Composition-Rhetoric Part 43

On beds of silken softness you will long for the sleep-song of whispering leaves above your head, and the smell of a couch of balsam boughs. At tables spread with dainty fare you will be hungry for the joy of the hunt, and for the angler's sylvan feast. In proud cities you will weary for the sight of a mountain trail; in great cathedrals you will think of the long, arching aisles of the woodland: and in the noisy solitude of crowded streets you will hone after the friendly forest.

--Henry Van d.y.k.e: _The Blue Flower_.

(Copyright, 1902, Charles Scribner's Sons.)

Running your eye across the map of the State, you see two slowly converging lines of railroad writhing out between the hills to the sea-coast. Three other lines come down from north to south by the river valleys and the jagged sh.o.r.e. Along these, huddled in the corners of the hills and the sea line, lie the cities and the larger towns. A great majority of mankind, swarming in these little spots, or scuttling to and fro along the valleys on those slender lines, fondly dream they are acquainted with the land in which they live. But beyond and around all this rises the wide, bare face of the country, which they will never know-- the great patches of second-growth woods, the mountain pastures sown thick with stones, the barren acres of the hillside farmer--a desolate land, latticed with gray New England roads, dotted with commonplace or neglected houses, and pitted with the staring cellars of the abandoned homes of disheartened and defeated men.

Out here in this semi-obscurity, where the regulating forces of society grow tardy and weak, strange and dangerous beings move to and fro, avoiding the apprehension of the law. Occasionally we hear of them--of some shrewd and desperate city fugitives brought to bay in a corner of the woods, or some brutal farmhouse murderer still lurking uncaptured among the hills. Often they pa.s.s through the country and out beyond, where they are never seen again.

In the extreme southwestern corner of the State the railroads do not come; the vacant s.p.a.ces grow between the country roads, and the cities dwindle down to half-deserted crossroads hamlets. Here the surface of the map is covered up with the tortuous wrinkles of the hills. It is a beautiful but useless place. As far as you can see, low, unformed lumps of mountains lie jumbled aimlessly together between the ragged sky lines, or little silent cups of valleys stare up between them at their solitary patch of sky. It seems a sort of waste yard of creation, flung full of the remnants of the making of the earth.

--George Kibbe Turner: _Across the State_ ("McClure's").

When once the shrinking dizzy spell was gone, I saw below me, like a jeweled cup, The valley hollowed to its heaven-kissed lip-- The serrate green against the serrate blue-- Br.i.m.m.i.n.g with beauty's essence; palpitant With a divine elixir--lucent floods Poured from the golden chalice of the sun, At which my spirit drank with conscious growth, And drank again with still expanding scope Of comprehension and of faculty.

I felt the bud of being in me burst With full, unfolding petals to a rose, And fragrant breath that flooded all the scene.

By sudden insight of myself I knew That I was greater than the scene,--that deep Within my nature was a wondrous world, Broader than that I gazed on, and informed With a diviner beauty,--that the things I saw were but the types of those I held, And that above them both, High Priest and King, I stood supreme, to choose and to combine, And build from that within me and without New forms of life, with meaning of my own, And then alone upon the mountain top, Kneeling beside the lamb, I bowed my head Beneath the chrismal light and felt my soul Baptized and set apart for poetry.

--Holland: _Katrina_.

+Theme LXIX.+--_Write a description the purpose of which is to give an impression that you have experienced._

SUMMARY

1. Description is that form of discourse which has for its purpose the creation of an image.

2. The essential characteristics of a description are:-- _a._ A point of view, (1) It may be fixed or changing.

(2) It may be expressed or implied.

(3) Only those details should be included that can be seen from the point of view chosen.

_b._ A correct fundamental image.

_c._ A few characteristic and essential details (1) Close observation on the part of the writer is necessary in order to select the essential details.

_d._ A proper selection and subordination of minor details.

_e._ A suitable arrangement of details with reference to their natural position in s.p.a.ce.

_f._ That additional effectiveness which comes from (1) Proper choice of words.

(2) Suitable comparisons and figures.

(3) Variety of sentence structures.

3. The foregoing principles of description apply in the describing of many cla.s.ses of objects. A description of a person usually gives some indication of his character and so becomes to some extent a character sketch.

4. A description may also have for its purpose the giving of an impression.

_a._ The writer must select details which will aid in conveying the impression he desires his readers to receive.

_b._ The writer must observe his own impressions accurately, because he cannot convey to others that which he has not himself experienced.

_c._ The impression received is affected by the mood of the person.

_d._ Impression and image are never entirely separated.

IX. NARRATION

+141. Kinds of Narration.+--Narration consists of an account of happenings, and, for this reason, it is, without doubt, the most interesting of all forms of discourse. It is natural for us all to be interested in life, movement, action; hence we enjoy reading and talking about them. To be convinced that there is everywhere a great interest in narration we need only to listen to conversations, notice what const.i.tutes the subject-matter of letters of friendship, read newspapers and magazines, and observe what cla.s.ses of books are most frequently drawn from our libraries.

Narration a.s.sumes a variety of forms. Since it relates happenings, it must include anecdotes, incidents, short stories, letters, novels, dramas, histories, biographies, and stories of travel and exploration. It also includes many newspaper articles such as those that give accounts of accidents and games and reports of various kinds of meetings. Evidently the field of narration is a broad one, for wherever life or action may be found or imagined, a subject for a narrative exists.

EXERCISES

1. Name four different events that have actually taken place in your school in which you think your cla.s.smates are interested.

2. Name three events that have taken place in other schools that may be of interest to members of your school.

3. Name four events of general interest that have occurred in your city during the last two or three years.

4. From a daily paper, pick out a narrative that is interesting to you.

5. Select one that you think ought to interest the most of your cla.s.smates.

6. Name three national events of recent occurrence.

7. Name three or four strange or mysterious events of which you have heard.

8. Name an actual occurrence that interested you because you wanted to see how it turned out.

9. Would an ordinary account of a bicycle or automobile trip be interesting? If not, why not?

+Theme LXX.+--._Write a letter to a pupil in a neighboring high school, telling about something interesting that has happened in your own school_.

(Review forms of letter writing. Consider your use of paragraphs.)

+142. Plot.+--By plot we mean the outline of the story told in a few words. All narratives consist of accounts of connected happenings, in which action on the part of the characters is naturally implied. The princ.i.p.al action briefly told const.i.tutes the plot. The simple plot of Tennyson's _Princess_ is as follows:--

A prince of the North, after being affianced as a child to a princess of the South, has fallen in love with her portrait and a lock of her hair.

When, however, the emba.s.sy appears to fetch home the bride, she sends back the message that she is not disposed to be married. Upon receipt of this word the Prince and two friends, Florian and Cyril, steal away to seek the Princess, and learn on reaching her father's court that she has established a Woman's College on a distant estate. Having got letters authorizing them to visit the Princess, they ride into her domain, where they determine to go dressed like girls and apply for admission as students in the College. They arrive in disguise, and are admitted. On the first day the young men enroll themselves as students of Lady Psyche, who recognizes Florian as her brother and agrees not to expose them, since--by a law of the College inscribed above the gates, which darkness has kept them from seeing--the penalty of their discovery would be death. Melissa, a student, overhears them, and is bound over to keep the secret. Lady Blanche, mother of Melissa and rival to Lady Psyche, also learns of the alarming invasion, and remains silent for sinister reasons of her own. On the second day the princ.i.p.al personages picnic in a wood. At dinner Cyril sings a song that is better fit for the smoking room than for the ears of ladies; the Prince, in his anger, betrays his s.e.x by a too masculine reproof; and dire confusion is the result. The Princess in her flight falls into the river, from which she is rescued by the Prince. Cyril and Lady Psyche escape together, but the Prince and Florian are brought before the Princess. At this important moment despatches are brought from her father saying that the Prince's father has surrounded her palace with soldiers, taken him prisoner, and holds him as a hostage. The Prince, after pleading to deaf ears, is sent away at dawn with Florian, and goes with him to the camp. Meantime during the night, the Princess's three brothers have come to her aid with an army. An agreement is reached to decide the case and end the war by a tournament between the brothers, with fifty men, on one side; the Prince and his two friends, with fifty men, on the other. This happens on the third day. The Prince and his men are vanquished, and he himself is badly wounded.

But the Princess is now gradually to discover that she has "overthrown more than her enemy,"--that she has defeated yet saved herself. She has said of Lady Psyche's little child:--

"I took it for an hour in mine own bed This morning: there the tender orphan hands Felt at my heart, and seem'd to charm from thence The wrath I nursed against the world."

When Cyril pleads with her to give the child back to its mother, she kisses it and feels that "her heart is barren." When she pa.s.ses near the wounded Prince, and is shown by his father--his beard wet with his son's blood--her hair and picture on her lover's heart,