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EXERCISES

519. In studying Burroughs' description of the walk of a crow, ask yourself these questions: Has everything a bearing on the subject? Is the opening sentence a good introduction? Is the closing sentence an emphatic ending? Read these two sentences together, and then write what you consider the main thought of the paragraph.

I have seen no bird walk the ground with just the same air the crow does. It is not exactly pride; there is no strut or swagger in it, though perhaps just a little condescension; it is the contented, complacent, and self-possessed gait of a lord over his domains. All these acres are mine, he says, and all these crops; men plow and sow for me, and I stay here or go there, and find life sweet and good wherever I am. The hawk looks awkward and out of place on the ground; the game birds hurry and skulk, but the crow is at home and treads the earth as if there were none to molest or make him afraid.

"An Idyl of the Honey-Bee."

520. (1) Make a list of five subjects suitable for imaginative description and so limited that it will be easy to secure unity. (2) Write on one of the subjects that you like best.

521. As you read Hawthorne's description of a room, put yourself in the writer's place. Think of the numerous details he might have included in his picture. From them all he selected a few. Presenting these in an order in which a visitor would naturally see them, he took pains to point out a chair that he wished us particularly to notice.

It was a low-studded room, with a beam across the ceiling, paneled with dark wood, and having a large chimney piece, set round with pictured tiles, but now closed by an iron fire board, through which ran the funnel of a modern stove. There was a carpet on the floor, originally of rich texture, but so worn and faded in these latter years that its once brilliant figure had quite vanished into one indistinguishable hue. In the way of furniture, there were two tables: one,

constructed with perplexing intricacy and exhibiting as many feet as a centipede; the other, most delicately wrought, with four long and slender legs, so apparently frail that it was almost incredible what a length of time the ancient tea table had stood upon them. Half a dozen chairs stood about the room, straight and stiff, and so ingeniously contrived for the discomfort of the human person that they were irksome even to sight, and conveyed the ugliest possible idea of the state of society to which they could have been adapted. One exception there was, however, in a very antique elbowchair, with a high back, carved elaborately in oak, and a roomy depth within its arms, that made up, by its spacious comprehensiveness, for the lack of any of those artistic curves which abound in a modern chair.

"The House of the Seven Gables," chap. ii.

522. With the above description in mind, describe in writing the interior of a room which interests you.

523. Note the simplicity of Scott's plan in this description from "Rob Roy," and with this example in mind describe orally some bit of scenery that has pleased you.

The glorious beams of the rising sun, which poured from a tabernacle of purple and golden clouds, were darted full on such a scene of natural romance and beauty as had never before greeted my eyes. To the left lay the valley, down which the Forth wandered on its easterly course, surrounding the beautiful detached hill, with all its garland of woods. On the right, amid a profusion of thickets, knolls, and crags, lay the head of a broad mountain lake, lightly curled into tiny waves by the breath of the morning breeze, each glittering into its course under the influence of the sunbeams. High hills, rocks, and banks waving with natural forests of birch and oak, formed the borders of this enchanting sheet of water; and, as their leaves rustled to the wind and twinkled in the sun, gave to the depth of solitude a sort of life and vivacity.

524. Suggest improvements in the following storm description:

I went to Nahant yesterday to see the storm. The sea off Nahant point was magnificent. The waves were greater than the waves that

run shoreward on the beaches, gathered masses, seas heaped on seas, swinging in unhindered, mountainous, to crush upon the rough rocks that rise seaward abruptly. Far out the sea foamed with whitecaps, but, till they reached the foot of the cliffs themselves, the waves found no shallow, no reef to break them. They did not bend and curl lightly as summer waves; their mass was too great, their march was too solemn. Slowly each mounted shoreward, lifting its swaying crest; halted a moment, gathered its whole strength in one heaped mountainous impulse, and plunged shoreward, leaping - dashing through caverns and crevices, rushing swiftly up the purple slopes of the rocks, flashing up like white flame against the sky, shaking the firm foundations of the land with hollow thunder.

It was a power beyond and above man, a thing irresistible and untamable, to whose crests the heights of the land seemed little. The sense of it was everywhere. The sound of it was everywhere.

162. The Point of View. After choosing the subject, the next step is to decide upon the point of view. Having once fixed this, the writer should not change it without giving the reader notice. If he moves forward or backward, to the right or to the left, he must inform the reader. After describing the view from an east window, he must not call attention to something on the west side of the house without showing how he is enabled to command a view in that direction. Similarly, the writer should notify the reader of a change of time. If he begins by describing the morning sky, he must not refer to the heat of noon without the proper transition.

In a single paragraph of "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" Irving describes the outside of a house, the piazza, the hall, the parlor, and even gives us a peep into a china closet. Yet he is so careful to inform us of every movement of the wondering Ichabod that we follow with the utmost ease.

It is to be noted that Ichabod went no farther than the hall; then he stood and looked around.

It was one of those spacious farmhouses, with high-ridged, but lowly-sloping roofs, built in the style handed down from the first Dutch settlers; the low projecting eaves forming a piazza along the front, capable of being closed up in bad weather. Under this were hung flails, harness, various utensils of husbandry, and nets for fishing in the neighboring river. Benches were built along the sides for summer use; and a great spinning wheel at one end, and a churn at the other, showed the various uses to which this important porch might be devoted. From this piazza the wondering Ichabod entered the hall, which formed the center of the mansion and the place of usual residence. Here, rows of resplendent pewter, ranged on a long dresser, dazzled his eyes. In one corner stood a huge bag of wool ready to be spun; in another a quantity of linsey-woolsey just from the loom; ears of Indian corn, and strings of dried apples and peaches, hung in gay festoons along the walls, mingled with the gaud of red peppers; and a door left ajar gave him a peep into the best parlor, where the claw-footed chairs, and dark mahogany tables, shone like mirrors; and irons, with their accompanying shovel and tongs, glistened from their covert of asparagus tops; mock-oranges and conch shells decorated the mantelpiece; strings of various colored birds' eggs were suspended above it: a great ostrich egg was hung from the center of the room, and a corner cupboard, knowingly left open, displayed immense treasures of old silver and well-mended china.

- IRVING, "The Sketch-Book." These words show how the point of view changes: From this piazza Ichabod entered the hall... a door left ajar gave him a peep into the best parlor a cupboard, left open.

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EXERCISES

525. Criticize, with reference to the point of view, the selection from Parkman, on page 289. (1) Does the writer change his point of view? (2) If so, does he inform the reader of every such change?

526. From what point of view does the reader see (1) the room described by Hawthorne on page 290; (2) the description from "Rob Roy" on page 291; (3) the Nahant Storm, pages 291–292; (4) the passages from Parkman and Kipling, pages 255, 256?

527. Write a description of a living room (1) from a mother's point of view; (2) from a caller's point of view.

528. Show why it is necessary to have a point of view in description, and illustrate by giving an oral description of your school building.

529. Write an imaginative description of a dwelling house (1) from the inside or (2) from the outside.

530. Write a description of a landscape (1) on a bright morning or (2) on a moonlight evening.

163. Choice of Details and Plan. Nothing is of greater importance than the choosing of significant details. That choice made, your problem is one of arrangement.

In the following lines, note the choice of significant details and the skillful management of them:

For cups and silver on the burnish'd board

Sparkled and shone; so genial was the hearth:
And on the right hand of the hearth he saw

Philip, the slighted suitor of old times,
Stout, rosy, with his babe across his knees;
And o'er her second father stoopt a girl,

A later but a loftier Annie Lee,

Fair-hair'd and tall, and from her lifted hand
Dangled a length of ribbon and a ring

To tempt the babe, who rear'd his creasy arms,
Caught at and ever miss'd it, and they laugh'd:
And on the left hand of the hearth he saw
The mother glancing often toward her babe,
But turning now and then to speak with him,

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