Composition-Rhetoric

by Stratton D. Brooks; Marietta Hubbard

It is a phenomenon whose commonness alone prevents it from being most impressive, that departure of the night-express. The two hundred miles it is to travel stretch before it, traced by those slender clews, to lose which is ruin, and about which hang so many dangers. The drawbridges that gape upon the way, the trains that stand smoking and steaming on the track, the rail that has borne the wear so long that it must soon snap under it, the deep cut where the overhanging mass of rocks trembles to its fall, the obstruction that a pitiless malice may have placed in your path, you think of these after the journey is done, but they seldom haunt your fancy while it lasts. The knowledge of your helplessness in any circumstances is so perfect that it begets a sense of irresponsibility, almost of security; and as you drowse upon the pallet of the sleeping car and feel yourself hurled forward through the obscurity, you are almost thankful that you can do nothing, for it is upon this condition only that you can endure it; and some such condition as this, I suppose, accounts for many heroic acts in the world. To the fantastic mood which possesses you equally, sleeping or waking, the stoppages of the train have a weird character, and Worcester, Springfield, New Haven, and Stamford are rather points in dreamland than well-known towns of New England. As the train stops you drowse if you have been waking, and wake if you have been in a doze; but in any case you are aware of the locomotive hissing and coughing beyond the station, of flaring gas-jets, of clattering feet of passengers getting on and off; then of some one, conductor or station master, walking the whole length of the train; and then you are aware of an insane satisfaction in renewed flight through the darkness. You think hazily of the folk in their beds in the town left behind, who stir uneasily at the sound of your train's departing whistle; and so all is blank vigil or a blank slumber.

—Howells: Their Wedding Journey.

+136. Impression as the Purpose of Description.+—The impression that it gives may become the central purpose of a description. It is evident in Howells's description of the Battery that the purpose was the creating of an impression of forlornness, and that the author kept this purpose in mind when choosing the details. If his aim had been to enable us to form a clear picture of the Battery in its physical outlines, he would have chosen different details and would have presented them in different language.

The same scene or object may present a different appearance to two different observers because each may discover a different set of likenesses or resemblances and so select different essential characteristics. An artist will paint a picture that centers around some one feature. Each added detail seems but to set forth and increase the effect of this central element of the picture. Similarly the observer will in his description lay emphasis on the central point and will select details that bear a helpful relation to it. If he wishes to present the picture of a valley, he will lay emphasis on its fundamental image and essential details with reference to its appearance; but if his desire is to present the impression of fertility or of rural simplicity and quiet, the elements that are important for the producing of the desired impression may not be at all the ones essential to his former picture.

When the presentation of a picture is our central purpose, we attempt to present it as it appears to us, and select details that will enable others to form the desired image; but if we desire to set forth how a scene affected us, we must choose details that will make our reader feel as we felt.

+137. Necessity of Observing our Impressions.+—In order to write a description which shall give our impression of an object or scene, we must know definitely what that impression is. Just as clear seeing is necessary for the reproduction of definite images, so is the clear perception of our impressions necessary to their reproduction. Furthermore, we may know what our impressions are without being able to select those elements in a scene that have produced them; but in order to write a description that shall affect others as the scene itself affected us, we must know what these elements are and emphasize them in the description. Thus it becomes necessary to pay attention both to our impression and to the selection of those details which create that impression. One glance at a room may cause us to believe that the housekeeper is untidy. If we wish to convey this impression to our reader, our description must include the details that give that impression of untidiness to us.

Nor are we limited to sight alone, for our impressions may be made stronger by the aid of the other senses. Sound and smell and taste may supplement the sight, and though they add little to the clearness, yet they add much to the impression which we get.

Within the cabin, through which Basil and Isabel now slowly moved, there were numbers of people lounging about on the sofas, in various attitudes of talk or vacancy; and at the tables there were others reading Lothair, a new book in the remote epoch of which I write, and a very fashionable book indeed. There was in the air that odor of paint and carpet which prevails on steamboats; the glass drops of the chandeliers ticked softly against each other, as the vessel shook with her respiration, like a comfortable sleeper, and imparted a delicious feeling of coziness and security to our travelers.

—Howells: Their Wedding Journey.

+138. Impression Limited to Experience.+—If we attempt to write a description for the sake of giving an impression, it must be an impression that we have ourselves experienced. If the sight of the gorge of Niagara has filled us with a feeling of sublimity and awe, we shall find it hard to write a humorous account of it. If we see the humorous elements of a situation, we cannot easily make our description give the impression of grief. Neither can we successfully imitate the impressions of others. No two persons are affected in the same way by the same thing. Our age, our temperament, our emotional attitude, and all of our past experiences affect our way of looking at things and modify the impressions which we get. The successful presentation of our impression will depend largely upon the definite perception of our feelings.