Composition-Rhetoric Part 6

--Scott: _Lady of the Lake_.

7. On nearer approach he was still more surprised at the singularity of the stranger's appearance. He was a short, square-built old fellow, with thick, bushy hair and a grizzled beard. His dress was of the antique Dutch fashion--a cloth jerkin strapped around the waist--several pairs of breeches, the outer ones of ample volume, decorated with rows of b.u.t.tons down the sides and bunches at the knees. He bore on his shoulder a stout keg that seemed full of liquor, and made signs for Rip to approach and a.s.sist him with his load.

--Washington Irving: _Rip Van Winkle_.

+27. Complete and Incomplete Images.+--Some sentences have for their purpose the presentation of an image, but in order to form that image correctly and completely, we must be familiar with the words used. If an unfamiliar word is introduced, the mind may omit entirely the image represented, or may subst.i.tute some other for it. Notice the image presented by this sentence from Henry James: "Her dress was dark and rich; she had pearls around her neck and an old rococo fan in her hand." If the meaning of _rococo_ is unknown to you, the image which you form will not be exactly the one that Mr. James had in mind. The pearls and the dress may stand out clearly in your image, but the fan will be lacking or indistinct. The whole may be compared to a photograph of which a part is blurred. If your attention is directed to the fan, you may recall the word _rococo_, but not the image represented by it. If your attention is not called to the fan, the mind is satisfied with the indistinct image, or subst.i.tutes for it an image of some other fan. Such an image is therefore either incomplete or inaccurate.

An oath in court provides that we shall "tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth," but, in forming images, it is not always possible to hold our minds to such exactness. We are p.r.o.ne to picture more or less than the words convey. In fact, in some forms of prose, and often in poetry, the author purposely takes advantage of this habit of the mind and wishes us to enlarge with creations of our own imagination the bare image that his words convey. Such writing, however, aims to give pleasure or to arouse our emotions. It calls out something in the reader even more strongly than it sets forth something in the writer. This suggestiveness in writing will be considered later, but for the present it will be well for you to bear in mind that most language has for its purpose the exact expression of a definite idea. Much of the failure in school work arises from the careless subst.i.tution of one image for another, and from the formation of incomplete and inaccurate images.

EXERCISES

_A._ Make a list of the words in the following selections whose meanings you need to look up in order to make the images exact and complete. Do not attempt to memorize the language of the definition, but to form a correct image.

1. The sun stared brazenly down on a gray farmhouse, on ranges of whitewashed outbuildings, and on a goodly array of dark-thatched ricks.

2. In his shabby frieze jacket and mud-laden brogans, he was scarcely an attractive object.

3. In a sunlit corner of an old coquina fort they came suddenly face to face with a familiar figure.

4. Somewhat back from the village street Stands the old-fashioned country seat.

Across its antique portico Tall poplar trees their shadows throw, And from its station in the hall An ancient timepiece says to all: "Forever--never!

Never--forever!"

--Longfellow: _The Old Clock on the Stairs_.

5. There was a room which bore the appearance of a vault. Four spandrels from the corners ran up to join a sharp cup-shaped roof. The architecture was rough, but very strong. It was evidently part of a great building.

6. The officer proceeded, without affecting to hear the words which escaped the sentinel in his surprise; nor did he again pause, until he had reached the low strand, and in a somewhat dangerous vicinity to the western water bastion of the fort.

7. She stood on the top step under the _porte-cochere_, on the extreme edge, so that the toes of her small slippers extended a little over it.

She bent forward, and then tipped back on the high, exiguous heels again.

8. Before the caryatides of the fireplace, under the ancestral portraits, a valet moves noiselessly about, arranging the glistening silver service on the long table and putting in order the fruits, sweets, and ices.

9. No sooner is the heavy gate of the portal pa.s.sed than one sees from afar among the leaf.a.ge the court of honor, to which one comes along an alley decorated uniformly with upright square shafts like cla.s.sic termae in stone and bronze. The impression of the antique lines is striking: it springs at once to the eyes, at first in this portico with columns and a heavy entablature, but lacking a pediment.

_B._ Read again the selections beginning on page 46. Do you form complete images in every case?

_C._ Notice in each of your lessons for to-day what images are incomplete.

Bring to cla.s.s a list of the words you would need to look up in order to form complete images. Do not include all the words whose meanings are not clear, but only those that a.s.sist in forming images.

+Theme XII.+--_Form a clear mental image of some incident, person, or place. Write about it, using such words as will give your cla.s.smates complete and accurate images. The following may suggest a subject:_--

1. A party dress I should like.

2. My room.

3. A cozy glen.

4. In the apple orchard.

5. Going to the fire.

6. The hand-organ man.

7. A hornets' nest.

8. The last inning.

9. An exciting race.

(Consider what you have written with reference to the images which the _reader_ will form. Do you think that when the members of the cla.s.s hear your theme, each will form the same images that you had in mind when writing? Notice how many of your sentences begin in the same way. Can you rewrite them so as to give variety?)

+28. Reproduction of Images.+--If we were asked to tell about an accident which we had seen, we could recall the various incidents in the order of their occurrence. If the accident had occurred recently, or had made a vivid impression upon us, we could easily form mental images of each scene. If we had only read a description of the accident, it would be more difficult to recall the image; because that which we gain through language is less vitally a part of ourselves than is that which comes to us through experience.

When called upon to reproduce the images suggested to us by language, our memory is apt to concern itself with the words that suggested the image, and our expression is hampered rather than aided by this remembrance. The author has made, or should have made, the best possible selection of words and phrases. If we repeat his language, we have but memory drill or copy work; and if we do not, we are limited to such second-cla.s.s language as we may be able to find.

Word memory has its uses, but it is less valuable than image memory. It is necessary to distinguish carefully between the images that a writer presents and the words that he uses. If a botany lesson should consist of a description of fifteen different leaves, a pupil deficient in image memory will attempt to memorize the language of the book. A better-trained pupil, on meeting such a term as _serrated_, will ask himself: "Have I ever seen such a leaf? Can I form an image of it?" If so, his only task will be to give the new name, _serrated_, to the idea that he already has.

In a similar way he will form images for each of the fifteen leaves described in the lesson. The language of the book may help him form these images, but he will make no attempt to commit the language to memory. With him, "getting the lesson" means forming images and naming them, and reciting the lesson will be but talking about an image that he has clearly in mind. Try this in your own lessons.

If we are called upon to reproduce the incidents and scenes of some story that has been read to us, our success will depend upon the clearness of the images that we have formed. Our efforts should be directed to making the images as definite and vivid as possible, and our memory will be concerned with the recalling of these images in their proper order, and not with the language that first caused them to appear.

EXERCISES

1. Report orally some interesting incident taken from a book which you have recently read. Do not reread the story. Use such language as will cause the cla.s.s to form clear mental images.

2. Report orally upon some chapter selected from Cooper's _Last of the Mohicans_ or Scott's _Ivanhoe_.

3. Read a portion of Scott's _Lady of the Lake_, and report orally what happened.

4. Report orally some incident that you have read about in a magazine.

Select one that caused you to form images, and tell it so that the hearers will form like images.

+Theme XIII.+--_Reproduce a story read to you by the teacher._

(Before writing, picture to yourself the scenes and recall the order of their occurrence. If it is necessary to condense, omit events of the least importance.)

+29. Comparison.+--Writing which contains unfamiliar words fails to call up complete and definite images. It is often difficult to form the correct mental picture, even though the words in themselves are familiar.

Definitions, explanations, and descriptions may cause us to understand correctly, but our understanding usually can be improved by means of a comparison. We can form an image of an object as soon as we know what it is like.

If I wished you to form an image of an okapi, a lengthy description would give you a less vivid picture than the statement that it was a horselike animal, having stripes similar to those of a zebra. If an okapi were as well known to you as is a horse, the name alone would call up the proper image, and no comparison would be necessary. By means of it we are enabled to picture the unfamiliar. In this case the comparison is literal.

If the comparison is imaginative rather than literal, our language becomes figurative, and usually takes the form of a simile or metaphor. Similes and metaphors are of great value in rendering thought clear. They make language forceful and effective, and they may add much to the beauty of expression.