time an outburst of gross
laughter, as though clowns were making merry in the bush.
There was something about the atmosphere that brought all
sights and sounds home to one with a singular purity, so
that I felt as if my senses had been washed with water.
After I had crossed the little zone of mist, the path began
to remount the hill; and just as I, mounting along with it,
had got back again from the head downwards, into the thin
golden sunshine, I saw in front of me a donkey tied to a
tree. Now, I have a certain liking for donkeys, principally,
I believe, because of the delightful things that Sterne has
written of them. But this was not after the pattern of the
ass at Lyons. He was of a white color, that seemed to fit
him rather for rare festal occasions than for constant
drudgery. Besides, he was very small, and of the daintiest
proportions you can imagine in a donkey. And so, sure
enough, you had only to look at him to see he had never
worked. There was something too roguish and wanton in his
face, a look too like that of a schoolboy or a street Arab,
to have survived much cudgeling. It was plain that these
feet had kicked off sportive children oftener than they had
plodded with freight through miry lanes. He was altogether a
fine-weather, holiday sort of a donkey; and though he was
just then somewhat solemnized and rueful, he still gave
proof of the levity of his disposition by impudently wagging
his ears at me as I drew near. I say he was somewhat
solemnized just then; for with the admirable instinct of all
men and animals under restraint, he had so wound and wound
the halter about the tree that he could go neither back nor
forwards, nor so much as put his head down to browse. There
he stood, poor rogue, part puzzled, part angry, part, I
believe, amused. He had not given up hope, and dully
revolved the problem in his head, giving ever and again
another jerk at the few inches of free rope that still
remained unwound. A humorous sort of sympathy for the
creature took hold upon me. I went up, and, not without some
trouble on my part, and much distrust and resistance on the
part of Neddy, got him forced backwards until the whole
length of the halter was set loose, and he was once more as
free a donkey as I dared to make him. I was pleased (as
people are) with this friendly action to a fellow-creature
in tribulation, and glanced back over my shoulder to see how
he was profiting by his freedom. The brute was looking after
me; and no sooner did he catch my eye than he put up his
long white face into the air, pulled an impudent mouth at
me, and began to bray derisively. If ever any one person
made a grimace at another, that donkey made a grimace at me.
The hardened ingratitude of his behavior, and the
impertinence that inspired his whole face as he curled up
his lip, and showed his teeth and began to bray, so tickled
me and was so much in keeping with what I had imagined to
myself of his character, that I could not find it in my
heart to be angry, and burst into a peal of hearty laughter.
This seemed to strike the ass as a repartee, so he brayed at
me again by way of rejoinder; and we went on for awhile,
braying and laughing, until I began to grow a-weary of it,
and shouting a derisive farewell, turned to pursue my way.
In so doing--it was like going suddenly into cold water--I
found myself face to face with a prim, little old maid. She
was all in a flutter, the poor old dear! She had concluded
beyond question that this must be a lunatic who stood
laughing aloud at a white donkey in the placid beech-woods.
I was sure, by her face, that she had already recommended
her spirit most religiously to Heaven, and prepared herself
for the worst. And so, to reassure her, I uncovered and
besought her, after a very staid fashion, to put me on my
way to Great Missenden. Her voice trembled a little, to be
sure, but I think her mind was set at rest; and she told me,
very explicitly, to follow the path until I came to the end
of the wood, and then I should see the village below me in
the bottom of the valley. And, with mutual courtesies, the
little old maid and I went on our respective ways."
Books of travel, memoirs, and biographies, as whole books, are
generally without any arrangement serious enough to be termed a plot;
yet a large part of the interest in such books would be lost were the
incidents there collected not well told, with a conscious attempt to
set them out in the very best fashion; indeed, if each incident did
not have a plot. In "Vanity Fair" with its six hundred pages, in
"Silas Marner" with its two hundred pages, in the short stories of our
best magazines, in the spicy little anecdotes in the "Youth's
Companion,"--in the least bit of a good story as well as the
three-volume novel, the authors have used the means best suited to
retain the interest to the end. They have constructed plots.
Unity, Mass, and Coherence.
In the construction of any piece of composition there are three
principles of primary importance: they are Unity, which is concerned
with the material itself; and Mass and Coherence, which are concerned
with the arrangement of the material. A composition has unity when all
the material has been so sifted and selected that each part
contributes its share to the central thought of the whole. Whether of
a sentence, a paragraph, or a whole composition, all those parts must
be excluded which do not bring something of value to the whole; and
everything must be included which is necessary to give a clear
understanding of the whole. Mass, the second principle of structure,
demands that those parts of a composition, paragraph, or sentence
which are of most importance shall be so placed that they will arrest
the attention. By coherence is meant that principle of structure
which, in sentences, paragraphs, and whole compositions, places those
parts related in thought near together, and keeps separate those parts
which are separated in thought.
Main Incident.
For the construction of a story that will retain the reader's interest
to the end, for the selection of such material as will contribute to a
central thought, for the arrangement of this material so that the most
important matter shall occupy the most important position in the
theme, one simple rule is of value. It is this: _First choose the main
incident_ towards which all the other incidents converge, and for the
accomplishment of which the preceding incidents are necessary. A few
pages will be given to the application of this rule, and to the
results of its application.
Its Importance.
There should be in each story, however slight the plot, some incident
that is more important than the others, and toward which all the
others converge. A reader is disappointed if, after reading a story
through, he finds that there is no worthy ending, that all the
preparation was made for no purpose. If, in "Wee Willie Winkie,"
Kipling had stopped just before Miss Allardyce started across the
river, it would have been a poor story. It would have had no ending.
It is because a story gets somewhere that we like it. Yet not just
somewhere; it must arrive at a place worthy of all the preparation
that has preceded. A very common fault with the compositions of young
persons is that they begin big and end little. It is not infrequent
that the first paragraph promises well; the second is not quite so
good; and the rest gradually fall off until the end is worthless. The
order should be changed. Have the first paragraph promise well, make
the second better, and the last best of all. The main incident should
be more important than each incident that precedes it. Get the main
incident in mind before beginning; be sure it is the main incident;
then bend all your energies to make it the most important incident
toward which all the other incidents converge.
Unity.
The choice of a main incident will determine what incidents to
exclude. The world is full of incidents--enough to make volumes more
than we now have. A phonograph and a camera could gather enough any
day at a busy corner in a city to fill a volume; yet these pictures
and these bits of conversation, interesting as each in itself might
be, would not be a unit,--not one story, but many. Few persons,
indeed, would write anything so disjointed as the report made by this
phonograph; yet good writers are often led astray by the brilliancy of
their own ideas. They have so many good stories on hand which they
would like to tell, that they force some of them into their present
story, and so spoil two stories. In the very popular "David Harum," it
would puzzle any one to know why the author has introduced the ladies
from the city and the musical party at the lake. The episode is good
enough in itself; but in this story it has not a shadow of excuse.
There is a phrase of Kipling's that should ring in every
story-teller's ears. Not once only, but a number of times, this prince
of modern story-tellers catches himself--almost too late
sometimes--and writes, "But that is another story." One incident calls
up another; paragraph follows paragraph naturally. It is easy enough
to look back and trace the road by which the writer arrived at his
present position; yet it would be very hard to tell why he came
hither, or to see how the journey up to this point will at all put him
toward his destination. He has digressed; he has left the road. And he
must get back to the road. By this digression he has wasted just as
much time as it has taken to come from the direct road to this point
added to the time it will take to go back. Do not digress; tell one
story at a time; let no incident into your story which cannot answer
the question, "Why are you here?" by "I help;" keep your eye on the
main incident; things which do not unquestionably contribute something
to the main incident should be excluded.
Introductions and Conclusions.
The choice of the main incident towards which all other incidents
converge will rid compositions of worthless introductions and trailing
conclusions. A story should get under way at once; and any
explanations at the beginning, the introduction of long descriptions
or tedious paragraphs of "fine writing," will be headed off if the
pupil keeps constantly in mind that it must all lead directly toward
the main incident. Again, if everything converges to the main
incident, when that has been told the story is finished. After that
there must be no explanations, no moralizing, nothing. When the story
has been told it is a good rule to stop.
An excellent example of a short story well told is "An Incident of the
French Camp," by Robert Browning. Only the absolutely necessary has
been introduced. The incidents flash before the reader. Nothing can be
said after the last line. "Herve Riel" is a vivid piece of narrative
too. Such an exhibition of manliness appeals to all. Was it necessary
to attach the last stanza? If this poem needed it, why not the other?
If the story has no moral in it, no man can tie it on; if there is
one, the reader should be accounted intelligent enough to find it
without any help.
Tedious Enumerations.
Making all the incidents converge to one main incident will avoid
tiresome enumerations of inconsequential events, which frequently fill
the compositions of young pupils. Such essays generally start with "a
bright, clear morning," and "a party of four of us." After recounting
a dozen events of no consequence whatever, "we came home to a late
supper, well repaid for our day's outing." These compositions may be
quite correct in the choice of words, sentences, and paragraphs, and
with it all be flat. There is nothing to them; they get the reader
nowhere. Pick out one of the many incidents. Work it up. Turn back to
the paragraph from Stevenson and notice how little there is to it when
reduced to bare outline. He has worked it up so that it is good.
Always remember that a short anecdote well told is worth pages of
aimless enumeration.
What to include.
The selection of the main incident will guide in determining what to
include; for every detail must be included that is necessary to make
the main incident possible. A young pupil wrote of a party in the
woods. The girls had found pleasant seats in a car and were chatting
about their friends, when they felt a sudden lurch, and soon one of
the party was besmeared by slippery, sticky whites of eggs. Now, if
eggs were in the habit of clinging to the roofs of cars and breaking
at unfortunate moments, there would be no need of any explanation; but
as the cook forgot to boil the eggs and the girl had put them up into
the rack herself, some of this should have been told. Enough at least
should be told to make the main incident a possibility. Stories are
full of surprises, but they can be understood easily from the
preceding incidents; or else the new element is one that happens
frequently, and of itself is nothing new. In the paragraph from
Stevenson, the entrance of the "prim, little old maid" is a surprise,
but it is a very common thing for ladies to walk upon a public
highway. Any surprise must be natural,--the result of causes at work
in the story, or of circumstances which are always occurring and by
themselves no surprises. If the story be a tangled web of incidents
culminating in some horror, as the death of the beautiful young wife
in Hawthorne's "Birthmark," all the events must be told that are
necessary to carry the reader from the first time he beholds her
beauty until he sees her again, her life ebbing away as the fairy hand
fades from her cheek. In "Baa, Baa, Black Sheep" it would be
impossible to pass directly from the sweet boy of the first chapter to
the little liar of the last; something must be told of those miserable
days that intervene, and their telling effect on the little fellow. So
a reader could not harmonize his idea of old Scrooge gained in the
first chapter with generous Mr. Scrooge of the last without the
intermediate chapters. Keeping the main incident in mind, include all
that is necessary to make it possible.
Consistency.
This same rule more than any other will make a story consistent. If
incidents are chosen with relation to the one main incident, they will
all have a common quality; they can scarcely be inconsistent. It is
much more essential that a story be consistent than that it be a fact.
Indeed, facts are not necessary in stories, and they are dangerous.
Ian Maclaren says that the only part of his stories that has been
severely criticised is a drowning episode, which was a fact, and the
only one he ever used. Yet to those who have read "The Bonnie Brier
Bush," the old doctor is as well known as any person who lives across
the street; he is real to us, though he never lived. "Old Scrooge" and
"Brom Bones" are better known than John Adams is. A good character or
a good story need not be drawn from facts. Indeed, in literature as in
actual life, facts are stubborn things, and will not accommodate
themselves to new surroundings. Make the story consistent; be not too
careful about the facts.
A story may be good and be entirely contrary to all known facts. "The
Ugly Duckling" is as true as Fiske's "History of the United States,"
and every whit as consistent. "Alice in Wonderland" is an excellent
story; yet it contains no facts. The introduction of a single fact
would ruin the story; for between the realm of fact and the region of
fancy is a great gulf fixed, and no man has successfully crossed it.
Whatever conditions of life and action are assumed in one part of a
story must be continued throughout. If walruses talk and hens are
reasonable in one part of the story, to reduce them to every-day
animals would be ruinous. Consistency, that the parts stand together,
that the story seem probable,--this is more essential than facts. And
to gain this consistency the surest rule is to test the material by
its relation to the main incident.
The choice of the main incident, then, will determine to a great
degree what to exclude and what to include; it will assist in ridding
compositions of countless enumerations, aimless wanderings, and flat
endings; it will help the writer to get started, and insure a stop
when the story is told; and it will give to the story the quality most
essential for its success, consistency.
An Actor as the Storyteller.
There is yet another condition that enters into the selection of
materials: it makes a difference who tells the story. If the story be
told in the first person, that is, if one of the actors tell the
story, he cannot be supposed to know all that the other persons do
when out of sight and hearing, nor can he know what they think. To
take an illustration from a pupil's essay. A girl took her baby sister
out upon the lake in a rowboat. A violent storm arose, lashing the
lake into a fury. The oars were wrenched from her hands. Helpless on
the water, how was she to be saved? Here the essayist recited an
infinite amount of detail about the distress at home, giving the
conversation and the actions. These things she could not have known in
the character she had assumed at the beginning, that of the chief
actor. All of that should have been excluded. When Stevenson tells of
the fight in the round house, though he knew what those old salts were
doing outside, matters of great interest to the reader, he does not
let David say anything except what he could see or hear, and a very
little of what he "learned afterwards." Stevenson knew well who was
telling the story; David is too good a story-teller to tell what he
could not know. In the pupil's essay and in "Kidnapped," all such
matters would have a direct bearing on the main incident; they could
be included without destroying the unity of the story. But they cannot
be included when the story is told by one of the actors.
The Omniscience of an Author.
Many stories, probably most stories, are told in the third person. In
this case the author assumes the position of an omniscient power who
knows everything that is done, said, or thought by the characters in
his story. Not only what happens in the next room, but what is thought
at the other side of the world, is comprehended in his omniscience.
This is the position assumed by Irving in "The Legend of Sleepy
Hollow," by Kipling in the series of stories included with "Wee Willie
Winkie," by Scott in "Marmion," and by most great novelists.
Omniscience is, however, a dangerous prerogative for a young person.
The power is so great that the person who has but recently come into
possession of it becomes dizzy with it and uncertain in his movements.
A young person knows what he would do under certain conditions; but to
be able to know what some other person would do and think under a
certain set of circumstances requires a sure knowledge of character,
and the capability of assuming entirely different and unaccustomed
points of view. It is much safer for the beginner to take the point of
view of one of the actors, and tell the story in the first person.
Then when the grasp has become sure from this standpoint, he may
assume the more difficult role of the omniscient third person.
To sum up what has been said about the selection of materials: only
those materials should be admitted to a story which contribute to its
main incident, which are consistent with one another, and which could
have been known by the narrator.
The Climax.
When the materials for a story have been selected, the next
consideration is their arrangement. If the materials have been
selected to contribute to the main incident and converge toward it, it
will follow that _the main incident_ will come last in the story; it
_will be the climax_ towards which the several parts of the story are
directed. Moreover, it should be last, in order to retain the interest
of the reader up to that time. This is in accordance with the demands
of the second great principle of structure, Mass. An essay is well
massed if the parts are so arranged that things of importance will
arrest the attention. In literature to be read, to arrest the
attention is almost equivalent to catching the eye. The positions that
catch the eye, whether in sentence, paragraph, or essay, are the
beginning and the end. Were it not for another element which enters
into the calculation, these positions would be of nearly equal
importance. Since, however, the mind retains the most vivid impression
of the thing it received last, the impression of the end of the
sentence, paragraph, or essay is stronger than the impression made by
its beginning. The climax of a story should come at the end, both
because it is the result of preceding incidents, and because by this
position it receives the additional emphasis due to its position.
Who? Where? When? Why?
The beginning is the position of second importance. What, then, shall
stand in this place? A story resembles a puzzle. The solution of the
puzzle is given at the end; the thing of next importance is the
conditions of the puzzle. In "Baa, Baa, Black Sheep" the story
culminates in the surprise of a devoted mother when she discovers that
her boy is a secretive little liar, who now deserves to be called
"Black Sheep." This is the end; what was the beginning,--the
conditions necessary to bring about this deplorable result? First,
they were _the persons;_ second, _the place;_ third, _the time._ In
many stories there is introduced the reason for telling the story.
These conditions, answering the questions Who? Where? When? and Why?
are all, or some of them, introduced at the beginning of any
narrative, and as soon as it can be done, they ought all to be given.
In a short essay, they are in the first paragraph; in a novel, in the
first chapters. In "Marmion" the time, the place, and the principal
character are introduced into the first canto. So Irving begins "The
Legend of Sleepy Hollow" with the place and time, then follow the
characters. In all stories the beginning is occupied in giving the
conditions of the story; that is, the principal characters, the time,
and the place.
In what Order?
Having the end and the beginning clearly in mind, the next question is
how best to get from one to the other. Shall the incidents be arranged
in order of time? or shall other considerations govern? If it be any
narrative of the journal form, whether a diary or a biography, the
chronological arrangement will direct the sequence of events. Again,
if it be a simple story with a single series of events, the time order
will prevail. If, however, it be a narrative which contains several
series of events, as a history or a novel, it may be wise, even
necessary, to deviate from the time sequence. It would have been
unwise for Scott to hold strictly to the order of time in "Marmion;"
after introducing the principal character, giving the time and the
setting, it was necessary for him to bring in another element of the
plot, Constance, and to go backward in time to pick up this thread of
the story. The really essential order in any narrative is the order of
cause and effect. As causes precede effects, the causal order and the
time order generally coincide. In a single series of events, that is,
where one cause alone produces an effect, which in turn becomes the
cause of another effect, the time order is the causal order. In a
novel, or a short story frequently, where there are more than one
series of incidents contributing to and converging towards the main
incident, these causes must all be introduced before the effect, and
may break the chronological order of the story. In "Roger Malvin's
Burial," it would be impossible to tell what the stricken father was
doing and what the joyous mother was thinking at the same time.
Hawthorne must leave one and go to the other until they meet in their
awful desolation. The only rule that can be given is, introduce causes
before effects. In all stories, short or long, this will result in an
approximation to the order of time; in a simple story it will
invariably give a time sequence.
There is one exception to this rule which should be noted. It is
necessary at the very beginning to have some incident that will arrest
the attention. This does not mean that persons, place, and time shall
not come first. They shall come first, but they shall be so introduced
as to make an interesting opening to the story. The novels of some
decades ago did not sufficiently recognize the principle. One can
frequently hear it said of Scott's stories, "I can't get started with
them; they are too dry." The introductory chapters are often
uninteresting. So much history is introduced, so much scenery is
described before the author sets out his characters; and all this is
done before he begins the story. Novelists of to-day realize that they
must interest the reader at the beginning; when they have caught him,
they are quite certain that he will bear with them while they bring up
the other divisions of the story, which now have become interesting
because they throw light on what has already been told. Even more than
novelists, dramatists recognize this principle. When the curtain rises
on the first act, something interesting is going on. The action
frequently begins far along in the time covered by the story; then by
cleverly arranged conversation all circumstances before the time of
the opening that are necessary to the development of the plot are
introduced. The audience receives these minor yet essential details
with no impatience, since they explain in part a situation already
interesting. The time order may be broken in order to introduce at the
beginning of the story some interesting situation which will
immediately engage the reader's attention.
In arranging the materials of a story, the main considerations are
Mass and Coherence. Mass demands important matters at the beginning
and at the end of a story. Coherence demands that events closely
related shall stand close together: that an effect shall immediately
follow its cause. Beginning with some interesting situation that will
also introduce the principal characters, the time, and the setting,
the story follows in the main the order of time, and concludes with
the main incident.
An Outline.
One practical suggestion will assist in arranging the parts of a
story. Use an outline. It will guard against the omission of any
detail that may afterward be found necessary, and against the
necessity of offering the apology, inexcusable in prepared work, of
"forgetting to say;" it will help the writer to see the best
arrangement of the parts, to know that causes have preceded effects.
The outline in narration should not be too much in detail, nor should
it be followed if, as the story progresses, new light comes and the
writer sees a better way to proceed. The writer should be above the
outline, not its slave; but the outline is a most valuable servant of
the writer.
Movement.
_Movement is an essential quality of narrative;_ a story must advance.
This does not mean that the story shall always go at the same rate,
though it does mean that it shall always go. If a story always had the
rapidity and intensity of a climax, it would be intolerable. Music
that is all rushing climaxes is unbearable; a picture must not be a
glare of high lights. The quiet passages in music, the grays and low
tones in the background of the picture, the slow chapters in a story,
are as necessary as their opposites; indeed, climaxes are dependent on
contrasts in order to be climaxes.
Rapidity.
The question of movement resolves itself into these two: how is
rapidity of movement obtained, and how can the writer delay the
movement. Rapidity is gained by the omission of all unnecessary
details, and the use of the shortest, tersest sentences to express the
absolutely essential. Dependent clauses disappear; either the
sentences are simple, just one sharp statement, or they are made of
coordinate clauses with no connectives. Every weight that could clog
the story is thrown away, and it runs with the swiftness of the
thought. At such a time it would be a waste of good material to
introduce beautiful descriptions or profound philosophy. Such things
would be skipped by the reader. Everything must clear the way for the
story.
Slowness.
What has been said of rapidity will indicate the answer to the second
question. Slowness of movement is obtained by introducing long
descriptions, analyses of characters, and information regarding the
history or customs of the time. Sentences become long and involved;
dependent clauses abound; connective words and phrases are frequent.
Needless details may be introduced until the story becomes wearisome;
it has almost no movement.
Very closely connected with what has been said above is another fact
concerning movement. Strip the sentences as you may, there are still
the verbs remaining. Verbs and derivatives from verbs are the words
which denote action. If other classes of words be taken out, the ratio
of verbs to the other words in the sentence is larger. Shorter
sentences and an increased ratio of verbs mark the passages in which
the movement is more rapid. In "Baa, Baa, Black Sheep" the sentences
average twenty-five words in the slower parts; in the intenser
paragraphs the sentences have an average of fifteen words. Poe's
"Gold-Bug" changes from thirty-eight to twenty-one. Again, Stevenson's
essays have a verb to eight words, while the fight at the round house
has a verb to about five and a half words. One of Kipling's stories
starts in with a verb to eight and a half words, and the climax has a
verb in every four words. These figures mean that as the sentences are
shortened, adjectives, adverbs, phrases, connectives, disappear.
Everything not absolutely necessary is thrown away when the passage is
to express rapid movement.
No person should think that, by eliminating all dependent clauses,
cutting away all unnecessary matters, and putting in a verb to every
four words, he can gain intensity of expression. These are only
accompanying circumstances. Climaxes are in the thought. When the
thought moves rapidly, when things are being done with a rush, when
the climax has been reached, then the writer will find that he can
approach the movement of the thought most nearly by using these means.
Description and Narration.
_A valuable accessory to narration is description;_ in truth,
description for its own sake is not frequently found. The story must
be somewhere; and it is more real when we know in what kind of a place
it occurs. Still it is not wise to do as Scott so often has
done,--give chapters of description at the beginning of the story.
Rather the setting should be scattered through the story so that it is
hardly perceptible. At no time should the reader halt and realize that
he is being treated to a description. Even in the beautiful
descriptions by Stevenson quoted in the next chapter, the work is so
intimately blended with the story that the reader unfortunately might
pass over it. A large part of the pleasure derived from the best
stories is supplied by good descriptions, giving a vivid picture of
the setting of the story.
Description has another use in narration beside giving the setting of
the story; it is often used to accent the mood of the action. In "The
Fall of the House of Usher" by Poe, much of the gloomy foreboding is
caused by the weird descriptions. Hawthorne understood well the
harmony between man's feelings and his surroundings. The Sylvan Dance
in "The Marble Faun" is wonderfully handled. Irving, in "The Legend of
Sleepy Hollow," throws about the story a "witching influence," and
long before the Headless Horseman appears, the reader is quite sure
that the region abounds in "ghosts and goblins," dwelling in its
"haunted fields, and haunted brooks, and haunted bridges, and haunted
houses." The danger in the use of description for this purpose is in
overdoing it. The fact is, as Arlo Bates says, "the villains no longer
steal through smiling gardens whose snowy lilies, all abloom, and
sending up perfume like incense from censers of silver, seem to rebuke
the wicked." Yet when handled as Stevenson and Irving handled it,
description assists in accenting the mood of the action.
Characters few, Time short.
_The number of characters should be few_ and the time of the action
short. Pupils are not able to handle a large number of persons. There
is, however, a stronger reason for it than incapacity. A young person
would have great trouble in remembering the large number of persons
introduced into "Little Dorrit." Many of them would always remain
entire strangers. Such a scattering of attention is unfavorable to a
story. To focus the interest upon a few, to have the action centred in
these few, increases the movement and intensity of the narrative. The
writers of short stories in France (perhaps the best story-tellers of
the present), Kipling, Davis, Miss Wilkins, and some others of our
best authors, find few characters all that are necessary, and they
gain in intensity by limiting the number of characters.
For the same reason _the time should be short._ If all the incidents
chosen are crowded into a short period of time, the action must be
more rapid. The reader does not like to know five years have elapsed
between one event and the next, even if the story-teller does not try
to fill up the interim with matters of no consequence to the
narrative. One exception must be made to this rule. In stories whose
purpose is to portray a change of character, a long time is necessary;
for the transformation is not usually the result of a day's
experience, but a gradual process of years. "Silas Marner" and "Baa,
Baa, Black Sheep" demand time to make naturally the great changes
recounted. In general, however, the time should be short.
Simple Plot.
Moreover, _the plot should be simple._ This is not saying that the
plot should be evident. No one is quite satisfied if he knows just how
the story will turn out. There are, however, so many conditions in a
story that the accentuation of one or the subordination of another may
bring about something quite unexpected, yet perfectly natural.
Complicated plots have had their day; simple plots are now in vogue.
They are as natural as life, and quite as unfathomable. In Davis's
"Gallegher" there is nothing complicated; one thing follows another in
a perfectly natural way; yet there are many questions in the reader's
mind as to how the little rascal will turn out, and whether he will
accomplish his mission. Much more cleverness is shown by the
sleight-of-hand trickster, who, unassisted and in the open, with no
accessories, dupes his staring assembly, than by him who, on the
stage, with the aid of mirrors, lights, machines, and a crowd of
assistants, manages to deceive your eyes. A story that by its frank
simplicity takes the reader into its confidence, and brings him to a
conclusion that is so natural that it should have been foreseen from
the beginning, has a good plot. The conclusion of a story must be
natural,--the result of the causes at work in the story. It must be an
expected surprise. If it cannot be accounted for by the causes at work
in the story, the construction is faulty. In the world of fiction
there is not the liberty one experiences in the world of fact. There
things unexpected and unexplainable occur. But the story-teller has no
such privilege. Truth is stranger than fiction dare be. A simple,
natural story, with few characters and covering but a short period of
time, has three elements of success.
Paragraph structure, sentence structure, and choice of words are taken
up in subsequent chapters. Of paragraphs it may be wise to say that
there will be as many as there are divisions in the outline; and
sometimes, by reason of the length of topic, a subdivision may be
necessary. The paragraph most common in narration is the paragraph of
details, the first form presented in the chapter on paragraphs. What
needs to be said of sentences has already been said when treating of
movement. Of words one thing may be suggested. Choose live words,
specific words, words that have "go" in them.
It should be remembered that everything cannot be learned at once. The
study of the whole is the principal occupation just now. Select the
main incident; choose other incidents to be consistent with it; start
out at once giving the conditions of the story; proceed now fast, now
slow, as the thought demands, arriving at a conclusion that is an
expected surprise, the result of forces at work in the story.
SUGGESTIVE QUESTIONS AND EXERCISES
The questions are only suggestive. They indicate how literature can be
made to teach composition. Some questions may seem hard, and will
provoke discussion. To have even a false opinion, backed by only a few
facts, is better than an entire absence of thought. Encourage
discussion. The answers to the questions have not been suggested in
the questions themselves. The object has been to throw the pupil upon
his own thinking.
These questions upon the "Method of the Author" should not be
considered until the far more important work of deriving the "Meaning
of the Author" has been finished. Only after the whole piece has been
carefully studied can the relation of the parts to the whole be
understood. Reserve the questions for the review.
QUESTIONS.
THE GREAT STONE FACE.
(Riverside Literature Series, No. 40.)
In what paragraphs is the main incident?
Can you find one sentence on the second page of the story that
foreshadows the result?
How many incidents or episodes contribute to the story?
Do these help in the development of Ernest's character? If not, what
is the use of them?
Why are they arranged in this order?
Introduce into its proper place an incident of a scientist. Write it
up.
Do you think one of the incidents could be omitted? Which one?
Are the incidents related in the order in which they occurred? Is one
the cause of another?
Has the story a plot? Why do you think so? What is a plot?
Where are introduced the time, place, and the principal character?
What is the use of the description of "the great stone face"?
Why does the author tell only what "was reported" of the interior of
Mr. Gathergold's palace? Is it better so?
Are the descriptions to accent the mood of the story? or are they
primarily to make concrete and real the persons and places?
Is there any place where the movement of the story is rapid?
Does the author begin at once, and close when the story is told?
Did you find any use of comparisons in the piece? (See top of p. 6,
top of p. 19, middle of p. 22.)[3]
Of what value are they in composition?
THE GENTLE BOY.
(Riverside Literature Series, No. 145.)
What is the main incident?
In relation to the whole story, in what place does it stand?
Do the other incidents serve to develop the character of "the gentle
boy"? or are they introduced to open up to the reader that character?
(Compare with "Wee Willie Winkie.")
Do you consider all the incidents necessary?
Why has the author introduced the fact that Ilbrahim gently cared for
the little boy who fell from the tree?
What is the use of the first two pages of the story?
Where does the story really begin?
How could you know the time, if the first page were not there? Is it a
delicate way of telling "when"?
Notice that time, place, and principal characters all are introduced
into the first paragraph of the real story.
Why does the author note the change in Tobias's circumstances? Does it
add to the interest of the story? Would you omit it?
Do you think this plot more complicated than that of "The Great Stone
Face"?
What is the use of the description on p. 31?
What do you note as the difference between
(a) second line of p. 19, sixth line of p. 27, sixteenth line of p.
29, and (b) fourth line of p. 25, the figure in the complete paragraph
on p. 40?
THE GRAY CHAMPION.
(Riverside Literature Series, No. 145.)
Note the successive stages by which the time is approached. (Compare
with the beginning of "Silas Marner.")
Can you feel any difference between the movement of this story and the
movement in "The Gentle Boy"?
Is there any difference in the length of the sentences? (Remember that
the independent clauses of a compound sentence are very nearly the
same as simple sentences.)
Is there any difference in the proportion of verbs and verbals? What
parts of speech have almost disappeared?
ROGER MALVIN'S BURIAL.
(Riverside Literature Series, No. 145.)
Why is the first paragraph needed?
Why could the incident in the first paragraph on p. 50 not be omitted?
Do you find it later?
How many chapters could you divide the story into? What is the basis
of division?
Why did not Hawthorne tell the result of the shot at once?
A plot is usually made by introducing more than one cause, by hiding
one of the causes, or by holding back an effect. Which in this story?
Is there a change of movement between the beginning and the end of the
story? Look at the last two pages carefully. How has the author
expressed the intensity of the situation?
Does the story end when it is finished?
THE WEDDING KNELL.
(Riverside Literature Series, No. 145.)
Of the three common ways of giving uncertainty to a plot, which has
been used?
Do you call this plot more complicated than those of the other tales
studied?
Why does the author say, at the top of p. 72, "necessary preface"?
Could it not be omitted? If not, what principle of narrative
construction would be violated by its omission?
Why has he introduced the last paragraph on p. 74 reaching over to p.
75?
THE AMBITIOUS GUEST.
(Riverside Literature Series, No. 40.)
In what order are the elements of the story introduced?
Pick out phrases which prepare you for the catastrophe.
Can you detect any difference in the movement of the different parts
of the story? What aids its expression?
THE GOLD-BUG.
(Riverside Literature Series, No. 120.)
Would you have been satisfied if the story had stopped when the
treasure was discovered? What more do you want to know?
What, then, is the main incident? Was the main incident the last to
occur in order of time? Why did Poe delay telling it until the end?
Do you see how relating the story in the first person helped him to
throw the main incident last? Why could he not tell it before?
Does Poe tell any other stories in the first person?
In what person are "Treasure Island" and "Kidnapped" told? Are they
interesting?
If a friend is telling you a story, do you care more for it if it is
about a third party or about himself? Why?
What, then, is the advantage of making an actor the narrator? What are
some of the disadvantages?
Do you think this plot as good as those of Hawthorne's stories?
Why was it necessary to have "a day of remarkable chilliness" (p. 3),
and a Newfoundland dog rushing into the room (p. 6)?
What principle would it violate to omit these little matters?
(Text-book, p. 24.)
What of the rapidity of movement when they are digging? How has
rapidity been gained?
What form of wit does Poe attempt? Does he succeed?
Do you think the conversation is natural? If not, what is the matter
with it?
Are negroes usually profane? Does Jupiter's general character lead you
to expect profanity from him? Is anything gained by his oaths? Is
anything sacrificed? In this story is profanity artistic? (To know
what is meant by "artistic," read the last line of "L'Envoi" on p. 253
of the text-book.)
THE VISION OF SIR LAUNFAL.
(Riverside Literature Series, No. 30.)
What is the purpose of the first stanza?
What connection in thought is there between the second, third, and
fourth stanzas? What have these stanzas to do with the story? If they
have nothing to do with it, what principle of structure do they
violate? Would Lowell be likely to do this?
What is the use of the description beginning "And what is so rare as a
day in June"?
Would the story be complete without the preludes? Would the teaching
be understood without them?
Are time and place definitely stated in the poem? Why should they be,
or not be?
Why does so much time elapse between Part I. and Part II. of the
story?
In what lines do you find the main incident?
In the first prelude is Lowell describing a landscape of New England
or Old England? Where is the story laid? What comment have you to make
upon these facts?
Pick out the figures. Are they useful?
Can you find passages of exposition and description in this narrative?
Why do you call it narration?
What is Lowell's criticism upon himself? (See "Fable for Critics.")
A CHRISTMAS CAROL.
(Riverside Literature Series, No. 57.)
Is the opening such as to catch the attention?
What is the essential idea in the description of Scrooge? Do all
details enforce this idea? Do you know Scrooge?
In what paragraph does Dickens tell where the story occurs?
Find places on p. 19 and p. 96 where Dickens has used "in" or "into."
What advantage to the story is the appearance in Scrooge's office of
his nephew and the two gentlemen? Do they come into the story again?
Are the details in the description of the apparition on p. 41 in the
order in which they would be noted? Which is the most important
detail? Where is it in the description?
Is the description of Mrs. Fezziwig on p. 52 successful?
What helps express rapidity of movement in the paragraph at the bottom
of p. 53? (See also paragraph on p. 85.)
Examining the words used by Dickens and Hawthorne, which are longer?
Which are most effectual? Are you sure? Rewrite one of Hawthorne's
paragraphs with a Dickens vocabulary. What is the result?
What word is the topic of the last paragraph on p. 73?
Recast the first sentence of the last paragraph on p. 77.
Does Dickens use slang? (Do not consider conversation in the answer to
this question.)
What is the main incident? Is there one of the minor incidents that
could be omitted?
Which one could you most easily spare?
What is the need of the last chapter?
MARMION.
(Rolfe's Student's Series, Vol. 2.)
How do you know the time of "Marmion"?
Do you see any reason why stanza vi. of Canto I. would better precede
stanza v.?
Where is the first mention of De Wilton? the first intimation of Clara
de Clare? of Constance?
What form of discourse in stanza vii. of Canto II.?
What part in the development of the narrative does Fitz-Eustace's song
make?
Does the tale related by the host break the unity of the whole? Is it
"another story"? What value has it?
Why does Scott not tell of Marmion's encounter with the Elfin Knight
in Canto III.? Where is it told? Why there?
Why is Canto II. put after Canto I.? Did the events related in II.
occur after those related in I.?
How many of the descriptions of persons in "Marmion" begin with the
face? How many times are they of the face only?
Try to write the incident related in stanzas xix., xx., xxi., and
xxii. of Canto III. in fewer words than Scott has done it without
sacrificing any detail.
Are you satisfied with the description of King James in stanza viii.
Canto V.? Do you see him?
Write an outline of the plot of "Marmion" in two hundred words.
Why is the story of Lady Clare reserved until Canto V.?
What cantos contain the main incident?
Were all that precedes omitted, would "The Battle" be as interesting?
Do you think the plot good? Is it complicated?
What of the number of figures used in the last canto compared with
those used in any other canto? Do you find more in narrative or
descriptive passages? Why?
Read stanza viii. Canto III. Can you describe a voice without using
comparison?
Do the introductions to the several cantos form any part of the story?
Would they be just as good anywhere else? Would the story be better
with them, or without them? What principle of structure do they
violate?
EXERCISES.
The subjects for composition given below are not intended as a course
to be followed, but only to suggest a plan for the work. The
individual topics for essays may not be the best for all cases. Long
lists of topics can be found in rhetorics. Bare subjects, however, are
usually unsuggestive. They should be adapted to the class. Put the
subjects in such shape that there is something to get hold of. Give
the pupils a fair start.
1-4. In order to place before the pupils good models for constructing
stories, read one like "A Piece of String" in "An Odd Number," by
Maupassant. Stories for this purpose should not be long. Talk the
story over with the pupils, bringing out clearly the main incident and
the several episodes which contribute to it. Have them notice how
characters, time, and place are introduced; and how each succeeding
event is possible and natural. Then have it rewritten. This will fix
the idea of plan. For this purpose some of Miss Wilkins's stories are
excellent; Kenneth Grahame's "The Golden Age," and Miss Jewett's short
stories are good material. Some of the short stories in current
magazines serve well.
5, 6. Read the first of a story and its close,--enough to indicate the
main incident and the setting of the story. Have the pupils write it
complete.
7. Read the close of a story. The pupils will then write the whole.
8. Read the opening of a story. Have the pupils complete it.
9. Finish "The Circus-Man's Story" (Text-book, p. 297.)
10. My First Algebra Lesson. Remember that in composition a good story
is worth more than a true one. The basis may be a fact. Do not
hesitate to fix it up.
11. A delivery horse runs away. No persons are in the wagon. Tell
about it.
12. Write about a runaway in which you and your little sister are
injured. (I have found it very helpful to use the same subject, but
having the relation of the narrator to the incident very different. It
serves to bring out a whole new vocabulary in order to express the
difference in the feelings of the narrator.)
13. Write the story suggested to your mind by these words: Digging in
the sand I found a board much worn by the waves, on which were cut, in
characters scarcely traceable, these words: "Dec.----18 9, N. J."
14. A humorous incident in a street car, in which the joke was on the
other fellow.
15. Another in which the joke was on me. The same incident may be used
with good effect. The choice of new words to express the difference of
feelings makes an excellent exercise.
16. Tell the story that Doreas related to her neighbors about her
husband's escape and her father's death.
17. To bring out the fact that the language must be varied to suit the
character of the reader or listener, tell a fairy story to a sleepy
five-year old so that he will not go to sleep. Do not hesitate at
exaggerations. Only remember it must be consistent.
18. Have "The Gentle Boy" tell one of the incidents in which he was
cruelly treated. This may well be an incident of your own life adapted
to its purpose.
19, 20. Jim was a mean boy. Meanness seemed to be in his blood. He was
all mean. His hair was mean; his freckles were mean; his big, chapped
hands were mean. And he was always mean. He was mean to his pets; he
was meaner to small boys; and he was as mean as he dared to be to his
equals in size.
Write one incident to show Jim's meanness.
Write another to show how Jim met his match, and learned a lesson.
21. Work up the following into a story. It all occurs in one day at
the present time. Place, your own city. Characters, a poor sewing
girl, her little sick brother, and a wealthy society lady. Incidents:
a conversation between brother and sister about some fruit; a
conversation between the sewing girl and the lady about money due for
sewing; stealing apples; arrest; appearance of the lady. Title: Who
was the Criminal?
22. A story of a modern Sir Launfal.
23. The most thrilling moment of my life.
24. Tell the whole story suggested by the stanza of "A Nightingale in
the Study," by Lowell, which begins, "Cloaked shapes, a twanging of
guitars."
25. Write a story which teaches a lesson. Remember that the lesson is
in the story, not at its end.
In the work at this time but little attention can be given to the
teaching of paragraphs and sentences. The pupil should learn what a
paragraph is, and should have his composition properly divided into
paragraphs. But the form and massing of paragraphs cannot be taken up
at this time. The same may be said of sentences. He should have no
sentences broken in two by periods; nor should he have two sentences
forced into one. Grammatical errors should be severely criticised.
However, the present work is to get the pupils started; and they
cannot get started if there is a teacher holding them back by
discouraging criticisms. Mark all mistakes of whatever kind; but put
the stress upon the whole composition: its unity, its coherence, its
mass, and its movement. Everything cannot be done at once; many
distressing faults will have to be passed over until later.
* * * * *
CHAPTER IV
DESCRIPTION
Difficulties of Language for making Pictures.
Description has been defined as the form of literature which presents
a picture by means of language. In the preceding chapter, it has been
pointed out that the sequence of language is perfectly adapted to
detail the sequence of action in a narrative. For the purpose of
constructing a picture, the means has serious drawbacks. The picture
has to be presented in pieces; and the difficulties are much as would
be experienced if "dissected maps and animals" used for children's
amusement were to be put together in the head. It would not be easy to
arrange the map of the United States from blocks, each containing a
small part of it, taken one at a time from a box. Yet this closely
resembles the method language forces us to adopt in constructing a
picture. Each phrase is like one of the blocks, and introduces a new
element into the picture; from these phrases the reader must
reconstruct the whole. This means not alone that he shall remember
them all, but there is a more serious trouble: he must often rearrange
them. For example, a description by Ruskin begins, "Nine years old."
Either a boy or a girl, the reader thinks, as it may be in his own
home. In the case of this reader it is a boy, rather tall of his age,
with brown hair and dark eyes. But the next phrase reads, "Neither
tall nor short for her age." Now the reader knows it is a girl of
common stature. Later on he learns that her eyes are "deep blue;" her
lips "perfectly lovely in profile;" and so on through the details of
the whole sketch. Many times in the course of the description the
reader makes up a new picture; he is continually reconstructing. Any
one who will observe his own mind while reading a new description can
prove that the picture is arranged and rearranged many times. This is
due to the means by which it is presented. Language presents only a
phrase at a time,--a fragment, not a whole,--and so fails in the
instantaneous presentation of a complete picture.
Painting and Sculpture.
The painter or sculptor who upon canvas or in stone flashes the whole
composition before us at the same instant of time, has great
advantages over the worker in words. In these methods there is needed
no reconstruction of previous images, no piecing together of a number
of fragments. Without any danger of mistakes which will have to be
corrected later, the spectator can take in the whole picture at
once,--every relation, every color, every difference in values.
It is because pictures are the surest and quickest means of
representing objects to the mind that books, especially text-books,
and magazines are so profusely illustrated. No magazine can claim
popularity to-day that does not use illustrations where possible; no
text-book in science or history sells unless it contains pictures. And
this is because all persons accurately and quickly get the idea from a
picture.
Advantages of Language.
Whatever be the disadvantages of language, there are some advantages.
Who could paint this from Hawthorne?
"Soon the smoke ascended among the trees, impregnated with
_savory incense,_ not _heavy, dull,_ and _surfeiting,_ like
the steam of cookery indoors, but _sprightly_ and _piquant._
The _smell_ of our feast was akin to the woodland odors with
which it mingled." ("Mosses from an Old Manse.")
Or this from Lowell?--
"Under the yaller-pines I house,
When sunshine makes 'em all _sweet-scented,_
An' _hear_ among their furry boughs
The _baskin'_ west wind _purr contented,_
While 'way o'erhead, ez _sweet_ an' _low
Ez distant bells thet ring for meetin',_
The wedged wil' geese _their bugles blow,_
Further an' further South retreatin'."[4]
Or cut this from marble?--
"O mother Ida, many-fountained Ida,
Dear mother Ida, hearken ere I die.
For now the noonday quiet holds the hill;
The grasshopper is silent in the grass;
The lizard, with his shadow on the stone,
Rests like a shadow, and the winds are dead.
The purple flower droops; the golden bee
Is lily-cradled; I alone awake.
My eyes are full of tears, my heart of love,
My heart is breaking, and my eyes are dim,
And I am all aweary of my life."[5]
The painter cannot put sounds upon a canvas, nor can the sculptor
carve from marble an odor or a taste. We use the other senses in
determining qualities of objects; and words which describe effects
produced by other senses beside sight are valuable in description. As
Lowell says, "we may shut our eyes, but we cannot help knowing" a
large number of beautiful things. Moreover, language suggests hidden
ideas that the representative arts cannot so well do. The following
from a "Song" by Lowell has in it suggestions which the picture could
not present.
"Violet! sweet violet!
Thine eyes are full of tears;
Are they wet
Even yet
With the thought of other years?
Or with gladness are they full,
For the night so beautiful,
And longing for those far-off spheres?
"Thy little heart, that hath with love
Grown colored like the sky above,
On which thou lookest ever,--
Can it know
All the woe
Of hope for what returneth never,
All the sorrow and the longing
To these hearts of ours belonging?"
Enumeration and Suggestion
Description, like narration, has two large divisions: one simply to
give information or instruction; the other to present a vivid picture.
One is _representative_ or _enumerative;_ the other, _suggestive._ One
may be illustrated by guide-books; the other by the descriptions of
Stevenson or Ruskin. And in the most artistic fashion the two have
been made to supplement each other in the following picture of "bright
and beautiful Athens" by Cardinal Newman. From the first, to the
sentence beginning "But what he would not think of," there is simply
an enumeration of features which a commercial agent might see; the
rest is what the artistic soul of the lover of beauty saw there. One
is enumeration; the other a gloriously suggestive picture.
"A confined triangle, perhaps fifty miles its greatest
length, and thirty its greatest breadth; two elevated rocky
barriers, meeting at an angle; three prominent mountains,
commanding the plain,--Parnes, Pentelicus, and Hymettus; an
unsatisfactory soil; some streams, not always full;--such is
about the report which the agent of a London company would
have made of Attica. He would report that the climate was
mild; the hills were limestone; there was plenty of good
marble; more pasture land than at first survey might have
been expected, sufficient, certainly, for sheep and goats;
fisheries productive; silver mines once, but long since
worked out; figs fair; oil first-rate; olives in profusion.
But what he would not think of noting down was that that
olive-tree was so choice in nature and so noble in shape
that it excited a religious veneration; and that it took so
kindly to the light soil as to expand into woods upon the
open plain, and to climb up and fringe the hills. He would
not think of writing word to his employers, how that clear
air, of which I have spoken, brought out, yet blended and
subdued, the colors on the marble, till they had a softness
and harmony, for all their richness, which in a picture
looks exaggerated, yet is after all within the truth. He
would not tell how that same delicate and brilliant
atmosphere freshened up the pale olive, till the olive
forgot its monotony, and its cheek glowed like the arbutus
or beech of the Umbrian hills. He would say nothing of the
thyme and the thousand fragrant herbs which carpeted
Hymettus; he would hear nothing of the hum of its bees; nor
take account of the rare flavor of its honey, since Gaza and
Minorca were sufficient for the English demand. He would
look over the Aegean from the height he had ascended; he
would follow with his eyes the chain of islands, which,
starting from the Sunian headland, seemed to offer the
fabled divinities of Attica, when they would visit their
Ionian cousins, a sort of viaduct thereto across the sea;
but that fancy would not occur to him, nor any admiration of
the dark violet billows with their white edges down below;
nor of those graceful, fan-like jets of silver upon the
rocks, which slowly rise aloft like water spirits from the
deep, then shiver, and break, and spread, and shroud
themselves, and disappear in a soft mist of foam; nor of the
gentle, incessant heaving and panting of the whole liquid
plain; nor of the long waves, keeping steady time, like a
line of soldiery as they resound upon the hollow shore,--he
would not deign to notice the restless living element at all
except to bless his stars that he was not upon it. Nor the
distinct details, nor the refined coloring, nor the graceful
outline and roseate golden hue of the jutting crags, nor the
bold shadows cast from Otus or Laurium by the declining
sun;--our agent of a mercantile firm would not value these
matters even at a low figure. Rather, we must turn for the
sympathy we seek to yon pilgrim student, come from a
semi-barbarous land to that small corner of the earth, as to
a shrine, where he might take his fill of gazing on those
emblems and coruscations of invisible unoriginate
perfection. It was the stranger from a remote province, from
Britain or from Mauritania, who in a scene so different from
that of his chilly, woody swamps, or of his fiery, choking
sands, learned at once what a real University must be, by
coming to understand the sort of country which was its
suitable home."[6]
Enumerative Description.
Enumerative description has one point of great difference from
suggestive description. In the former everything is told; in the
latter the description is as fortunate in what it omits as in what it
includes. Were an architect to give specifications for the building of
a house, every detail would have to be included; but after all the
pages of careful enumeration the reader would know less of how it
looked than after these few words from Irving. "A large, rickety
wooden building stood in its place, with great gaping windows, some of
them broken and mended with old hats and petticoats, and over the door
was painted 'The Union Hotel, by Jonathan Doolittle.'" So the manual
training student uses five hundred words to describe in detail a box
which would be thrown off with but a few words in a piece of
literature. In enumerative description, one element is of as much
importance as another; no special feature is made primary by the
omission or subdual of other qualities. It has value in giving exact
details of objects, as if for their construction, and in including an
object in a class.
Suggestive Description.
Suggestive description, description the aim of which is not
information, but the reproduction of a picture, is the kind most
employed in literature. To present a picture, not all the details
should be given. The mind cannot carry them all, and, much worse, it
cannot arrange them. Nor is there any need for a detailed enumeration.
A room has walls, floor, and ceiling; a man naturally has ears, arms,
and feet. These things may be taken for granted. It is not what is
common to a class that describes; it is what is individual, what takes
one object out of a class.
Value of Observation.
This leads to the suggestion that _good description depends largely on
accurate observation._ A selection frequently quoted, but none the
less valuable because often seen, is in point here. It is the last
word on the value of observation.
"Talent is long patience. It is a question of regarding
whatever one desires to express long enough and with
attention close enough to discover a side which no one has
seen and which has been expressed by nobody. In everything
there is something of the unexplored, because we are
accustomed to use our eyes only with the thought of what has
already been said concerning the thing we see. The smallest
thing has in it a grain of the unknown. Discover it. In
order to describe a fire that flames or a tree in the plain,
we must remain face to face with that fire or that tree
until for us they no longer resemble any other tree or any
other fire. This is the way to become original.
"Having, moreover, impressed upon me the fact that there are
not in the whole world two grains of sand, two insects, two
hands, or two noses absolutely alike, he forced me to
describe a being or an object in such a manner as to
individualize it clearly, to distinguish it from all other
objects of the same kind. 'When you pass,' he said to me, 'a
grocer seated in his doorway, a concierge smoking his pipe,
a row of cabs, show me this grocer and this concierge, their
attitude, all their physical appearance; suggest by the
skill of your image all their moral nature, so that I shall
not confound them with any other grocer or any other
concierge; make me see, by a single word, wherein a
cab-horse differs from the fifty others that follow or
precede him.'... Whatever may be the thing which one wishes
to say, there is but one word for expressing it; only one
verb to animate it, but one adjective to qualify it. It is
essential to search for this verb, for this adjective, until
they are discovered, and never to be satisfied with anything
else."[7]
The Point of View.
With the closest observation, an author gets into his own mind what he
wishes to present to another; but with this essential step taken, he
is only ready to begin the work of communication. For the successful
communication of a picture there are some considerations of value. And
first is _the point of view._ It has much the same relation to
description as the main incident has to narration. In large measure it
determines what to exclude and what to include. When a writer has
assumed his point of view, he must stay there, and tell not a thing
more than he can see from there. It would hardly be possible for a
man, telling only so much as he saw while gazing from Eiffel Tower
into the streets below, to say that the people looked like
Lilliputians and that their hands were dirty. To one lying on the bank
of a stream, it does not look like "a silver thread running through
the landscape." Things do not look the same when they are near as when
at a distance. This fact has been acted upon more by the modern school
of painting than ever before in art. Verboeckhoven painted sheep in a
marvelous way. The drawing is perfect, giving the animal to the life.
Still, no matter how far away the artist was standing, there are the
same marvelously painted tufts of wool, showing almost the individual
fibres. Tufts of wool were on the sheep, and made of fibres; but no
artist at twenty rods could see them. The new school gives only what
actually can be seen. Its first law is that each "shall draw the thing
as he sees it for the God of Things as They Are." Make no additions to
what you can actually see because, as a result of experience, you know
that there are some things not yet mentioned in your description; the
hands may be dirty, but the man on the tower cannot see the dirt.
Neither make an addition simply because it sounds well; the "silver
thread through the landscape" is beautiful, but, unfortunately, it is
not always true.
Not only does distance cut out details from a picture; the fact that
man sees in a straight line and not around a corner eliminates some
features. In describing a house, remember that as you stand across the
street from it, the back porch cannot be seen, neither can the
shrubbery in the back yard. A writer would not be justified in
speaking of a man's necktie, if the man he was describing were walking
in front of him. In enumerative description the inside of a box may be
told of; a man may be turned around, as it were; but to present a
picture, only one side can be described, just as it would be shown in
a photograph. Any addition to what can actually be known from the
point of view assumed by the author is a fault and a source of
confusion. Choose your point of view; stay there; and tell only what
is seen from that point.
Moving Point of View.
It has been said that the point of view should not be changed. This
requires one modification. It may be changed, if the reader is kept
informed of the changes. If a person wished to describe an interior,
he would be unable to see the whole from any one point of view. As he
passed from room to room he should inform his reader of his change of
position. Then the description, though a unit, is a combination of
several descriptions; just as the house is one, though made of
dining-room, sitting-rooms, bedrooms, and attic. This kind of
description is very common in books of travel, in which the author
tells what he sees in passing. The thing to be remembered in writing
this kind of description is to inform the reader where the author is
when he writes the different parts of the description,--to give the
points of view.
The Point of View should be stated.
The point of view, whether fixed or moving, should be made clear.
Either it should be definitely stated, or it should be suggested by
some phrase in the description. In the many examples which are quoted
in this chapter, it would be well to see what it is that gives the
point of view. The picture gains in distinctness when the point of
view is known. The following sentences are from "The Old Manse;" there
is no mistake here. The reader knows every move the author makes. It
opens with:--
"Between two tall gateposts of rough-hewn stone (the gate
itself having fallen from its hinges at some unknown epoch)
we beheld the gray front of the old parsonage terminating
the vista of an avenue of black ash-trees."
From the street the reader is taken to "the rear of the house," where
there was "the most delightful little nook of a study that ever
offered its snug seclusion to a scholar." Through its window the
clergyman saw the opening of the "deadly struggle between two
nations." He heard the rattle of musketry, and
"there needed but a gentle wind to sweep the battle smoke
around this quiet house. Perhaps the reader, whom I cannot
help considering as my guest in the Old Manse and entitled
to all courtesy in the way of sight-showing,--perhaps he
will choose to take a nearer view of the memorable spot. We
stand now on the river's brink."... "Here we are, at the
point where the river was crossed by the old bridge."...
"The Old Manse! We had almost forgotten it, but will return
thither through the orchard."... "What with the river, the
battle-field, the orchard, and the garden, the reader begins
to despair of finding his way back into the Old Manse. But
in agreeable weather it is the truest hospitality to keep
him out-of-doors. I never grew quite acquainted with my
habitation till a long spell of sulky rain had confined me
beneath its roof. There could not be a more sombre aspect of
external nature than as then seen from the windows of my
study."
And so Hawthorne continues through this long and beautiful description
of "The Old Manse;" every change in the point of view is noted.
Mental Point of View.
Closely connected with the physical point of view is the mood or
purpose of the writer; this might be called _the mental point of
view._ Not everything should be told which the author could know from
his position, but only those things which at the time serve his
purpose. In the description already quoted from Newman, the mercantile
gentleman notes a large number of features which are the commercial
advantages of Attica; of these but three are worthy of mention by "yon
pilgrim student" in giving his impression of Athens as "a shrine where
he might take his fill of gazing on those emblems and coruscations of
invisible unoriginate perfection." The others--the soil, the streams,
the climate, the limestone, the fisheries, and the silver mines--do
not serve his purpose. Hawthorne in the long description already
mentioned has retained those features which suggest quiet and peace.
Such a profusion of "quiet," "half asleep," "peaceful," "unruffled,"
"unexcitable" words and phrases never "loitered" through forty pages
of "dreamy" and "whispering" description.
In the following bit from "Lear," where Edgar tells his blinded father
how high the cliff is, only those details are included which measure
distance.
"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; half way down
Hangs one that gathers samphire,--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,
Diminished to her cock; her cock, a buoy
Almost too small for sight: the murmuring surge,
That on th' unnumbered idle pebbles chafes,
Cannot be heard so high.--I'll look no more,
Lest my brain turn, and the deficient sight
Topple down headlong."
The following is from Kipling's "The Light that Failed:"--
"What do you think of a big, red, dead city built of red
sandstone, with green aloes growing between the stones,
lying out neglected on honey-colored sands? There are forty
dead kings there, Maisie, each in a gorgeous tomb finer than
all the others. You look at the palaces and streets and
shops and tanks, and think that men must live there, till
you find a wee gray squirrel rubbing its nose all alone in
the marketplace, and a jeweled peacock struts out of a
carved doorway and spreads its tail against a marble screen
as fine pierced as point-lace. Then a monkey--a little black
monkey--walks through the main square to get a drink from a
tank forty feet deep. He slides down the creepers to the
water's edge, and a friend holds him by the tail, in case he
should fall in.
"Is all that true?
"I have been there and seen. Then evening comes and the
lights change till it's just as though you stood in the
heart of a king-opal. A little before sundown, as punctually
as clockwork, a big bristly wild boar, with all his family
following, trots through the city gate, churning the foam on
his tusks. You climb on the shoulder of a big black stone
god, and watch that pig choose himself a palace for the
night and stump in wagging his tail. Then the night-wind
gets up, and the sands move, and you hear the desert outside
the city singing, 'Now I lay me down to sleep,' and
everything is dark till the moon rises."
Note how every detail introduced serves to make the city dead. Dead
kings, a wee gray squirrel, a little black monkey, a bristly wild
boar, the night wind, and the desert singing,--these could not be seen
or heard in a live city with street cars; but all serve to emphasize
the fact that here is "a big, red, dead city."
At the risk of over-emphasizing this point that the purpose of the
author, the mental point of view of the writer, the feeling which the
object gives him and which he wishes to convey to the reader, the
central thought in the description, is primary, and an element that
cannot be overlooked in successful description, I give another
example. This point really cannot be over-emphasized: a writer cannot
be too careful in selecting materials. Careless grouping of
incongruous matters cannot make a picture. Nor does the artistic
author leave the reader in doubt as to the purpose of the description;
its central thought is usually suggested in the first sentence. In the
quotations from Shakespeare and Kipling, the opening sentences are the
germ of what follows. Each detail seems to grow out of this sentence,
and serves to emphasize it. In the following by Stevenson, the
paragraphs spring from the opening sentence; they explain it, they
elaborate it, and they accent it.
"Night is a dead monotonous period under a roof; but in the
open world it passes lightly, with its stars and dews and
perfumes, and the hours are marked by changes in the face of
Nature. What seems a kind of temporal death to people choked
between walls and curtains is only a light and living
slumber to the man who sleeps afield. All night long he can
hear Nature breathing deeply and freely; even as she takes
her rest she turns and smiles; and there is one stirring
hour unknown to those who dwell in houses, when a wakeful
influence goes abroad over the sleeping hemisphere, and all
the outdoor world are on their feet. It is then that the
first cock crows, not this time to announce the dawn, but
like a cheerful watchman speeding the course of the night.
Cattle awake on the meadows; sheep break their fast on the
dewy hillsides, and change to a new lair among the ferns;
and houseless men, who have lain down with the fowls, open
their dim eyes and behold the beauty of the night.
"At what inaudible summons, at what gentle touch of Nature,
are all these sleepers thus recalled in the same hour to
life? Do the stars rain down an influence, or do we share
some thrill of mother earth below our resting bodies? Even
shepherds and old country-folk, who are the deepest read in
these arcana, have not a guess as to the means or purpose of
this nightly resurrection. Towards two in the morning they
declare the thing takes place; and neither know nor inquire
further. And at least it is a pleasant incident. We are
disturbed in our slumber only, like the luxurious Montaigne,
'that we may the better and more sensibly enjoy it.' We have
a moment to look upon the stars. And there is a special
pleasure for some minds in the reflection that we share the
impulse with all outdoor creatures in our neighborhood, that
we have escaped out of the Bastille of civilization, and are
become, for the time being, a more kindly animal and a sheep
of Nature's flock." ("Travels with a Donkey.")
Length of Descriptions.
There is one more step in the exclusion of details. This considers
neither the point of view nor the purpose of the writer, but it is
what is due the reader. Stevenson says in one of his essays that a
description which lasts longer than two minutes is never attempted in
conversation. The listener cannot hold the details enumerated. The
clearest statement regarding this comes from Jules Lemaitre in a
criticism upon some descriptions by Emile Zola which the critic says
are praised by persons who have never read them. He says:--
"It has been one of the greatest literary blunders of the
time to suppose that an enumeration of parts is a picture,
to think that forever placing details side by side, however
picturesque they may be, is able in the end to make a
picture, to give us any conception of the vast spectacles in
the physical universe. In reality, a written description
arranges its parts in our mind only when the impression of
the first features of which it is formed are remembered
sufficiently, so that we can easily join the first to those
which complete and end it. In short, a piece of description
is ineffective if we cannot hold in mind all its details at
one time. It is necessary that all the details coexist in
our memory just as the parts of a painting coexist under our
eye. This becomes next to impossible if the description of
one definite object last over fifteen minutes of reading.
The longer it is, the more obscure it becomes. The
individual features fade away in proportion to the number
which are presented; and for this reason one might say that
we cannot see the forest for the trees. Every description
which is over fifty lines ceases to be clear to a mind of
ordinary vigor. After that there is only a succession of
fragmentary pictures which fatigues and overwhelms the
reader."[8]
These, then, are the principles that guide in the choice of materials
for a description. First, the point of view, whether fixed or movable,
should be made clear to the reader; it should be retained throughout
the description, or the change should be announced. By regard for it
the writer will be guided to the exclusion of matters that could not
be observed, and to the inclusion of such details as can be seen and
are essential. Second, the writer will keep out matters that do not
contribute to his purpose, and will select only those details which
assist in producing the desired impression. Third, the limitations of
the reader's powers advise a writer to be brief: five hundred words
should be the outside; two hundred are enough for most writers. These
principles will give to the whole that unity of materials and of
structure which is the first requisite of an effective description.
The next matter for consideration is the arrangement of the materials.
The arrangement depends on the principles that guided in narration,
Mass and Coherence.
Arrangement of Details in Description.
After we have looked at any object long enough to be able to write
about it, one feature comes to assume an importance that sets it far
above all others. To a writer who has looked long at a man, he may
shrink to a cringing piece of weakness, or he may grow to a strong,
self-centred power whose presence alone inspires serenest trust.
Hawthorne, standing in St. Peter's, saw only the gorgeous coloring;
proportions, immensity, and sacredness were as nothing to the
harmonious brilliancy of this expanded "jewel casket."[9] Stevenson,
thinking of the beast of burden best suited to carry his great
sleeping sack, discarded the horse, for, as he says, "she is a fine
lady among animals."[10] The description of a horse which follows this
statement emphasizes the fact that a horse is not intended for
carrying burdens. From the germinal impression of a description, all
the details grow; to this primary impression they all contribute. In
the case of buildings, or other things material, this impression is
generally one of form, sometimes of the height of the object; if
striking, it may be color. The strongest impression of persons is a
quality of character which shows itself either in the face or in the
pose of a man. An example of each may be found in the following
paragraphs from "David Copperfield:"--
"At length we stopped before a very old house bulging out
over the road; a house with long, low lattice-windows
bulging out still farther, and beams with carved heads on
the ends bulging out too, so that I fancied the whole house
was leaning forward, trying to see who was passing on the
narrow pavement below. It was quite spotless in its
cleanliness. The old-fashioned brass knocker on the
low-arched door, ornamented with carved garlands of fruits
and flowers, twinkled like a star; the two stone steps
descending to the door were as white as if they had been
covered with fair linen; and all the angles and corners, and
carvings and mouldings, and quaint little panes of glass,
and quainter little windows, though as old as the hills,
were as pure as any snow that ever fell upon the hills.
"When the pony-chaise stopped at the door, and my eyes were
intent upon the house, I saw a cadaverous face appear at a
small window on the ground floor (in a little round tower
that formed one side of the house), and quickly disappear.
The low arched door then opened, and the face came out. It
was quite as cadaverous as it had looked in the window,
though in the grain of it there was that tinge of red which
is sometimes to be observed in the skins of red-haired
people. It belonged to a red-haired person--a youth of
fifteen, as I take it now, but looking much older whose hair
was cropped as close as the closest stubble; who had hardly
any eyebrows, and no eyelashes, and eyes of a red-brown; so
unsheltered and unshaded that I remember wondering how he
went to sleep. He was high-shouldered and bony; dressed in
decent black, with a white wisp of a neck cloth; buttoned up
to the throat; and had a long, lank, skeleton hand, which
particularly attracted my attention, as he stood at the
pony's head, rubbing his chin with it, and looking up at us
in the chaise."
Hawthorne thus begins his description of "The House of the Seven
Gables:"--
"Maule's Lane, or Pyncheon Street, as it were now more
decorous to call it, was thronged, at the appointed hour, as
with a congregation on its way to church. All, as they
approached, looked upward at the imposing edifice, which was
henceforth to assume its rank among the habitations of
mankind."
And in the same volume his description of "The Pyncheon of To-day"
begins:--
"As the child went down the steps, a gentleman ascended
them, and made his entrance into the shop. It was the
portly, and, had it possessed the advantage of a little more
height, would have been the stately figure of a man,
considerably in the decline of life, dressed in a black suit
of some thin stuff, resembling broadcloth as closely as
possible."
If the description be long, and the object will lend itself to such a
treatment, a definite, tangible, easily understood shape or form
should be suggested at once. Notice Newman's first sentence describing
Attica: "A confined triangle, perhaps fifty miles its greatest length,
and thirty its greatest breadth." Like this is the beginning of the
description of the battle of Waterloo by Victor Hugo.
"Those who would get a clear idea of the battle of Waterloo
have only to lay down upon the ground in their mind a
capital letter A. The left stroke of the A is the road to
Nivelles, the right stroke is the road from Genappe, the
cross of the A is the sunken road from Ohain to Braine
l'Alleud. The top of the A is Mont Saint Jean, Wellington is
there; the left-hand lower point is Hougomont, Reille is
there with Jerome Bonaparte; the right-hand lower point is
La Belle Alliance, Napoleon is there. A little below the
point where the cross of the A meets and cuts the right
stroke, is La Haie Sainte. At the middle of this cross is
the precise point where the final battle word was spoken.
There the lion is placed, the involuntary symbol of the
supreme heroism of the Imperial Guard. The triangle
contained at the top of the A, between the two strokes and
the cross, is the plateau of Mont Saint Jean. The struggle
for this plateau was the whole of the battle."[11]
In "The Vision of Sir Launfal" Lowell opens his beautiful description
with the words, "And what is so rare as a day in June?" From this
general and comprehensive sentence follow all the details which make a
June day perfect.
Hawthorne, after telling how he happened to write of him, begins his
long description of "The Old Apple Dealer" with the following
paragraph:--
"He is a small man, with gray hair and gray stubble beard,
and is invariably clad in a shabby surtout of snuff color,
closely buttoned, and half concealing a pair of gray
pantaloons; the whole dress, though clean and entire, being
evidently flimsy with much wear. His face, thin, withered,
furrowed, and with features which even age has failed to
render impressive, has a frost-bitten aspect. It is a moral
frost which no physical warmth or comfortableness could
counteract. The summer sunshine may fling its white heat
upon him, or the good fire of the depot room may make him
the focus of its blaze on a winter's day; but all in vain;
for still the old man looks as if he were in a frosty
atmosphere, with scarcely warmth enough to keep life in the
region about his heart. It is a patient, long-suffering,
quiet, hopeless, shivering aspect. He is not
desperate,--that, though its etymology implies no more,
would be too positive an expression,--but merely devoid of
hope. As all his past life, probably, offers no spots of
brightness to his memory, so he takes his present poverty
and discomfort as entirely a matter of course; he thinks it
the definition of existence, so far as himself is concerned,
to be poor, cold, and uncomfortable. It may be added, that
time has not thrown dignity as a mantle over the old man's
figure: there is nothing venerable about him: you pity him
without a scruple."
So this old apple dealer shivers all through this description of nine
pages to the last sentences:--
"God be praised, were it only for your sake, that the
present shapes of human existence are not cast in iron nor
hewn in everlasting adamant, but moulded of the vapors that
vanish away while the essence flits upward to the Infinite.
There is a spiritual essence in this gray and lean old shape
that shall flit upward too. Yes; doubtless there is a region
where the lifelong shiver will pass away from his being, and
that quiet sigh, which it has taken him so many years to
breathe, will be brought to a close for good and all."
The prominent characteristic may be the feeling aroused by the object.
It may be horror, as in a description of a haunted house or a
murderer; it may be love, as in the picture of an old home or a
sainted mother. The emotion occasioned is often mentioned or suggested
at once, and the details are afterward given which have called forth
the feeling. Poe uses this in the first paragraph of "The House of
Usher."
"During the whole of a dull, dark, and soundless day in the
autumn of the year, when the clouds hung oppressively low in
the heavens, I had been passing alone, on horseback, through
a singularly dreary tract of country, and at length found
myself, as the shades of evening drew on, within view of the
melancholy House of Usher. I know not how it was--but, with
the first glimpse of the building, _a sense of insufferable
gloom pervaded my spirit._ I say insufferable; for the
feeling was unrelieved by any of that half-pleasurable,
because poetic, sentiment with which the mind usually
receives even the sternest natural images of the desolate or
terrible. I looked upon the scene before me--upon the mere
house, and the simple landscape features of the domain--upon
the bleak walls--upon the vacant, eye-like windows--upon a
few rank sedges--and upon a few white trunks of decayed
trees--with an utter depression of soul which I can compare
to no earthly sensation more properly than to the
after-dream of a reveler upon opium--the bitter lapse into
every-day life--the hideous dropping off of the veil. There
was an iciness, a sinking, a sickening of the heart--an
unredeemed dreariness of thought which no goading of the
imagination could torture into aught of the sublime.... It
was, possible, I reflected, that a mere different
arrangement of the particulars of the scene, of the details
of the picture, would be sufficient to modify, or perhaps to
annihilate, its capacity for sorrowful impression; and,
acting upon this idea, I reined my horse to the precipitous
brink of a black and lurid tarn that lay in unruffled lustre
by the dwelling, and gazed down--but with a shudder even
more thrilling than before--upon the remodeled and inverted
images of the gray sedge, and the ghastly tree-stems, and
the vacant and eye-like windows."
And one may see from looking back at the illustrations given that the
dominant impression which gives the character to the whole
description, this leading quality which is the essence of the whole,
usually stands at the very beginning, and to it all the succeeding
details cling.
The End of a Description.
The end of a description is equally as important as the opening. In
most descriptions, whether short or long, the most important detail,
the detail that emphasizes most the general feeling of the whole,
stands at the end. If the description be short, the necessity of a
comprehensive opening statement is not imperative,--indeed, it may be
made so formal and ostentatious when compared with the rest of the
description as to be ridiculous; yet even in the short description
some important detail should close it. In a long description the
repetition of the opening statement in a new form sometimes stands at
the end. If the description be of movement or change, the end will be
the climax of the movement, the result of the change.
In the examples already given there are illustrations of the methods
of closing. In each case, there is an important detail or an artistic
repetition of the general impression. Many examples of short
characterization can be found in all narratives. In Irving's
description of Ichabod Crane, the next to the last sentence gives the
significant detail, and the last gives another general impression. It
reads:--
"The cognomen of Crane was not inapplicable to his person.
He was tall, but exceedingly lank, with narrow shoulders,
long arms and legs, hands that dangled a mile out of his
sleeves, feet that might have served for shovels, and his
whole frame most loosely hung together. His head was small,
and flat at top, with huge ears, large green glassy eyes,
and a long snipe nose, so that it looked like a weather-cock
perched upon his spindle neck to tell which way the wind
blew." ("The Legend of Sleepy Hollow.")
So far this is but an amplification of his likeness to a crane;
certainly "a long snipe nose" "upon his spindle neck" is the most
important detail. Next the author gives another general impression:--
"To see him striding along the profile of a hill on a windy
day, with his clothes bagging and fluttering about him, one
might have mistaken him for the genius of famine descending
upon the earth, or some scarecrow eloped from a cornfield."
The following is from "The House of Usher:"--
"Shaking off from my spirit what _must_ have been a dream, I
scanned more narrowly the real aspect of the building. Its
principal feature seemed to be that of an excessive
antiquity. The discoloration of ages had been great. Minute
fungi overspread the whole exterior, hanging in a fine
tangled web-work from the eaves. Yet all this was apart from
any extraordinary dilapidation. No portion of the masonry
had fallen, and there appeared to be a wild inconsistency
between its still perfect adaptation of parts and the
crumbling condition of the individual stones. In this there
was much that reminded me of the specious totality of old
woodwork which has rotted for long years in some neglected
vault with no disturbance from the breath of the external
air. Beyond this indication of extensive decay, however, the
fabric gave little token of instability. Perhaps the eye of
a scrutinizing observer might have discovered a barely
perceptible fissure, which, extending from the roof of the
building in front, made its way down the wall in a zigzag
direction, until it became lost in the sullen waters of the
tarn."
In this every detail emphasizes the "excessive antiquity" of the
house; and on reading the story there is no question of the importance
of the "barely perceptible fissure." Thereby hangs the tale.
The two following are descriptions of dawn, of change; they have
marked climaxes. The first is by Edward Everett, the second by
Stevenson. The similarity in choice of words and in the feelings of
the men is remarkable.
"Such was the glorious spectacle as I entered the train. As
we proceeded, the timid approach of twilight became more
perceptible; the intense blue of the sky began to soften;
the smaller stars, like little children, went first to rest;
the sister-beams of the Pleiades soon melted together; but
the bright constellations of the west and north remained
unchanged. Steadily the wondrous transfiguration went on.
Hands of angels, hidden from mortal eyes, shifted the
scenery of the heavens; the glories of night dissolved into
the glories of dawn. The blue sky now turned more softly
gray; the great watch-stars shut up their holy eyes; the
east began to kindle. Faint streaks of purple soon blushed
along the sky; the whole celestial concave was filled with
the inflowing tides of the morning light, which came pouring
down from above in one great ocean of radiance, till at
length, as we reached the Blue Hills, a flash of purple
blazed out from above the horizon, and turned the dewy
teardrops of flower and leaf into rubies and diamonds. In a
few seconds, the everlasting gates of morning were thrown
wide open, and the lord of day, arrayed in glories too
severe for the gaze of man, began his state." ("The Uses of
Astronomy.")
"At last she began to be aware of a wonderful revolution,
compared to which the fire of Mittwalden Palace was but a
crack and flash of a percussion cap. The countenance with
which the pines regarded her began insensibly to change; the
grass, too, short as it was, and the whole winding staircase
of the brook's course, began to wear a solemn freshness of
appearance. And this slow transfiguration reached her heart,
and played upon it, and transpierced it with a serious
thrill. She looked all about; the whole face of nature
looked back, brimful of meaning, finger on lip, leaking its
glad secret. She looked up. Heaven was almost emptied of
stars. Such as still lingered shone with a changed and
waning brightness, and began to faint in their stations. And
the color of the sky itself was most wonderful; for the rich
blue of the night had now melted and softened and
brightened; and there had succeeded a hue that has no name,
and that is never seen but as the herald of the morning.
'Oh!' she cried, joy catching at her voice, 'Oh! it is the
dawn!'
"In a breath she passed over the brook, and looped up her
skirts and fairly ran in the dim alleys. As she ran, her
ears were aware of many pipings, more beautiful than music;
in the small, dish-shaped houses in the fork of giant arms,
where they had lain all night, lover by lover, warmly
pressed, the bright-eyed, big-hearted singers began to
awaken for the day. Her heart melted and flowed forth to
them in kindness. And they, from their small and high
perches in the clerestories of the wood cathedral, peered
down sidelong at the ragged Princess as she flitted below
them on the carpet of the moss and tassel.
"Soon she had struggled to a certain hilltop, and saw far
before her the silent inflooding of the day. Out of the East
it welled and whitened; the darkness trembled into light;
and the stars were extinguished like the street-lamps of a
human city. The whiteness brightened into silver; the silver
warmed into gold, and the gold kindled into pure and living
fire; and the face of the East was barred with elemental
scarlet. The day drew its first long breath, steady and
chill; and for leagues around the woods sighed and shivered.
And then, at one bound the sun had floated up; and her
startled eyes received day's first arrow, and quailed under
the buffet. On every side, the shadows leaped from their
ambush and fell prone. The day was come, plain and garish;
and up the steep and solitary eastern heaven, the sun,
victorious over his competitors, continued slowly and
royally to mount." ("Prince Otto.")
Proportion.
One thing further should be said regarding Mass. Not everything can
stand first or last; some important details must be placed in the
midst of a description. These particulars will not be of equal
importance. The more important details may be given their
proportionate emphasis by relatively increasing the length of their
treatment. If one detail is more important than another, it requires
more to be said about it; unimportant matters should be passed over
with a word. Proportion in the length of treatment is a guide to the
relative importance of the matters introduced into a description.
In the description of "The House of Usher," position emphasizes the
barely perceptible fissure. Proportion singles out the crumbling
condition of the individual stones and makes this detail more emphatic
than either the discoloration or the fungi. And in Newman's
description, the olive-tree, the brilliant atmosphere, the thyme, the
bees, all add to the charms of bright and beautiful Athens; but most
of all the Aegean, with its chain of islands, its dark violet billows,
its jets of silver, the heaving and panting of its long waves,--the
restless living element fascinates and enraptures "yon pilgrim
student." Position and proportion are the means of emphasis in a
paragraph of description.
Arrangement must be natural.
Having settled the massing of the description, the next matter for
consideration is the arrangement. In order that the parts of a
description may be coherent, hold together, they should be arranged in
the order in which they would naturally be perceived. What strikes the
eye of the beholder as most important, often the general
characteristic of the whole, should be mentioned first; and the
details should follow as they are seen. In a building, the usual way
of observing and describing is from foundation to turret stone. A
landscape may be described by beginning with what is near and
extending the view; this is common. Sometimes the very opposite plan
is pursued; or one may begin on either hand and advance toward the
other. Of a person near by, the face is the first thing observed; for
it is there that his character can be best discovered. Afterward
details of clothing follow as they would naturally be noticed. If a
person be at a distance his pose and carriage would be about all that
could be seen; as he approaches, the other details would be mentioned
as they came into view. To arrange details in the order in which they
are naturally observed will result in an association in the
description of the details that are contiguous in the objects. Jumping
about in a description is a source of confusion. How entirely it may
ruin a paragraph can be estimated by the effect upon this single
sentence, "He was tall, with feet that might have served for shovels,
narrow shoulders, hands that dangled a mile out of his sleeves, long
arms and legs, and his whole frame most loosely hung together." This
rearrangement makes but a disjointed and feeble impression; and the
reason is entirely that an order in which no person ever observed a
man has been substituted for the commonest order,--from head to foot.
Arrange details so that the parts which are contiguous shall be
associated in the description, and proceed in the order in which the
details are naturally observed.
The following is by Irving; he is describing the stage-coachman:--
"He has commonly a broad, full face, curiously mottled with
red, as if the blood had been forced by hard feeding into
every vessel of the skin; he is swelled into jolly
dimensions by frequent potations of malt liquors, and his
bulk is still further increased by a multiplicity of coats,
in which he is buried like a cauliflower, the upper one
reaching to his heels. He wears a broad-brimmed, low-crowned
hat; a huge roll of colored handkerchief about his neck,
knowingly knotted and tucked in at the bosom; and has in
summer time a large bouquet of flowers in his buttonhole,
the present, most probably, of some enamored country lass.
His waistcoat is commonly of some bright color, striped, and
his small-clothes extend far below the knees, to meet a pair
of jockey boots which reach about half way up his legs."[12]
Use Familiar Images.
When the materials have been selected and arranged, the hardest part
of the work has been done. It now remains to express in language the
picture. A few suggestions regarding the kind of language will be
helpful. The writer must always bear in mind the fact that in
constructing a mental picture each reader does it from the images he
already possesses. "Quaint arabesques" is without meaning to many
persons; and until the word has been looked up in the dictionary, and
the picture seen there, the beautiful line of "Sir Launfal" suggests
no image whatever. So when Stevenson speaks of the birds in the
"clerestories of the wood cathedral," the image is not distinct in the
mind of a young American. Supposing a pupil in California were asked
to describe an orange to an Esquimau. He might say that it is a
spheroid about the size of an apple, and the color of one of
Lorraine's sunsets. This would be absolutely worthless to a child of
the frigid zone. Had he been told that an orange was about the size of
a snowball, much the color of the flame of a candle, that the peeling
came off like the skin from a seal, and that the inside was good to
eat, he would have known more of this fruit. The images which lie in
our minds and from which we construct new pictures are much like the
blocks that a child-builder rearranges in many different forms; but
the blocks do not change. From them he may build a castle or a mill;
yet the only difference is a difference in arrangement. So it is with
the pictures we build up in imagination: our castle in Spain we have
never seen, but the individual elements which we associate to lift up
this happy dwelling-place are the things we know and have seen. A
reader creates nothing new; all he does is to rearrange in his own
mind the images already familiar. Only so may he pass from the known
to the unknown.
The fact that we construct pictures of what we read from those images
already in our minds warns the writer against using materials which
those for whom he writes could not understand. It compels him to
select definite images, and it urges him to use the common and the
concrete. It frequently drives him to use comparisons.
Use of Comparisons.
To represent the extremely bare and unornamented appearance of a
building, one might write, "It looked like a great barn," or "It was a
great barn." In either case the image would be definite, common, and
concrete. In both cases there is a comparison. In the first, where the
comparison is expressed, there is a _simile;_ in the second, where the
comparison is only implied, there is a _metaphor._ These two figures
of speech are very common in description, and it is because they are
of great value. One other is sometimes used,--_personification,_ which
ascribes to inanimate things the attributes of life which are the
property of animate nature. What could be happier than this by
Stevenson: "All night long he can hear Nature breathing deeply and
freely; even as she takes her rest she turns and smiles"? or this, "A
faint sound, more like a moving coolness than a stream of air"? And at
the end of the chapter which describes his "night under the pines," he
speaks of the "tapestries" and "the inimitable ceiling" and "the view
which I command from the windows." In this one chapter are
personification, simile, metaphor,--all comparisons, and doing what
could hardly be done without them. Common, distinct, concrete images
are surest.
Choice of Words. Adjectives and Nouns.
To body forth these common, distinct, concrete images calls for a
discriminating choice of words; for in the choice of words lies a
large part of the vividness of description. If the thing described be
unknown to the reader, it requires the right word to place it before
him; if it be common, still must the right word be found to set it
apart from the thousand other objects of the same class. The words
that may justly be called describing words are adjectives and nouns;
and of these the adjective is the first descriptive word. The rule
that a writer should never use two adjectives where one will do, and
that he should not use one if a noun can be found that completely
expresses the thought, is a good one to follow. One certain stroke of
the crayon is worth a hundred lines, each approaching the right one.
One word, the only one, will tell the truth more vividly than ten that
approach its expression. For it must be remembered that a description
must be done quickly; every word that is used and does nothing is not
only a waste of time, but is actually in the way. In a description
every word must count. It may be a comparison, an epithet,
personification, or what not, but whatever method is adopted, the
right word must do it quickly.
How much depends on the nice choice of words may be seen by a study of
the selections already quoted; and especially by a careful reading of
those by Stevenson and Everett. To show the use of adjectives and
nouns in description, the following from Kipling is a good
illustration. Toomai had just reached the elephants' "ball-room" when
he saw--
"white-tusked wild males, with fallen leaves and nuts and
twigs lying in the wrinkles of their necks and the folds of
their ears; fat, slow-footed she-elephants, with restless
pinky-black calves only three or four feet high, running
under their stomachs; young elephants with their tusks just
beginning to show, and very proud of them; lanky, scraggy,
old-maid elephants, with their hollow, anxious faces, and
trunks like rough bark; savage old bull-elephants, scarred
from shoulder to flank with great weals and cuts of by-gone
fights, and the caked dirt of their solitary mud bath
dropping from their shoulders; and there was one with a
broken tusk and the marks of the full-stroke, the terrible
drawing scrape of a tiger's claw on his side."[13]
One third of the words in this paragraph are descriptive nouns and
adjectives, none of which the reader wishes to change.
Use of Verbs.
Verbs also have a great value in description. In the paragraph
picturing the dawn, Stevenson has not neglected the verbs. "Welled,"
"whitened," "trembled," "brightened," "warmed," "kindled," and so on
through the paragraph. Try to change them, and it is apparent that
something is lost by any substitution. Kaa, the python, "_pours_
himself along the ground." If he is angry, "Baloo and Bagheera could
see the big swallowing-muscles on either side of Kaa's throat _ripple_
and _bulge._"
Yet in the choice of words, one may search for the bizarre and unusual
rather than for the truly picturesque. Stevenson at times seems to
have lapsed. When he says that Modestine would feel a switch "more
_tenderly_ than my cane;" that he "must _instantly_ maltreat this
uncomplaining animal," meaning constantly; and at another place that
he "had to labor so _consistently_ with" his stick that the sweat ran
into his eyes, there is a suspicion of a desire for the sensational
rather than the direct truth. On the other hand, the beginner finds
himself using words that have lost, their meaning through
indiscriminate usage. "Awful good," "awful pretty," and "awful sweet"
mean something less than good, pretty, and sweet. "Lovely," "dear,"
"splendid," "unique," and a large number of good words have been much
dulled by the ignorant use of babblers. Superlatives and all words
denoting comparison should be used with stinginess. One cannot afford
to part with this kind of coin frequently; the cheaper coins should be
used, else he will find an empty purse when need arises. Thackeray has
this: "Her voice was the sweetest, low song." How much better this,
Her voice was a sweet, low song. All the world is shut out from this,
while in the former he challenges the world by the comparison.
Shakespeare was wiser when he made Lear say,--
"Her voice was ever soft,
Gentle, and low,--an excellent thing in woman."
Avoid words which have lost their meaning by indiscriminate use; shun
the sensational and the bizarre; use superlatives with economy; but in
all you do, whether in unadorned or figurative language, choose the
word that is quick and sure and vivid--the one word that exactly
suggests the picture.
SUGGESTIVE QUESTIONS AND EXERCISES
QUESTIONS.
THE OLD MANSE.
(Riverside Literature Series, No. 69.)
Are there narrative portions in "The Old Manse"? paragraphs of
exposition?
Do you term the whole narration, description, or exposition? Why?
Frame a sentence which you think would be an adequate topic sentence
for the whole piece.
What phrase in the first paragraph allows the author to begin the
second with the words, "Nor, in truth, had the Old Manse," etc.? Where
in the second paragraph is found the words which are the source of "my
design," mentioned in the third? How does the author pass from the
fourth paragraph to the fifth? In the same way note the connections
between the succeeding paragraphs. They are most skillfully dovetailed
together. Now make a list of the phrases in the first fifteen pages
which introduce paragraphs, telling from what in the preceding
paragraph each new paragraph springs. Do you think that such a
felicitous result just happened? or did Hawthorne plan it?
Does Hawthorne generally introduce his descriptions by giving the
feeling aroused by the object described, a method very common with
Poe?
In the paragraph beginning at the bottom of p. 18, what do you think
of the selection of material? What have guided in the inclusion and
exclusion of details?
Write a paragraph upon this topic: There could not be a more joyous
aspect of external nature than as seen from the windows of my study
just after the passing of a cooling shower. Be careful to select
things that have been made happy, and to use adjectives and nouns that
are full of joy.
Make a list of the words used to describe "The Old Apple Dealer."
Has this description Unity?
What relation to the whole has the first sentence of paragraph three?
the last?
Do you think there is a grammatical error in the third sentence of
this paragraph?
By contrasts to what has Hawthorne brought out better the character of
the Apple Dealer? When can contrasts help?
AN INDIAN-SUMMER REVERIE, AND OTHER POEMS.
(Riverside Literature Series, No. 30.)
In this poem what purpose is served by the first two stanzas?
Where in the landscape does the author begin? Which way does he
progress?
Quote stanzas in which other senses than sight are called upon.
Make a list of the figures of speech. How many similes? metaphors?
examples of personification? Which seems most effective? Which
instance of its use do you prefer? Has Lowell used too many figures?
Read "The Oak," "The Dandelion," and "Al Fresco."
Are they description or exposition? Do they bear out Lowell's estimate
of himself?
THE SKETCH-BOOK.
(Riverside Literature Series, Nos. 51, 52.)
Why has Irving given four pages to the description of Sleepy Hollow
before he introduces Ichabod Crane?
Why, then, seven pages to Ichabod before the story begins?
What gives the peculiar interest to this tale?
In the "Legend of Sleepy Hollow" how many paragraphs of description
close with an important detail?
In how many with a general characterization?
In all the descriptions of buildings by Irving that you have read,
what are the first things mentioned,--size, shape, color, or what?
Make a list, so as to be sure.
Does Irving use many comparisons? Are the likenesses to common things?
Select the ten you think best. Are there more in narrative or
descriptive passages? What do you gather from this fact?
In "Christmas Day," on p. 51 (R. L. S., No. 52), does Irving proceed
from far to near in the landscape? Is this common? Find another
example.
How has Irving emphasized the littleness of the minister described on
p. 56 (R. L. S., No. 52)?
THE FALL OF THE HOUSE OF USHER.
(Riverside Literature Series, No. 119.)
Is the arrangement of the details in the last two lines of the first
paragraph stronger than the arrangement of the same details on p. 63?
Why, or why not?
In the description of the hall, pp. 67 and 68, do the details produce
the effect upon you which they did upon Poe?
Find a description in this piece which closes with an important
detail.
Is Usher described at all when Poe says, "I gazed upon him with a
feeling half of pity, half of awe"? Do the details enumerated arouse
such feelings in you? Would the feeling have been called forth if it
had not been suggested by Poe? Is there, then, any advantage in this
method of opening a description?
What good was done by describing Usher as Poe knew him in youth?
Why is the parenthetical clause on p. 72 necessary?
On p. 80, should Poe write "previously to its final interment"?
What do you think of the length of the sentence quoted on p. 85?
Does Poe use description to accent the mood of the narrative, or to
make concrete the places and persons?
Why is "The Haunted Palace" introduced into the story?
Is this story as good as "The Gold-Bug"?
SILAS MARNER.
(Riverside Literature Series, No. 83.)
Why is not the early history of Silas Marner related first in the
story?
By what steps has the author approached the definite time?
From the fragments about his appearance, do you get a clear idea of
how Marner looks?
Do you approve this method of scattering the description along through
the story? Write a description of Marner on the night he was going to
the tavern.
Could not the quarrel between Godfrey and Dunsey been omitted?
Describe the interior of Marner's cottage.
Why should Sally Oates and her dropsy be admitted to the story?
Do you know as well how George Eliot's characters look as how they
think and feel?
What do you think of the last sentence of Chapter IV.? Why does not
Chapter V. go on with Dunsey's story? Why is Chapter VI. introduced at
all? What of its close?
What figure in the last sentence of Chapter X.?
Would you prefer to know how tall Eppie was, what kind of clothes she
wore, etc., to the knowledge you gain of her on p. 178?
Suppose that Dunsey came home the night he staked Wildfire, recite the
conversation between him and Godfrey.
Have Dolly Winthrop, Priscilla Lammeter, and Mr. Macey talk over "The
New Minister."
Write on "What I see in George Eliot's Face."
THE DESERTED VILLAGE.
(Riverside Literature Series, No. 68.)
Is this piece description or exposition?
In the first stanza where is the topic sentence?
The author has made two groups of charms. Would it be as well to
change them about? Give your reasons.
Where has he used the ear instead of the eye to suggest his picture?
Is it clear?
What method is adopted in lines 125-128? See also lines 237-250.
Can you unite the paragraphs on p. 25? Why do you think so?
Could you suggest a new arrangement of details in lines 341-362 that
would be as good as the present? What are the last four lines for?
EXERCISES.
Enumerative Description may well employ a few lessons. In it accuracy
of detail must be studied, and every detail must be introduced.
1. The Teacher's Desk.
2. Write a letter to a carpenter giving details for the construction
of a small bookcase.
3. By telling how you made it, describe a camp, a kite, a dress, or a
cake. Narration may be employed for the purpose of description. A good
example may be found in "Robinson Crusoe" in the chapter describing
his home after the shipwreck.
4. Describe an unfurnished room. Shape, size, position, and number of
windows, the fireplace, etc., should be definite. Be sure to give the
point of view. To say "On my right hand," "In front of me," or any
similar phrases means nothing unless the reader knows where you are.
In these exercises the pupil will doubtless employ the paragraph of
particulars. This is the most common in description. Other forms are
valuable.
5. Using a paragraph telling what it was not, finish this: I followed
the great singer to her home. Imagine my surprise in finding that the
house in which this lady lived was not a home of luxury and
splendor,--not even a home of comfort. Go on with the details of a
home of luxury which were _not_ there. Finish with what you did see.
This is really a description of two houses set in artistic contrast to
heighten the effect. Remember you are outside.
6. By the use of comparison finish this: The home of my poor little
friend was but little better than a barn. Choose only such details as
emphasize the barn-like appearance of the home. There is but one room.
Remember where you are standing; and keep in mind the effect you wish
to produce.
7. Using a moving point of view, describe an interior. Do not have too
many rooms.
8. Furnish the room described in number four to suit your taste. Tell
how it looks. Remember that a few things give character to a room.
9. Describe your childhood's home as it would look to you after years
of absence.
10. Using a paragraph of the obverse, describe the appearance of the
house from which you were driven by the cruelty of a drunken father.
11. Describe a single tree standing alone in a field. It will be well
for the teacher to read to the class some descriptions of
trees,--Lowell's "Birch" and "Oak," "Under the Willows," and some
stanzas from "An Indian Summer Reverie." Holmes has some good
paragraphs on trees in "The Autocrat." Any good tree descriptions will
help pupils to do it better than they can without suggestion. They
should describe their own tree, however.
12. Describe some single flower growing wild. Read Lowell's
"Dandelion," "Violet, Sweet Violet," Wordsworth's "Daisy," "The
Daffodils," "The Small Celandine," and Burns's "Daisy." These do not
so much describe as they arouse a feeling of love for the flowers
which will show itself in the composition.
13. Describe a view of a lake. If possible, have your point of view
above the lake and use the paragraph of comparison.
14. Describe a landscape from a single point of view. Read Curtis's
"My Castles in Spain" from "Prue and I," many descriptions in "An
Inland Voyage" by Stevenson, and "Bay Street" by Bliss Carman in "The
Atlantic Monthly."
15. Describe your first view of a small cluster of houses or a small
town.
16. Approach the town, describing its principal features. Keep the
reader informed as to where you are.
17. Describe a dog of your own.
18. Describe a dog of your neighbor's. Before the description is
undertaken read "Our Dogs" and "Rab" by Dr. Brown; "A Dog of Flanders"
by Ouida. Scott has some noble fellows in his novels.
19. Describe a flock of chickens. There are good descriptions of
chickens in "The House of the Seven Gables" and in "Sketches" by
Dickens.
20. Describe the burning of your own home. Be careful not to narrate.
21. Describe a stranger you met on the street to-day. It is easier to
describe a person if you and the person you describe move toward each
other. Remember that you begin the description at a distance. Details
should be mentioned as they actually come into view.
22. Describe your father in his favorite corner at home.
23. Describe a person you do not like, by telling what he is not.
24. Describe a person you admire, but are not acquainted with, using
the paragraph of comparisons.
25. Describe a picture.
It would be well to have at the end of this year four or five stories
written, in which description plays a part. Its principal use is to
give the setting to the story, to give concreteness to the characters,
and to accent the mood of the story.
Most passages of description are short. Rarely will any pupil write
over three hundred words. One hundred are often better. The short
composition gives an opportunity for the study of accuracy of
expression. What details to include; in what order to arrange them
that they produce the best effect, both of vividness and naturalness;
and the influence of the point of view and the purpose of the author
on the unity of description should be kept constantly present in the
exercises. Careful attention should be paid to choice of words, for on
right words depends in a large degree the vividness of a description.
Right words in well-massed paragraphs of vivid description should be
the object this term.
* * * * *
CHAPTER V
EXPOSITION
So far we have studied discourse which deals with things,--things
active, doing something, considered under the head of narration; and
things at rest, and pictured, considered in description. Now we come
to exposition, which deals with ideas either separately or in
combinations. Instead of Mr. Smith's horse, exposition treats of the
general term, horse. "The Great Stone Face" may have taught a lesson
by its story, but the discussion of the value of lofty ideals is a
subject for exposition.
General Terms Difficult.
That general terms and propositions are harder to get hold of than
concrete facts is readily apparent in the first reading of an author
like Emerson. To a young person it means little. Yet when he puts in
the place of the general terms some specific examples, and so verifies
the statements, the general propositions have a mine of meaning, and
"the sense of the author is as broad as the world." This stanza from
Lowell is but little suggestive to young readers:--
"Such earnest natures are the fiery pith,
The compact nucleus, round which systems grow!
Mass after mass becomes inspired therewith,
And whirls impregnate with the central glow."[14]
Yet when Columbus and Luther and Garrison are mentioned as
illustrations of the meaning, it becomes world-wide in its
application. Still in order to get at the thought, there is first the
need of the specific and the concrete; afterward we pass to the
general and the abstract.
As abstract ideas are harder to get hold of than concrete facts, so
exposition has difficulties greater than those found in narration and
description. It is not so hard to tell what belongs in a story; the
events are all distinct. Nor is it so difficult to know what to
include in a description; one can look and see. In exposition this is
not so. In most minds ideas do not have distinct limits; the edges
rather are indistinct. It is hard to tell where the idea stops. In
writing of "The Uses of Coal," it is easy to wander over an indistinct
boundary and to take a survey of "The Origin of Coal." Not only may
one include what unquestionably should be excluded, but there is no
definite guide to the arrangement of the materials, such as was found
in narration. There a sequence of time was an almost infallible rule;
here the writer must search carefully how to arrange hazy ideas in
some effective form. As discourse comes to deal more with general
ideas, the difficulties of writing increase; and the difficulties are
not due to any new principles of structure which must be introduced.
When one says that the material should be selected according to the
familiar law of Unity, he has given the guiding principle. Yet the
real difficulty is still before an author: it is to decide what stamp
to put upon such elusive matter as ideas. They cannot be kept long
enough in the twilight of consciousness to analyze them; and often
ideas that have been marked "accepted" have, upon reexamination, to be
"rejected." To examine ideas--the material used in this form of
discourse--so thoroughly that they may be accurately, definitely known
in their backward relation and their bearing upon what follows, this
is the seat of the difficulty in exposition.
Exposition may conveniently be classified into exposition of a term,
or definition; and exposition of a proposition, which is generally
suggested by the term exposition.
Definition.
Definition of a word means giving its limits or boundaries. Of man it
might be said that it is a living animal, having a strong bony
skeleton; that this skeleton consists of a trunk from which extend
four limbs, called arms and legs, and is surmounted by a bony cavity,
called a skull; that the skeleton protects the vital organs, and is
itself covered by a muscular tissue which moves the bones and gives a
rounded beauty to their ugliness; that man has a highly developed
nervous system, the centre of which is the brain placed in the skull.
So a person might go on for pages, enumerating the attributes which,
taken together, make up the general idea of man.
Exposition and Description distinguished.
This sort of exposition is very near description; indeed, were the
purpose different, it would be description. The purpose, however, is
not to tell how an individual looks, but to place the object in a
class. It is therefore not description, but exposition. Moreover, the
method is different. In description those characteristics are given
that distinguish the object from the rest of the class; while in
exposition those qualities are selected which
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