—Scott: Ivanhoe.
Notice also how the description proceeds in an orderly way from one thing to another, placing together in the description those which occur together in the person described. Just as we turn our eyes naturally from one thing to another near it in space, so in a paragraph should our attention be called from one thing to that which naturally accompanies it. If the first sentence describes a man's eyes, the second his feet, and a third his forehead, our mental image is likely to become confused. If a description covers several paragraphs, each may be given a unity by placing in it those things which are associated in space.
EXERCISES
A. If you were to write three paragraphs describing a man, which of the following details should be included in each paragraph?
(a) eyes, (b) shoes, (c) size, (d) complexion, (e) general appearance, (f) hair, (g) carriage, (h) trousers,(i) mouth, (j) coat, (k) nose.
B. Make a list of the details which might be mentioned in describing the outside of a church. Arrange them in appropriate groups.
C. In the following paragraphs which sentences give the general outline and which give details? Are the details arranged with reference to their position in space? Can the paragraph be improved by rearranging them?
1. We came finally to a brook more wild and mysterious than the others. There were a half dozen stepping-stones between the path we were on and the place where it began again on the opposite side. After a few missteps and much laughter we were landed at last, but several of the party had wet feet to remember the experience by. We found ourselves in a space that had once been a clearing. A tumbledown chimney overgrown with brambles and vines told of an abandoned hearthstone. The blackened remnants of many a picnic camp fire strewed the ground. A slight turn brought us to the spot where the Indian Spring welled out of the hillside. The setting was all that we could have hoped for,—great moss-grown rocks wet and slippery, deep shade which almost made us doubt the existence of the hot August sunshine at the edge of the forest, cool water dripping and tinkling. A half-dozen great trees had been so undermined by the action of the water long ago that they had tumbled headlong into the stream bed. There they lay, heads down, crisscross—one completely spanning the brook just below the spring—their tangled roots like great dragons twisting and thrusting at the shadows. The water trickled slowly over the smooth rocky bottom as if reluctant to leave a spot enchanted. A few yards below, the overflow from Indian Spring joined the main stream, and their waters mingled in a pretty little cataract. We went below and looked back at it. How it wrinkled and paused over the level spaces, played with the bubbles in the eddies, and ran laughing and turning somersaults wherever the ledges were abrupt.
—Mary Rodgers Miller: The Brook Book. (Copyright, 1902, by Doubleday,
Page & Co.)
2. Rowena was tall in stature, yet not so much so as to attract observation on account of superior height. Her complexion was exquisitely fair, but the noble cast of her head and features prevented the insipidity which sometimes attaches to fair beauties. Her clear blue eyes, which sat enshrined beneath a graceful eyebrow of brown, sufficiently marked to give expression to the forehead, seemed capable to kindle as well as to melt, to command as well as to beseech. Her profuse hair, of a color betwixt brown and flaxen, was arranged in a fanciful and graceful manner in numerous ringlets, to form which art had probably been aided by nature. These locks were braided with gems, and being worn at full length, intimated the noble birth and free-born condition of the maiden. A golden chain, to which was attached a small reliquary of the same metal, hung around her neck. She wore bracelets on her arms, which were bare. Her dress was an under gown and kirtle of pale sea-green silk, over which hung a long loose robe, which reached to the ground, having very wide sleeves, which came down, however, very little below the elbow. This robe was crimson, and manufactured out of the very finest wool. A veil of silk, interwoven with gold, was attached to the upper part of it, which could be, at the wearer's pleasure, either drawn over the face and bosom after the Spanish fashion, or disposed as a sort of drapery round the shoulders.