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I grieve to say it, but our people, I think, have not generally agreeable voices. The marrowy organisms, with skins that shed water like the backs of ducks, with smooth surfaces neatly padded beneath the velvet linings to their singing-pipes, are not so common among us as that other pattern of humanity with angular outlines and plane surfaces, arid integuments, hair like the fibrous covering of a cocoanut in gloss and suppleness as well as color, and voices at once thin and strenuous; acidulous enough to produce effervescence with alkalis, and stridulous enough to sing duets with the katydids. I think our conversational soprano, as sometimes overheard in the cars, arising from a group of young persons, who may have taken the train at one of our great industrial centres, for instance — young persons of the female sex, we will say, who have bustled in, full-dressed, engaged in loud strident speech, and who, after free discussion, have fixed on two or more double seats, which having secured, they proceed to eat apples and hand round daguerreotypes I say I think the conversational soprano, heard under these circumstances, would not be among the allurements the old Enemy would put in requisition, were he getting up a new temptation of St. Anthony. - HOLMES: The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table.

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B. Can you imagine from the following how Carlyle's laugh sounded?

After the most vehement tirade he would suddenly pause, throw his head back, and give as genuine and kindly a laugh as I ever heard from a human being. It was not the bitter laugh of the cynic, nor yet the big-bodied laugh of the burly joker; least of all was it the thin and rasping cackle of the dyspeptic satirist. But it was a broad, honest, human laugh, which beginning in the brain, took into its action the whole heart and diaphragm, and instantly changed the worn

face into something frank and even winning, giving to it an expression that would have won the confidence of any child. Nor did it convey the impression of an exceptional thing that had occurred for the first time that day, and might never happen again. It rather produced the effect of something habitual; of being the channel, well worn for years, by which the overflow of a strong nature was discharged. It cleared the air like thunder, and left the atmosphere sweet. It seemed to say to himself, if not to us, "Do not let us take this too seriously; it is my way of putting things. What refuge is there for a man who looks below the surface in a world like this, except to laugh now and then?" The laugh, in short, revealed the humorist; if I said the genial humorist, wearing a mask of grimness, I should hardly go too far for the impression it left. At any rate it shifted the ground, and transferred the whole matter to that realm of thought where men play with things. The instant Carlyle laughed, he seemed to take the counsel of his old friend Emerson, and to write upon the lintels of his doorway, "Whim."- HIGGINSON: Atlantic, 48: 464.

C. Try describing the voice or laugh of some well-known person. Or work into one description a contrast of two very different voices. Or describe the voices in a school reading class, touching each very briefly.

66.

Assignments in Description of Sounds.

Describe in one sentence, as vividly as you can, (1) the sound made in unloading a coal wagon through a chute, (2) the sound made by the chain of a rapidly moving bicycle, (3) the sound måde by a bicycle bell sounded unexpectedly behind you, (4) the sound of oars in the water at a distance on a quiet evening, (5) the sound of footsteps on the sidewalk in the dead of night, (6) the sound made by some one walking through autumn leaves, (7) the sound made by a section hand driving spikes on the railroad, (8) the sound made by a large stone thrown into

deep water, (9) the sound of cheering heard from a distance, (10) the sound of boisterous laughter coming from another room, (11) the sound of wagon wheels going through a pile of loose gravel, (12) the whinnying of a horse, (13) the sound of a train passing at full speed, (14) the sound of a covey of partridges rising.

67. Assignments for Details of Life and Movement. A. In the following description of a place, what details are introduced to produce the effect of life and movement?

On the coast of Maine, where many green islands and salt inlets fringe the deep cut shore line; where balsam firs and bayberry bushes send their fragrance far seaward, and song sparrows sing all day, and the tide runs plashing in and out among the weedy ledges; where cowbells tinkle on the hills and herons stand in the shady coves, -on the lonely coast of Maine stood a small gray house facing the morning light. All the weatherbeaten houses of that region face the sea apprehensively, like the women who live in them. This house of four people was as bleached and gray with wind and rain as one of the pasture rocks near by. There were some cinnamon rose bushes under the window at one side of the door, and a stunted lilac at the other side. It was so early in the cool morning that nobody was astir but some shy birds, that had come in the stillness of dawn to pick and flutter in the short grass.—SARAH ORNE JEWETT.

B. Try writing a brief description of a house, introducing details that produce the effect of life and movement.

C. In the following description of a person what details add liveliness by indicating movement and action?

He was smallish in stature, but well set and as nimble as a goat; his face was of a good open expression, but sunburnt very dark, and heavily freckled and pitted with the smallpox; his eyes were unusually light and had a kind of

dancing madness in them, that was both engaging and alarming; and when he took off his greatcoat, he laid a pair of fine, silver-mounted pistols on the table, and I saw that he was belted with a great.sword. His manners, besides, were elegant, and he pledged the captain handsomely. Altogether I thought of him, at the first sight, that here was a man I would rather call my friend than my enemy. —STEVENSON. D. Write a brief description of a person you know, introducing details that indicate movement and action.

Sequence and Grouping of Details.

68. Many descriptions stop with the fundamental image, the most striking characteristic, or the result of a first observation. It is not often necessary to carry a description out to the minutest details. When this is necessary or desirable, it can easily be seen what the sequence and grouping of details should be. The fundamental image provides a place for all of the details that can be mentioned. They are suggested by the words that convey the fundamental image; they drop into place as they are named. The numerous details of Lowell's description of the perfect June day are all suggested by the word "rare" in his sentence, " And what is so rare as a day in June?" The numerous details in Victor Hugo's description of the battle of Waterloo fall into the places provided for them by the fundamental image the capital letter A-as fast as they are named. Details are grouped, and the groups follow one another, therefore, in the order of their appearance to the observer, those that appear at the second observation being grouped together, then those that appear on each subsequent observation. Notice in the following how,

after being given the fundamental image of two hundred trees standing in little groups or couples, we are asked to make separate observations first of a single tree, then of the groups severally.

The author names the object he means to describe.

He foreshadows what he is going to remark upon, the individuality of the trees and groups of trees.

He shows how

are

ar

they
ranged, namely,
in groups and
couples; and,
after picturing
a single one, he
tells first about
the groups-
one group on
a little hill, an-
other out in the
fields, a third on
the northwest,
and a fourth on
the east- and
then about the
couples.

I have in mind now a "sugar-bush" nestled in the top of a spur of the Catskills, every tree of which is known to me and assumes a distinct individuality in my thought. I know the look and quality of the whole two hundred; and when on my annual visit to the old homestead I find one has perished, or fallen before the axe, I feel a personal loss. They are all veterans, and have yielded up their life's blood for the profit of two or three generations. They stand in little groups or couples. One stands at the head of a spring run, and lifts a large dry branch high above the woods, where hawks and crows love to alight. Half a dozen are climbing a little hill; while others stand far out in the field as if they had come out to get the sun. A file of five or six worthies sentry the woods on the northwest, and confront a steep side-hill where sheep and cattle graze. An equal number crowd up to the line on the east; and their gray, stately trunks are seen across meadows or fields of grain. Then there is a pair of Siamese twins, with heavy, bushy tops, while at the forks of a wood road stand the two brothers, with their arms around each other's neck, and their bodies in gentle contact for a distance of thirty feet.

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