A word picture is often spoiled by using too many adjectives; as,
"A great, large, roomy, spacious hall"; "Superb, delicious, magnificent pumpkin-pie"; "A stingy, miserly, close-fisted fellow."
The italicized words may be omitted.
Pupils should be taught to watch for such errors, and to correct them.
Pupils may be required to copy choice selections from literature, and to note carefully capitals, punctuation, and the use of adjectives. We offer the following exercise as a specimen:—
We piled with care our nightly stack
Of wood against the chimney-back,—
The oaken log, green, huge, and thick,
And on its top the stout back-stick;
The knotty fore-stick laid apart,
And filled between with curious art
The ragged brush; then, hovering near,
We watched the first red blaze appear,
Heard the sharp crackle, caught the gleam
On whitewashed wall and sagging beam,
Until the old, rude-furnished room
Burst, flower-like, into rosy bloom.
Whittier.—Snow-Bound.
+Observation Lesson+.—Of what are the lines above a picture? Where, and in what kind of house, do you think this picture was seen?
What object is pictured by the help of five adjectives? Are the adjectives that precede the name of this object of the same rank? Are those that follow of the same rank? What noun is modified by three adjectives of different rank? What noun by three adjectives two of which are of the same rank? What difference is found in the punctuation of these several groups?
Notice how the noun crackle crackles as you pronounce it, and how the adjective sharp makes it penetrate. Notice how strong a picture is made in the two lines immediately before the last. The adjectives here used bring out the most prominent qualities of the room, and these qualities bring along with them into the imagination all the other qualities. This is what we must try to make our adjectives do.