Composition-Rhetoric Part 38

--Henry Van d.y.k.e: _The Blue Flower_. (Copyright, 1902. Charles Scribner's Sons.)

2. There is an island off a certain part of the coast of Maine,--a little rocky island, heaped and tumbled together as if Dame Nature had shaken down a heap of stones at random from her ap.r.o.n, when she had finished making the larger islands, which lie between it and the mainland. At one end, the sh.o.r.eward end, there is a tiny cove, and a bit of silver sand beach, with a green meadow beyond it, and a single great pine; but all the rest is rocks, rocks. At the farther end the rocks are piled high, like a castle wall, making a brave barrier against the Atlantic waves; and on top of this cairn rises the lighthouse, rugged and st.u.r.dy as the rocks themselves; but painted white, and with its windows shining like great, smooth diamonds. This is Light Island.

--Laura E. Richards: _Captain January_.

+124. Changing Point of View.+--We cannot see the four sides of a house from the same place, though we may wish to have our reader know how each side looks. It is, therefore, necessary to change our point of view. It is immaterial whether the successive points of view are named or merely implied, providing the reader has due notice that we have changed from one to the other, and that for each we describe only what can be seen from that position. A description of a cottage that by its wording leads us to think ourselves inside of the building and then tells about the yard would be defective.

Notice the changing point of view in the following:--

At long distance, looking over the blue waters of the Gulf of St. Lawrence in clear weather, you might think that you saw a lonely sea gull, snow-white, perching motionless on a cobble of gray rock. Then, as your boat drifted in, following the languid tide and the soft southern breeze, you would perceive that the cobble of rock was a rugged hill with a few bushes and stunted trees growing in the crevices, and that the gleaming speck near the summit must be some kind of a building,--if you were on the coast of Italy or Spain you would say a villa or a farmhouse. Then as you floated still farther north and drew nearer to the coast, the desolate hill would detach itself from the mainland and become a little mountain isle, with a flock of smaller islets cl.u.s.tering around it as a brood of wild ducks keep close to their mother, and with deep water, nearly two miles wide, flowing between it and the sh.o.r.e; while the shining speck on the seaward side stood clearly as a low, whitewashed dwelling with a st.u.r.dy, round tower at one end, crowned with a big eight-sided lantern--a solitary lighthouse.

--Henry Van d.y.k.e: _The Keeper of the Light_.

(Copyright, 1905. Charles Scribner's Sons.)

+125. Place of Point of View in Paragraph.+--The point of view may be expressed or only implied or wholly omitted, but in any case the reader must a.s.sume one in order to form a clear and accurate image. Beginners will find that they can best cause their readers to form the desired images by stating a point of view. When the point of view is stated it must of necessity come early in the paragraph. We have already learned that the beginning of a description should present the fundamental image.

For this reason the first sentence of a description frequently includes both the point of view and the fundamental image.

EXERCISES

_A._ Consider the following selections with reference to-- (_a_) The point of view.

(_b_) The fundamental image.

(_c_) The completeness of the images which you have formed (see Sections 26, 27).

1. The Lunardi [balloon], mounting through a stagnant calm in a line almost vertical, had pierced the morning mists, and now swam emanc.i.p.ated in a heaven of exquisite blue. Below us by some trick of eyesight, the country had grown concave, its horizon curving up like the rim of a shallow bowl--a bowl heaped, in point of fact, with sea fog, but to our eyes with a froth delicate and dazzling as a whipped syllabub of snow.

Upon it the traveling shadow of the balloon became no shadow, but a stain; an amethyst (you might call it) purged of all grosser properties than color and lucency. At times thrilled by no perceptible wind, rather by the pulse of the sun's rays, the froth shook and parted; and then behold, deep in the creva.s.ses vignetted and shining, an acre or two of the earth of man's business and fret--tilled slopes of the Lothians, ships dotted on the Firth, the capital like a hive that some child had smoked--the ear of fancy could almost hear it buzzing.

--Stevenson: _St. Ives_.

(Copyright, 1897. Charles Scribner's Sons.)

2. When Aswald and Corinne had gained the top of the Capitol, she showed him the Seven Hills and the city, bound first by Mount Palatinus, then by the walls of Servius Tullius, which inclose the hills, and by those of Aurelian, which still surround the greatest part of Rome. Mount Palatinus once contained all Rome, but soon did the imperial palace fill the s.p.a.ce that had sufficed for a nation. The Seven Hills are far less lofty now than when they deserted the t.i.tle of steep mountains, modern Rome being forty feet higher than its predecessor, and the valleys which separated them almost filled up by ruins; but what is still more strange, two heaps of shattered vases have formed new hills, Cestario and Testacio. Thus, in time, the very refuse of civilization levels the rock with the plain, effacing in the moral, as in the material world, all the pleasing inequalities of nature.

--Madame De Stael: _Corinne: Italy_.

_B._--Select five descriptions from the following books and note whether each has a point of view expressed or implied:--

Cooper: Last of the Mohicans.

Scott: Ivanhoe.

Scott: Lady of the Lake.

Irving: Sketch Book.

Burroughs: Wake Robin.

Van d.y.k.e: The Blue Flower.

Howells: The Rise of Silas Lapham.

Muir: Our National Parks.

Kate Douglas Wiggin: Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm.

+Theme LIII.+--_Write a descriptive paragraph beginning with a point of view and a fundamental image._

Suggested subjects:-- 1. The crossroads inn.

2. A historical building.

3. The shoe factory.

4. The gristmill.

5. The largest store in town.

6. The union station.

(In your description underscore the sentence giving the point of view. Can you improve the description by using a different point of view? Will the reader form at once a correct general outline? Will the entire description enable the reader to form a clear and accurate image?)

+126. Clear Seeing.+-Clear statement depends upon clear seeing. Not only must we choose an advantageous point of view, but we must be able to reproduce what can be seen from that location. We may write a description while we are looking at the object, but it is frequently convenient to do the writing when the object is not visible. Oral descriptions are nearly always made without having the object at hand. When we attempt to describe we examine not the object itself, but our mental image of it. It is evident that at least the essential features of this mental picture must stand out clearly and definitely, or we shall be unable to make our description accurate.

The habit of accurate observation is a desirable acquisition, and our ability in this direction can be improved by effort. It is not the province of this book to provide a series of exercises which shall strengthen habits of accurate observation. Many of your studies, particularly the sciences, devote much attention to training the observing powers, and will furnish many suitable exercises. A few have been suggested below merely to emphasize the point that every successful effort in description must be preceded by a definite exercise in clear seeing.

EXERCISE

1. Walk rapidly past a building. Form a mental picture of it. Write down as many of the details as you can. Now look at the building again and determine what you have left out.

2. Call to mind some building with which you are familiar. Write a list of the details that you recall. Now visit the building and see what important ones you have omitted.

3. While looking at some scene make a note of the important details. Lay this list away for a day. Then recall the scene. After picturing the scene as vividly as you can, read your notes. Do they add anything to your picture?

4. Make a list of the things on some desk that you cannot see but with which you are familiar; for example, the teacher's desk. At the first opportunity notice how accurate your list is.

5. Look for some time at the stained gla.s.s windows of a church or at the wall paper of the room. What patterns do you notice that you did not see at first? What colors?

6. Make a list of the objects visible from your bedroom window. When you go home notice what you have omitted.

7. Practice observation contests similar to the following: Let two or more persons pa.s.s a store window. Each shall then make a list of what the window contains. Compare lists with one another.

+Theme LIV.+--_Write a description of some dwelling._

(Select a house that you can see on the way home. Choose a point of view and notice carefully what can be seen from it. When you are ready to write, form as vivid a mental picture of the house as you can. Write the sentence that gives the fundamental image. Add such of the details as will enable the reader to form an accurate image.)

+127. Selection of Essential Details.+--After deciding upon a point of view and such general characteristics as are essential to the forming of a correct outline of the object to be described, we must next give our attention to the selection of the details. If our description has been properly begun, this general outline will not be changed, but each succeeding phrase or sentence will add to the clearness and distinctness of the picture. Our first impression of a house may include windows, but the mention of them later will bring them out clearly on our mental picture much as the details appear when one is developing a negative in photography.