EXERCISES
1. Observe your neighbor's barn. What would you select as its characteristic feature?
2. Take a rapid glance at some stranger whom you meet. What did you notice most vividly?
3. In what respect does the Methodist church in your city differ from the other church buildings?
4. Does your pet dog differ from others of the same breed in appearance? In actions?
+Theme LV.+—Write a descriptive paragraph, using one of the following subjects:—
1. A mountain view. 2. An omnibus. 3. A fort. 4. A lighthouse. 5. A Dutch windmill. 6. A bend in the river. 7. A peculiar structure. 8. The picture on this page.
(Underscore the sentence that pictures the details most essential to the description. Consider the unity of your paragraph. Section 81.)
[Illustration]
+128. Selection and Subordination of Minor Details.+—In many descriptions the minor details are wholly omitted, and in all descriptions many that might have been included have been omitted. A proper number of such details adds interest and clearness to the images; too many but serve to render the whole obscure. If properly selected and effectively presented, minor details add much to the beauty or usefulness of a description, but if strung together in short sentences, the effect may be both tiresome and confusing. A mere catalogue of facts is not a good description. They must be arranged so that those which are the more important shall have the greater prominence, while those of less importance shall be properly subordinated.
Often minor details may be stated in a word or phrase inserted in the sentence which gives the general view. Notice the italicized portion of the following: "Opposite the church, and partly screened by the scraggly evergreens of a broad, unkempt lawn, there is a large, octagonal, brick house, with a conservatory on the left." This arrangement adds to the general view and gives a better result than would be obtained by describing the lawn in a separate sentence. Often a single adjective adds some element to a description more effectively than can be done with a whole sentence. Notice how much is added by the use of scraggly and unkempt.