Exercise 106.—Give a plain, scientific description of one or more of the illustrations given in your dictionary, remembering to start from some point and to proceed regularly from there in your description. For instance, in describing a ship under sail, begin at the water line and go up to the top of the masts, or else in the opposite direction; but do not begin at the stern, jump to the bow, and then back again to the masts. Do not attempt to explain the different qualities, the workings, or the interior parts of these objects. You will have this to do in exposition. Simply describe as accurately as possible their aspect, on the model of the description of the Blackburnian warbler.
Exercise 107.—Describe scientifically and specifically, using correct botanical terms, an individual example of one of the list of topics given you for general treatment on page 162, taking up (1) the general habit of growth, (2) usual location, (3) usual dimensions of whole plant, (4) body of the plant, (5) leaves, (6) flowers, (7) fruit and seeds, (8) any general remarks as to its usefulness in the world, etc. In addition, treat similarly the sunflower, seaweed, pansies, the peanut vine, the hazel nut, witch-hazel, the forget-me-not, the golden-rod, the willow, the sumac.
65. Literary Description.—An example of literary description, very far removed from the scientific variety, is the following extract:—
We had a remarkable sunset one day last November. I was walking in a meadow, the source of a small brook, when the sun at last, just before setting after a cold gray day, reached a clear stratum in the horizon; and the softest, brightest morning sunlight fell on the dry grass, and on the stems of the trees in the opposite horizon, and on the leaves of the scrub oaks on the hillside, while our shadows stretched long over the meadows eastward as if we were only motes in its beams. It was such a light as we could not have imagined a moment before, and the air also was so warm and serene that nothing was wanting to make a paradise of that meadow. When we reflected that this was not a solitary phenomenon, never to happen again, but that it would happen forever and ever an infinite number of evenings, and cheer and reassure the latest child that walked then, it was more glorious still.—H. D. Thoreau: Excursions.
The real point of difference between such a description and the account of the Blackburnian warbler is that the aim in the one case is to present facts and in the other to present a picture. Observation, however accurate, and order, however logical, are not enough for this sort of description. You must interest and please, or you have failed of your purpose. You must observe keenly and arrange your material carefully, but you must do more than this. You must remember all the time that you are trying to make a picture, and in many regards you need to follow the same rule as the artist does in painting.
For instance, he establishes himself in one place and draws the object, scene, or person as it looks to him from there. You would laugh at a painter who, in drawing a solid oak door, put in a person standing on the other side of it, but one of the first things to remember in making your written picture is not to put in details which you could not see from the point where you have placed yourself to make your sketch. In describing the view from a high hill, you must not write, "The woods back of our house looked like a green carpet and the house like the tiniest sort of a child's plaything. The sun shining in the windows of the front parlor made the room look as though it were smiling." The last sentence may be perfectly true, and in an account of the front parlor would be a good piece of description, but since you could not possibly see that detail from the top of a distant hill, it is absurd to use it.
More even than this, you must learn to remove too much detail from your descriptions. Not only should you refrain from using anything you cannot see from the point where you have placed yourself, but you should not use all the things you can see. In the exercises on scientific description you have been observing, as completely as you possibly could, a given subject, and putting into your composition all the facts you could see or learn about. In literary description the process is quite different. You must train yourself to leave out a great many details, and to select those you use with great care for their value in aiding you to give your reader a lifelike picture. In describing a house scientifically, it is of just as much value to say that there are eight windows on the north side as that it stands on a high hill, for what you wish to do is to convey all the information you can about the house. But in a literary description you should not mention the windows at all, unless there is something unusual about them, and you should pick out for mention only the features that make that house different from other houses; so that one of the first things you would say is some presentation of the fact that it is on a hill.
At length we stopped before a very old house bulging out over the road; a house with long low lattice-windows bulging out still further, and beams with carved heads on the ends bulging out too, so that I fancied the whole house was leaning forward, trying to see who was passing on the narrow pavement below. It was quite spotless in its cleanliness. The old-fashioned brass knocker on the low arched door, ornamented with carved garlands of fruit and flowers, twinkled like a star. The two stone steps descending to the door were as white as if they had been covered with fair linen; and all the angles and corners, and carvings and moldings, and quaint little panes of glass, and quainter little windows, though as old as the hills, were as pure as any snow that ever fell from the hills.—Charles Dickens: David Copperfield.
In this sketch of a house nothing is mentioned that could not be seen both from the position of a person who has just stepped in front of it and in the time which would naturally elapse between his ringing the doorbell and the arrival of some one to answer it. Notice also that a general impression of the whole house is given in the first sentence. Just as an artist making a sketch draws first a general rough outline of the whole object, "blocking in" (as it is called) the proportions and general aspect before going on to details; so a good beginning for a description is some general summing up of the first impression made upon you by the scene, or of the impression you desire to make upon your reader. This corresponds to the topic sentence of a paragraph.
Exercise 108.—Write a description from a fixed point, and as if after only a few moments' look, of the general impression made upon the observer by any of the following subjects, trying to catch some characteristic trait or quality, which you can state in one metaphor or comparison, as the predominating effect. For instance:—
1. I fancied that the whole house was leaning forward, trying to see who was passing on the narrow pavement below.
2. The deep projection of the second story gave the house such a meditative look that you could not pass it without the idea that it had secrets to keep, and an eventful history to moralize upon.
3. The nest looks as if it barely touched the twigs from which it hung; but when you examine it, you may find that the gray fibers have woven the wood in so securely that the nest would have to be torn in pieces before it could be loosened from the twigs.