Would it have been improved by telling how many chairs were on the stage, or by including other details? Why? Descriptions often appeal to senses other than sight. Here is a description of a parade. II THE PARADE Here they come! The policemen in front, erect and soldierly on the finest horses in the department. Then comes the flag with its guards-hats off! Behind them is the band of the Tenth Regiment. How clear and loud the trumpets sound! How sharp and inspiring is the rhythm! We want to keep time. How perfectly these musicians march! Every left foot comes down on the accented beat of the measure; every line is straight across the street; every man squarely behind the one ahead; all ranks are equally distant from each other. So, too, the company from the regular army that follows the band is in perfect step, perfect alignment, rifles at the same angle-perfect form. Splendid as they are, however, we are more interested in the men of the American Legion who follow. Their lines are not so straight. Dozens are out of step, and some evidently don't care a tin hat for the drum that is banging away its insistent left! right! But on and on they comecolumn after column, interspersed with a band here and there. Here is a company in snappy new uniforms marching like regulars, and there another in mufti who act as if they were out for a lark. They are mechanics and clerks and lawyers and farmers now, just as they were when they answered the call to save democracy. Make a list of the sounds suggested in this description. Pick out the items that make the parade vivid. III A BRIGHT FIRE The music struck up, and the dance commenced. The bright fire crackled and sparkled, rose and fell, as though it joined the dance itself, in right good fellowship. Sometimes it roared as if it would make music too. Sometimes it flashed and beamed as if it were the eye of the old room; it winked, too, sometimes, like a knowing Patriarch, upon the youthful whisperers in corners. Sometimes it sported with the holly boughs; and, shining on the leaves by fits and starts, made them look as if they were in the cold winter night again, and fluttering in the wind. Sometimes its genial humor grew obstreperous, and passed all bounds; and then it cast into the room, among the twinkling feet, with a loud burst, a shower of harmless little sparks, and in its exultation, leaped and bounded like a mad thing, up the broad old chimney. -Charles Dickens Exercise. Be prepared to stand before the class and describe in a paragraph or two any one of the following scenes assigned by your teacher: 1. Your assembly room prepared for graduating exercises. 2. A parade you have seen. 3. Some person you know. Bring out details that are characteristic; such as, his walk, his laugh, his manner of speech. 4. A room, a building, a scene, an automobile. 5. A traffic jam, a crowd on the sidewalk; a waiting room at a railway station; a line in front of a ticket window. 6. A herd of cattle at the watering place; a flock of sheep following its leader; a bucking broncho. You will need to prepare carefully just what items you will include in your description. When you have given your description, your classmates will tell you— 1. What items helped them to see what you saw. 2. What items you should have left out. 3. What words, particularly verbs, adjectives, and adverbs, were vivid. Now write your description and prepare to read it to the class. Before reading it, go over it carefully for the three points listed above. Improve your own work. The class will criticize for these three points and will suggest more vivid words for some of yours. Bring to class a paragraph of description from the book you are reading at home and go over it for these three points. 88. THE POINT OF VIEW IN DESCRIPTION In a hall, the height of which was greatly disproportioned to its extreme length and width, a long oaken table, formed of planks, rough-hewn from the forest, stood ready prepared for the evening meal of Cedric the Saxon. The roof, composed of beams and rafters, had nothing to divide the apartment from the sky excepting the planking and thatch; there was a huge fireplace at either end of the hall. On the sides of the apartment hung implements of war and of the chase, and there were at each corner folding doors which gave access to other parts of the extensive building. Adapted -Sir Walter Scott Where did the person stand who was describing this hall? The lists now presented a most splendid spectacle. The sloping galleries were crowded with all that was noble, great, wealthy and beautiful in the northern and midland parts of England; and the contrast of the various dresses of these dignified spectators rendered the view as gay as it was rich, while the lower space, filled with the substantial burgesses and yeomen of merry England, formed in their more plain attire, a dark fringe, or border around this circle of brilliant embroidery, setting off its splendor. -Sir Walter Scott Where must the author have stood to get this view? "We shall see that presently," said the robber; and speaking to his companions, he added, "bring along the knave." Gurth was hurried along and, having been dragged somewhat roughly over the bank on the left-hand side of the lane, found himself in a straggling thicket, which lay between the land and the open common. He was compelled to follow his rough conductors into the very depth of this cover, where they stopped unexpectedly in an irregular open space on which the beams of the moon fell. Could the author have written this description if he had stood in the lane? Must he not have followed Gurth and his captors? You can readily see that the writer of a description must first determine where he is standing in order to get the view he is describing. In description, the point of view means the position of the author in relation to the place described. Was he in front, behind, above, inside, outside? Was he moving, and so changing his point of view? The point of view must be determined before the picture is drawn. If you are standing at a distance, you cannot see fine details. If you are standing before a building you cannot see the back. However, your point of view may proceed as you would proceed. That is, you could enter the house after telling of the outside, but you must not attempt impossible feats. Exercise. Describe your schoolhouse; your home; your church, viewed from the outside. Describe the living room in your home as you glance about it from your chair by the fireplace. Imagine yourself standing at your bedroom window on a winter morning peeping out at the first snowfall of the season. Describe what you see. Describe what you might see from the same window in spring; in autumn; in summer. (Be sure to use an appropriate color scheme for each season.) You may have followed a winding stream. Describe your walk, noting changes of scene. 89. A STUDY IN CONTRASTS LAVENDER Lavender, lavender That makes your linen sweet; Lavender, lavender, From where the bee hums, And purple dreams he comes. |