land loch, fretting under a squall against a rocky shore. The raising and dropping of desk lids, the scratching of pens, the clapping of hands to call the pages, keen little boys who race along the gangways, the pattering of many feet, the hum of talking on the floor and in the galleries, make up a din over which the Speaker, with the sharp taps of his hammer, or the orators, straining shrill throats, find it hard to make themselves audible. Nor is it only the noise that gives the impression of disorder. Often three or four members are on their feet at once, each shouting to catch the Speaker's attention. Others, tired of sitting still, rise to stretch themselves, while the Western visitor, long, lank, and imperturbable, leans his arms on the railing, chews his cigar, and surveys the scene with little reverence.

- BRYCE: American Commonwealth.

E. The next time you take a walk go in some new direction, and note the order of your impressions as you come suddenly upon an unfamiliar scene.

F. Note your successive impressions as you ride swiftly through a village after dark, or as you stand in the presence of a waterfall.

G. Does the following seem to reproduce the writer's impressions in the original order?

When we came to the Court, there was the Lord Chancellor sitting in great state and gravity, on the bench, with the mace and seals on a red table below him, and an immense flat nosegay, like a little garden, which scented the whole Court. Below the table, again, was a long row of solicitors, with bundles of papers on the matting at their feet; and then there were the gentlemen of the bar in wigs and gowns some awake and some asleep, and one talking and no one paying much attention to what he said. The Lord Chancellor leaned back in his very easy chair, with his

elbow on the cushioned arm, and his forehead resting on his hand; some of those who were present dozed; some read the newspaper; some walked about, or whispered in groups all seemed perfectly at their ease, by no means in a hurry, very unconcerned, and extremely comfortable. - DICKENS: Bleak House.

The Fundamental Image.

61. The order of our observation shows us what is the best order in which to describe objects or scenes so that others may see them as we see them. Since we see first, not the separate details, but the whole object or scene, receiving a general impression, more or less definite, of size, color, shape, or of the most striking characteristic, it is evident that we should begin our descriptions with this general impression. By beginning with the general impression we furnish our readers with what is called "the fundamental image" or "the comprehensive outline." The following furnishes us with the fundamental image resulting from the first glance or two at a harbor. How easy to make the mental picture as we learn at once of the size (in the word "vast"), the shape (in the words "semicircular basin "), the color (in "blue sea"), and then, without delay, of the prominent objects that were seen at the same time, the vessels, palaces, churches, gardens, terraces, etc.

Only figure to yourself a vast semicircular basin full of fine blue sea, and vessels of all sorts and sizes, some sailing out, some coming in, and others at anchor; and all around it palaces and churches peeping over one another's heads, gardens, and marble terraces full of orange and cypress

trees, fountains and trellis-works covered with vines, which altogether compose the grandest of theatres.

-THOMAS GRAY to Richard West, Genoa, November 21, 1739.

Dickens gives in a single sentence Nicholas Nickleby's first impression of Dotheboys Hall:

While the schoolmaster was uttering these and other impatient cries, Nicholas had time to observe that the school was a long, cold-looking house, one story high, with a few straggling outbuildings behind, and a barn and stable adjoining.

The fundamental image for a long description is often presented by means of a graphic comparison which gives at once the comprehensive outline. Sir Walter Scott (Ivanhoe, chap. iii) explains the arrangement of the tables in the hall of Cedric the Saxon by saying that they formed a large T. Creasy compares the field of Marathon to a crescent. Shelley compares Lake Como to "a mighty river winding among the mountains and forests." De Quincey (The English Mail Coach, Section 11) helps his reader to locate the scene of a thrilling adventure by the aid of the following note:

Suppose a capital Y: Lancaster at the foot of the letter; Liverpool at the top of the right branch; Manchester at the top of the left; proud Preston at the centre where the two branches unite. It is thirty-three miles along either of the two branches; it is twenty-two miles along the stem - viz. from Preston in the middle to Lancaster at the root. There's a lesson in geography for the reader.

Mark Twain prepares for his description of the cathedral of Milan by picturing it as it appeared at his first glimpse of it from the railway train.

At last, a forest of graceful needles, shimmering in the amber sunlight, rose slowly above the pigmy house-tops, as one sometimes sees, in the far horizon, a gilded and pinnacled mass of cloud lift itself above the waste of waves, at sea. - Innocents Abroad.

In the description of a face (a portrait sketch), the fundamental image is often suggested by dwelling upon the most striking characteristic of the face, or by indicating the general impression first received by the beholder. Thus Carlyle begins his portrait of Dante, "To me it is a most touching face." In the following also, the most striking characteristic is dwelt upon :

A carriage, drawn by four horses, dashed round the turn of the road. Within it, thrust partly out of the window, appeared the physiognomy of a little old man with a skin as yellow as if his own Midas-hand had transmuted it. He had a low forehead, small, sharp eyes, puckered about with innumerable wrinkles, and very thin lips, which he made still thinner by pressing them forcibly together.

- HAWTHORNE: The Great Stone Face.

A low-spirited gentleman of middle age, of a meagre habit, and a disconsolate face. DICKENS: The Chimes.

This gentleman had a very red face, as if an undue proportion of the blood in his body were squeezing up into his head; which perhaps accounted for his having also the appearance of being rather cold about.the heart.

He fixed his single glass in his eye with some difficulty and much gnawing motion of the jaw.

AGNES AND EGERTON CASTLE: The Secret Orchard, chap. xiv.

Begin the description with the general impression or “fundamental image" of the object to be described.

62. Assignments on the Fundamental Image. A. What is the fundamental image in the following?

1. The vehicle sidled round the hill, resembling in its progress a very infirm crab in a hurry.

2. A cordon of blue regiments surrounded the city at first from Carondelet to North St. Louis, like an open fan. The crowds liked best to go to Compton Heights, where the tents of the German citizen-soldiers were spread out like so many slices of white cake on the green beside the city's reservoir. Thence the eye stretched across the town, catching the dome of the Court House and the spire of St. John's. Away to the west, on the line of the Pacific railroad that led halfway across the state, was another camp. Then another, and another, on the circle of the fan, until the river was reached to the northward, far above the bend. Within was a peace that passed understanding, — the peace of martial law!

3. I crossed the Forum at the foot of the Palatine, and ascending the Via Sacra, passed beneath the Arch of Titus. From this point I saw below me the gigantic outline of the Coliseum, like a cloud resting upon the earth. As I descended the hillside, it grew more broad and high, more definite in its form, and yet more grand in its dimensions, till, from the vale in .which it stands encompassed by three of the seven hills of Rome, — the Palatine, the Cœlian,