Chapter XXII: Style 299 (6)

One important matter in reasoning is never to claim too much. Care must be taken not to put upon a proof a greater strain than it will bear. It is also an obvious rule that it is wise to insist upon no more than is absolutely needed to establish the proposition in hand. Sometimes it is wise to indicate that more might be proved, but in general the assent of the reader is to be treated as a bank account to be drawn upon as far as it is necessary, but in no case beyond the actual need of the occasion. It is well never to waste strength in proving more than is essential, and always to avoid a side issue as one shuns a road leading to sure destruction. Often it is a wise device in argumentation to establish a point and leave the reader to perceive its import. Here as everywhere a thing which the reader is led to do for himself is a hundred fold more effective than anything which can be done or said for him. The phrase, “Is it not possible that these facts prove this?” has won more converts than the boldest assertion: “These proofs make it impossible to doubt.” Man that is born of woman is born to obstinacy as the sparks fly upward, and if he be assured that he cannot or shall not doubt, he is apt to begin to doubt from simple contrariety. Yet it will not do to run any risk of leaving the reader in doubt as to what has been established by the arguments given. It is often necessary to insist that a proposition is proved. A victory is hardly recognized as a victory until the trumpets are blown, and an argument is scarcely concluded without some sort of a declaration of success.

Where the line is to be drawn between the extreme of leaving to the reader the perception of what is proved and that of insisting that a demonstration has been made must depend upon the audience addressed. The writer of an argument has especial need to be sure to whom he speaks. He must consider the knowledge of his audience, their views, and especially their prejudices. It is in relation to the last that there comes into play what it has been the fashion to call Persuasion. Although Argument is an appeal to the intellect, there are few chains of reasoning which fail to appeal also to the emotions. It is hardly possible to conceive of a discussion which will not to a greater or less degree touch the passions of those addressed. Much is effected by keeping in mind the natural prejudices of the reader, and so framing arguments that they shall appeal directly to the emotions by the personal or selfish nature of their deductions. An illustration is to be found in political harangues, which, while nominally devoted to proving the wisdom or advisability of some party measure, are really only clever attempts to convince that the measure is for the personal advantage of voters. This is, of course, the abuse of this form of argument. The legitimate use of this appeal to the passions is in the putting of reasoning sound and wholesome in itself into a form which shall captivate the hearer or reader. It is the lavishing upon the composition of all the graces of manner, of style, of ornament, which the writer can compass, to the end that the reader shall be attracted and inclined to accept the conclusions set down. Stevenson speaks of a somewhat different matter in words which are strictly applicable here:--

Whatever be the obscurities, whatever the intricacies of the
argument, the neatness of the fabric must not suffer, or the
artist has been proved unequal to his design. And, on the other
hand, no form of words must be selected, no knot must be tied
among the phrases, unless knot and word be precisely what is
wanted to forward and illuminate the argument; for to fail in this
is to swindle in the game.--_Cont. Rev._, vol. xlvii. (1885),
p. 551.

Almost as often as with the establishment of our own reasoning, are we concerned in argument with endeavors to overthrow the logic of an opponent. Frequently it is necessary to refute views opposed to that which is being put forward. It is in general wise not to bring this in too soon. It is well to predispose the reader in favor of the conclusion to be defended, and then to take up contrary opinions. Sometimes a broad statement at the beginning to the effect that objections exist is politic; and in any case it is important that there be no slightest appearance of shirking or evading the issue. When the writer is conscious that the weight of popular sentiment or general opinion is against him, he may sometimes command attention and provoke interest by boldly plunging at once into an attack upon commonly received theories. Audacity always commands attention, and if it be reinforced by ability it is no less sure of admiration. A striking example of this method is to be found in Colonel Ingersoll’s attacks upon the Bible and religion. However one may be shocked by his violations of good taste, and whether one does or does not agree with his methods or his conclusions, it is impossible to deny his success as a speaker. The very boldness with which he has attacked has insured a hearing. This form of discussion calls for dash, courage, and confidence,--and it is sometimes the result of sheer impudence. Only he who has great powers and perfect command of them can reasonably hope to succeed here.

For answering the arguments of others, and indeed for the proper examination of one’s own, it is necessary to give attention to the numerous fallacies which may creep into reasoning, by design or by accident. These are to be completely mastered only by the minute study of logic; but some are so common that they should be considered here.

The first fallacy is that of the confusion of terms, such as that found in the attempt to prove the _chef_ to be an interpreter of the beautiful, or in the question whether Whitman was a poet.

The second fallacy which in practical writing it is well to be on guard against is the _non sequitur_. There is much advanced as argument--as for instance in political editorials--where consecutiveness is confounded with causality. _Post hoc ergo propter hoc_ is the phrase which sums this up: After this, therefore because of this. “We shall die after eating this meal, therefore this meal is the cause of our death,” is an example of this fallacy. Put in this way the absurdity is evident; but a genuine fallacy, lurking under words as the conventional serpent of school-girl compositions and of temperance orators lurks beneath flowers, is a different thing. Here is part of an editorial from one of the leading New York daily journals:

The vote of Senator X. is a striking illustration of the power of
money among the law-makers of this great nation. The vigorous and
unscrupulous support which has been given to this bill by Mr. A.,
the western billionaire, is known to everybody; and equally well
known is the fact that hitherto Senator X. has been counted among
the stanch opposers of the iniquitous measure. Senator X. is known
to have had a private interview with Mr. A. on the evening before
the vote was taken, and the result was evident when next morning
the Senator gave his support to the bill which he had before
steadily opposed.

In the especial case to which this refers there may or there may not have been bribery; but it is well to bear in mind that this editorial proves nothing. It amounts merely to saying that the vote happened after the interview and was therefore the result of it; so that it is in reality one of those fallacies which in a simpler form appear so absurd. Yet readers in abundance accept this sort of thing as proof, especially when political prejudice inclines them to believe it. It would seem that a little common sense and a little care in examination were all that could be needed to dispose of specious errors of this class, yet they every day prevail.

The third fallacy is that of analogy. Analogy proves a probability, but it cannot establish a certainty. If a young woman has refused a dozen suitors, it is manifestly absurd to say that this proves that she will be equally unkind to the thirteenth. Politicians reason by analogy that a State which hitherto has gone Republican or Democratic may be counted upon to give a majority for its old party; when, lo, a change comes suddenly, and the conclusion is found to be false. That we have always liked the novels of a certain author does not insure that we shall be pleased with his next; that the sun has always risen does not prove that it will rise to-morrow morning; that men have from time immemorial been born with one head does not prove that a child may not be born with two,--as testify the freaks of dime museums. It is true that analogy often establishes a probability so strong that it amounts to a moral certainty. We are justified in acting upon the assumption that the sun will rise to-morrow, and in assuming that any given child of whose birth we hear has but one head. It is important in arguing, however, to bear in mind the difference, whether in one’s own reasoning or in that of an opponent, between analogy and absolute proof. Things which are like the same thing are like each other; but things that are like the same thing are not necessarily equal to each other.

The practical rules which may be given for the writing of Argument are chiefly recapitulations of what has been said.

_a._ Begin with clear understanding and clear statement of proposition and of terms.

_b._ Plan argument with reference to the especial point to be established and to the audience to be addressed.

_c._ Proceed generally from the more obvious to the less clear, and from the weaker to the stronger proof.

_d._ Be acutely alive to fallacies in any reasoning which is to be refuted, but to fallacies in your own work no less.

_e._ Never force a proposition or a proof beyond its value.

_f._ Concede all side issues and irrelevant matters if by so doing you do not lessen the chain of reasoning in points really important, and especially if in so doing you can foster a disposition favorable to your position.

_g._ Always remember that assertion is not argument.

To these rules might not inappropriately be added the saying of Sophocles: “Truth is always the strongest argument.”

* * * * *

The practical application of Argument to literary work is not difficult to discover. The most obvious use of this sort of composition is in the plea of the lawyer, the editorials of the newspaper, the essay establishing scientific theories, literary opinions, or the like. Whoever writes at all, however, even if it be but in simple private correspondence, is sure to employ Argument sooner or later, and to a greater or less degree. It may be in defense of a friend, the justification of one’s own acts, in proving the value of a new invention, supporting political or scientific views, in urging a particular line of investment,--in short, in any one of a thousand different ways. In one shape or another, reasoning comes constantly into play. He is merely a “mush of concession” who never attempts to bring another to his way of thinking. Indeed, he who does not endeavor to make others think as he thinks may be suspected of never thinking at all. Life is a continuous conflict, the strife for the survival of the fittest. The instinct to make our opinions prevail is in the blood of the meekest. Civilization differs from barbarism chiefly in that the strife has become intellectual instead of physical; and intellectual conflict is but another name for Argument. Since our lot is cast in a civilized state of society, to neglect this form of composition is to neglect the manual of arms of the battalion in which Fate has enrolled us!

XIV

DESCRIPTION

Description is at once the most common and the most difficult of the varieties of composition. It is apparently a thing which nobody fears to undertake, while it is certainly one which only a master is able to do really well. Everybody attempts it, yet there are probably in literature fewer fully successful descriptions than there are examples of any other sort of writing whatever.

A description is an endeavor to call up before the mind of the reader a picture of the thing described. Nothing is easier than to make a catalogue of things which one has seen; to schedule the details of a landscape, the particulars of a building, a room or a person. To convey a clear and accurate idea of the whole is most difficult. The untrained writer is apt to make of his attempts at description a mere running memorandum of points which he remembers in a scene. He sets down a list of matters more or less important, not because he can thus make the whole vivid and real to the reader, but because they are true. The result is that he has forced the truth to convey a falsehood--if indeed it be made to convey anything intelligible.

No student can go far in the examination of any of the arts without discovering that the object of expression is not so much to tell the truth as to produce an impression of truth. The literal truth may easily give a false impression, and becomes in that case the most vicious of falsehoods of which art is capable, just as the telling of facts with intent to deceive is the most dangerous form of lying. The thing to be sought is not accuracy of statement, but accuracy of perception, and the means must be subordinated to the effect.

It follows that even more vitally important than that all details be true, is that they be significant; that they not only appeal to the memory or the reason of the writer, but that they have a creative effect upon the mind of the reader. The author may remember that all the things which he sets down are true, yet it may be that all which he writes is false in its result. In morals it is fitting that we give credit for good intentions, no matter what the result of them may be; in authorship the intention is of no consequence whatever. The result is the only thing to be taken into account. Here to fail is to fail, whether one meant well or ill; and from this there is no escape.

I am of course keeping strictly to the definition of Description which has been given. In that form of Exposition which is frequently called Description, the giving a scientific or practical account of a thing, accuracy of detail is of the first importance. If one is called upon to “describe” a machine, it is not usually meant that he shall try to present to the mind a picture of it, but that he shall expound it. This is not Description in a literary sense, and with this we have nothing now to do. In the sense in which the term is used as naming a department of composition, Description is not scientific, but emotional; not categorical, but literary; not intellectual, so much as visual. The description of a landscape falls short of its intent just so far as it fails to call up before the inner eye the image which was before the mind of the writer,--save in so far as from the nature of language any word-picture must fall short. If a passage designed to paint a scene does not make the reader seem actually to see that scene it cannot be held that the author has fulfilled his intention.

It must be recognized once and for all that words cannot really paint. No artificer can labor intelligently until he has learned not only the possibilities but also the limitations of the means at his disposal. In writing it is important to remember what words cannot do as well as what they can effect. The most that the writer can hope to do is to revive in the mind of the reader images which the latter has seen. In speaking of the limitations of language in the first of these talks, I reminded you that when we read the description of a landscape we construct an image out of material already in the mind. Words cannot paint; that is the province of another art. The painter is able to present fresh forms, colors, combinations, new landscapes, strange and unknown figures, and all varieties of visual novelty. The writer must content himself with a reawakening and a rearrangement of forms, figures, colors, images, already in the reader’s mind. His effect of novelty must come from fresh and untried combinations; from the vividness with which he is able to arouse these remembered images until they appear so real as to seem new.

It easily follows that the writer who understands his art will cunningly avail himself of images which are likely to be stored in the minds of his readers. It is the same principle which directs us to appeal to common emotions, to the general experiences of mankind.[5] Let us examine a little this extract from an account of a walk in the woods in England:--

“Looking between the trees, I saw a little circular glade, two or
three score feet across. It was covered with soft, thin grass,
speckled with palely blue scabiosas, and set round with tall,
slender trees. On one side was a strange imitation of the great
trilith at Stonehenge, formed by two tall boulders across which
had fallen the trunk of a large beech tree.”

In America the reader might not know what scabiosas are, but as this was written in England, where, in some parts at least, the pale blue blossoms of the flower are common in every field, the audience addressed would probably not be puzzled by this word. It is to be supposed that even there, however, there would be many who would fail to feel any force in the phrase “the great trilith at Stonehenge.” A few might have seen it, and others might be familiar with pictures representing it; but the chance of finding this image in the mind of the reader was so small as to render its use at least ill-advised; and especially so as the comparison is that of a trifling thing to a great one. The reader who recalled Stonehenge would be likely to feel that there was small excuse for likening a tree trunk tumbled across a couple of boulders to the magnificent and mysterious monuments of Salisbury Plain.

An example of the fact that even in dealing with the supernatural a writer has no resource save images already known may be found in any story dealing with the weird. Take this from Rudyard Kipling’s tale, “The Return of Imray,” where the spirit of a murdered man is haunting the house:--

We were alone in the house, but none the less it was too fully
occupied by a tenant with whom I did not wish to interfere. I
never saw him, but I could see the curtain between the rooms
quivering where he had just passed through; I could hear the
chairs creaking as the bamboos sprung under a weight that had just
quitted them; and I could feel when I went to get a book from the
dining-room that somebody was waiting in the shadows of the front
veranda till I should have gone away.

This is perhaps not one of Mr. Kipling’s happiest passages, since it insists somewhat too strongly upon the corporeal bulk of the phantom, but it illustrates the point which we are considering.

* * * * *

Of the greatest importance in Description is the point of view. First there is the question of the physical point of view. The writer must know certainly and clearly at what point he has placed the reader to look at the landscape, the person, or the scene which is described. In the first lecture I quoted the description which opens Kingsley’s “Westward Ho!” There the point of view is that of one approaching the “little white town of Bideford,” but there is at the very outset a violation of propriety which injures the force of the whole. “The little white town of Bideford,” the author says, “which slopes upward from its broad tide-river paved with yellow sands, and many-arched old bridge where salmon wait for Autumn floods.” The “yellow sands” and the salmon are details which are known to one familiar with the town, but they are not apparent to the stranger, they are not evident from the point of view chosen, and their introduction at once confuses the impression.

Goethe, who was keenly alive to all the details of literary workmanship, commented upon a passage in Scott which violates the point of view. In talking with Eckermann he said:--

It is a peculiarity of Walter Scott’s that his great talent
in representing details often leads him into faults. Thus in
“Ivanhoe,” there is a scene where they are seated at a table in
a castle-hall, at night, and a stranger enters. Now, he is quite
right in describing the stranger’s appearance and dress, but it is
a fault that he goes to the length of describing his feet, shoes,
and stockings. When we sit down in the evening and some one comes
in, we notice only the upper part of his body. If I describe the
feet, daylight enters at once, and the scene loses its nocturnal
character.--March 11, 1831.

The point of view may of course be progressive. The reader may be led on through a landscape or through the rooms of a house, for instance. In this it is necessary to keep clearly in mind and to make evident to the reader every alteration in the point of sight. Properly used, this method may be very effective; but the least vagueness inevitably leads to confusion. No description can be successful if there is any uncertainty in regard to the station of observation. The reader must know where he is looking from as well as what he is at. He may not, it is true, realize this, but the writer must realize it for him.

What has been said of the physical point of view may be applied to the emotional. The feeling of the spectator influences the impression made upon him by that at which he looks. Do not forget the mood in which you expect your reader to see the mental picture which you are endeavoring to present. If you introduce into the midst of a highly wrought and exciting tale a description of a scene so closely connected with the narrative that it is important for the reader to see it clearly, you have to consider that if you have the hold you should have upon him he is aroused by the story, and will look with quickened eyes upon the view your words present. You may therefore give him, quickly and sharply, details such as imprint themselves on the brain in moments of excitement. The principle is one so obvious as hardly to need further illustration; but it is not to be looked upon as of small importance because small space is here given to it.

Much modern description may be said to be entirely emotional, in the sense that it aims rather to produce the emotions aroused by a scene than to picture the scene in its physical aspect. A recognition of the difficulty of presenting a visual image has brought this about, just as it has brought about the discarding of the old-time fashion of cataloguing details. The modern heroine, for instance, is seldom described by the best novelists. Two or three characteristic particulars are generally considered sufficient to suggest the whole, or one touch is cunningly added to another in the body of the narrative, so that the image is formed almost imperceptibly.

It is convenient to consider Description as being of two sorts, although no sharp line can be drawn between them. One method may be called Direct Description, and the other Suggestive Description.

The names indicate the distinction,--an attempt to call up a picture by the enumeration directly of the characteristics of an object or a scene, or to suggest it by an imaginative figure. The former is the simpler, the more common, the less subtle. The difference between these sorts of description may perhaps be appreciated by contrasting two passages, the first from Shelley’s “Mont Blanc,” and the second from Coleridge’s “Hymn before Sunrise in the Vale of Chamouni.” Shelley, dealing directly with his subject, and enumerating actual features of the scene, writes:--

Thus thou, Ravine of Arve--dark, deep Ravine--
Thou many-colored, many-voicèd vale,
Over whose pines and crags and caverns sail
Fast cloud-shadows and sunbeams.

Coleridge, on the other hand, suggests a picture rather than gives one directly:--

Hast thou a charm to stay the morning star
In his steep course? So long he seems to pause
On thy bald, awful head, O sovran Blanc!

In the one case there is a statement of particulars, and from these separate features the reader is expected to build up the scene before his mental vision. In the other there is merely a suggestion of the morning star hovering lingeringly over the snowy, awe-inspiring crest of the mighty mountain. It seems to me that in this especial instance Coleridge, for once at least, has the better of Shelley, and that the implied picture is more vivid and effective than the picture more carefully elaborated.

To take an illustration from prose, let us contrast the description which Dickens gives of Sairey Gamp with that of Mrs. Fezziwig. Of the former he says:--

She was a fat old woman, this Mrs. Gamp, with a husky voice and
a moist eye, which she had a remarkable power of turning up and
only showing the white of it.[6] Having very little neck, it
cost her some trouble to look over herself, if one may say so, at
those to whom she talked. She wore a very rusty gown, rather the
worse for snuff, and a shawl and bonnet to correspond.... The face
of Mrs. Gamp--the nose in particular--was red and swollen; and it
was difficult to enjoy her society without becoming conscious of a
smell of spirits.

Of the other lady Dickens merely remarks:--

In came Mrs. Fezziwig, one vast substantial smile.

Good as the former of these descriptions is of its kind, it seems to me that if this were all that we were told about these two characters, we should have in the mind a more distinct picture of Mrs. Fezziwig than of Mrs. Gamp. One is not obliged to share this opinion, however, to appreciate the difference between the two methods.

In Direct Description, the first thing to be considered, after the point of view is selected, is what is the central idea of the picture which is to be produced. It is apt to be the fact that from a description the reader gets one clear and vivid impression to which all else is subordinate, and beside which all else is comparatively vague. It is therefore often wise to put all the real stress upon the points to be accented, leaving the reader to imagine the rest.

The matter of selecting the central thought is of the more weight, since it is important that this be given clearly to the reader at its first presentation. Whoever has tried to alter a mental image knows how difficult it is to change a picture which is already defined in the imagination. If the mind in constructing a picture has conceived of a mountain as standing on the right, and afterward finds that the author intended it to be on the left, it is on the right that that mountain is likely to remain in the ideal landscape. I have always been a little troubled by the fact that in his description at the commencement of “The Merry Men,” Stevenson, careful and exquisite artist though he was, speaks of the “great granite rocks that ... go down together in troops into the sea, like cattle on a summer’s day;” and then, a little later, declares that “on calm days you can go wandering between them in a boat for hours, echoes following you about the labyrinth.” From the comparison to cattle, I always get the idea of boulders much smaller than the second sentence shows to have been intended. The readjustment is an unpleasant break which jars upon the reality of the whole.

In the first example which I gave you, we are told that the writer saw a glade, covered with soft, thin grass, speckled with flowers. It is added that the glade was set round with trees, and then that on one side were a couple of tall boulders, across which had fallen a large beech tree. This does not seem the natural or the effective order. The eye would first notice that the glade was set about with trees, next that there was the large fallen tree, lying across the boulders, and only after this see that the ground was covered with flower-spotted, thin grass.

Here is another example which illustrates the same error:--

Vervain saw before him a rude mob, armed with all sorts of
improvised weapons. They had evidently caught up scythes,
bill-hooks, axes, or whatever came first to hand. In the midst of
them his eye distinguished Henley and Western, and they were all
led by a large, coarse man with a red cap, who seemed to have some
authority over them. They were marshaled into a rude order, the
lines being wavering and uneven, and all were evidently fiercely
excited.

The author speaks first of a “rude mob,” a phrase which calls up a formless and confused mass of men. We are next told that in the midst the spectator recognized two acquaintances, then that there was a leader, and after that that the crowd was moving in rude order, with uneven lines. This last statement forces the reader to alter, if he can, his first impression, and instead of imagining a confused crowd, to think of a company irregularly organized. If the writer had really seen in his own mind the thing of which he wrote, he would in the first place have spoken of the mob as a company led by a leader conspicuous in his red cap, and marching in wavering lines. After this he would have been conscious of the rough and improvised weapons, and only after all these things had forced themselves upon his attention would there have been any recognition of individuals.

To select the central idea it is generally safe to consider what one’s own first or strongest impression was or would be at sight of the thing pictured. The effective order is usually that which would be the actual experience of the reader if he were standing in the flesh at the point of view indicated by the author. This is the natural method, and while it has its dangers, it is at once practical and logical. In any case, there must be some reason for the order, so that the reader may be led from one point to the next. Consecutiveness is the logic of Description and Narration.

As an example of describing where the details are arranged as they would be likely to catch the attention of the spectator, we may take this picture from that classic of American literature, Sylvester Judd’s “Margaret:”--

The pond covered several hundreds of acres, its greatest diameter
measuring about a mile and a half; its outline was irregular,
here divided by sharp rocks, there retreating into shaded coves;
and on its face appeared three or four small islands, bearing
trees and low bushes. Its banks, if not really steep, had a bluff
and precipitous aspect from the tall forest that girdled it
about.--Ch. i.

Or this exquisite bit from Stevenson:--

The river there is dammed back for the service of the flour-mill
just below, so that it lies deep and darkling, and the sand slopes
into brown obscurity with a glint of gold; and it has but newly
been recruited by the borrowings of the snuff-mill just above, and
these, tumbling merrily in, shake the pool to its black heart,
fill it with drowsy eddies, and set the curded froth of many other
mills solemnly steering to and fro upon the surface.--_The Manse._

Dickens observes this natural order in many of his detailed pictures of persons. The portrait of Mr. Grimwig may serve as an example:--

At this moment there walked into the room, supporting himself by
a thick stick, a stout old gentleman, rather lame in one leg, who
was dressed in a blue coat, striped waistcoat, nankeen breeches
and gaiters, and a broad-brimmed white hat with the sides turned
up with green. A very small-plaited shirt-frill stuck out from his
waistcoat, and a very long steel watch-chain, with nothing but a
key at the end, dangled loosely below it. The ends of his white
neckerchief were twisted into a ball about the size of an orange;
the variety of shapes into which his countenance was twisted defy
description. He had a manner of screwing his head round on one
side when he spoke, and looking out of the corners of his eyes
at the same time, which irresistibly reminded the beholder of a
parrot.--_Oliver Twist._

This elaboration of particulars is somewhat out of fashion. Particulars are grasped by the eye so quickly that the deliberation of words is apt to destroy proportion, while it is also true that the reader is in danger of forgetting the beginning before he reaches the end.

It is perhaps worth while to give an example of the abuse of this method, since all inexperienced writers have a tendency to mistake a catalogue for a description. It is manifestly idle to pile up particulars, unless they are kept subordinate to some central thought. Here is the description of the heroine of a modern English novel, “A Chelsea Householder:”--

To begin, then, Muriel was tall, with a slight, erect figure, a
quick step, and an air of youth and vigor which did the beholder
good to look at.[7] Her face was oval, as nearly oval at least
as a face can be in which the chin is a good deal more pronounced
than is usual in classic beauties. The cheeks were pale, paler
than they had any business to be, judging by the rest of the
physique, the most noticeable fact in point of coloring being
that the eyes, hair, brows, and lashes were all of the same, or
pretty nearly the same, color--a deep, dark brown, inclining
to chestnut above the temples, from which the hair was brushed
courageously back, so as to form a small knot at the back of the
head. Her eyes--not, perhaps, by the way, a strikingly original
trait in a heroine--were large and bright; indeed, brighter or
pleasanter eyes have seldom looked out of a woman’s face, their
beauty consisting less in their size and color than in this very
vividness and brightness, which seemed to shine out of the irises
themselves. For all that, the face in repose was not exactly a
bright one, or rather the brightness came to it only by fits and
starts, its prevailing expression being a somewhat sober one, a
sobriety giving way, however, at a touch, and being replaced by a
peculiarly sunshiny smile and glance.

This is not the whole of the paragraph, but it is enough for our purpose. There need not be a better example of how not to do it, or of how much may be said about a thing without conveying any definite idea of it. For my own part, I have no idea whatever how Muriel looked, and long before I got half through her verbal portrait I had ceased to care. Few faults are more common than this furnishing a list of particulars in the expectation that the reader will construct therefrom the picture which the author has not been clever enough to make clear--a method, it might be added, not unlike the system of punctuation adopted by the late so-called Lord Timothy Dexter, who put all the points together at the end of his book, and directed his readers to distribute them at their own pleasure.

It is hardly needful to remark upon the prime necessity of clearness in description, but it is perhaps not amiss to remind beginners that it is not possible to picture a thing which the writer does not himself see. If he is writing of an imaginary landscape and speak of a tree, he should be able if he choose to count the branches of that tree as clearly as if it in reality stood before him. Unless he know whether the heads of the flowers tip to the right or to the left, whether the sheep on the hillside of which he writes are nearer the fence on the one side or to the stone wall on the other, unless he can with inner vision actually see the shape of the heroine’s head and the length of her fingers, the slope of her neck and the folds of her gown as if she were in bodily presence before him, he cannot describe any of these things. He cannot tell what he does not know. More than that, he cannot tell to others as much as he knows; so that unless he be able to see a good deal more than he wishes to impart, he will fail to convey as much as he desires.

It is of importance to cultivate the habit of visualizing things, if one intends to describe them. The mind should be trained to conceive of them as visibly before it. This is the only way of arriving at the power of vivid portrayal. It is easy to go through the books of great writers and select those which show that the authors have this power of visualization. If a writer has it not, no skill of diction or of construction can avail to supply its lack.

In Description we have again occasion to emphasize the rule which was given in Exposition: proceed from the near to the remote; from the physical to the mental; from the obvious to the obscure. Homer, surpassed in happiness of epithet by Shakespeare only, affords abundant illustrations of this point. He says, for instance: “Wheels round, brazen, eight-spoked;” “shields smooth, beautiful, brazen, well-hammered.” The particulars are given in the order in which they would naturally be observed. That the wheel is round and that the shield is smooth, the eye perceives at once. The second glance adds the fact of material, and so on.

What is meant by taking up the physical before the mental is illustrated by the following sentence from a theme picturing the appearance of a harbor in the West Indies:--

In the distance I saw six or seven vessels in quarantine for
yellow fever, all flying yellow flags.

The process of the mind is here reversed. The spectator sees the flags and reflects that they indicate quarantine for yellow fever. It is not, as a general thing, well to intersperse these mental comments. It may properly be done in a case like this, because in reading, as in seeing, the mind is likely to inquire what is the signification of the yellow flags; and it is well to answer this question in order that the reader’s attention do not wander in search of an answer. If this is to be done, however, the physical appearance which gives rise to the interrogation should be given first. To reverse the order is something like giving first an answer and then the conundrum to which it belongs.

It is as bad as mixing metaphors to mingle physical and mental characteristics. In a description of the volcano of Kilauea I found this sentence:--

The combination of vivid red and green contrasted with the
deathlike quiet and grandeur of the crater.

It is not possible to contrast physical qualities like color with emotional ones such as quiet and grandeur. It is like multiplying pictures by potatoes.

Of effects used in Description the appeal to the sight is manifestly by far the most effective. Indeed, it is to be questioned whether any other is of use save in very rare instances. Of course the individual temperament of the reader has much to do with this matter, and I am perhaps influenced by the fact that while it is very easy for me to see things in imagination it is rather difficult for me to hear them. There is no question, however, that an appeal to the sense of hearing is with the average reader less likely to be convincing than that to sight. It seems to me also that the use of smell is less often successful than either of the others, and yet Kipling has shown how effective this may be if employed by a master. The mention of odors is more likely, perhaps, to belong to description by suggestion than to description simple and direct.

An important element in Description is movement. This consists in showing the details of a picture as if the mind of the reader were moving from one to another. It is secured by naming them as they would be observed; by presenting them as they would successively become apparent to some other person; or by exhibiting them in connection with their effects. Perhaps I may be able to show this by three brief pictures of a peasant girl.

1. She was a beautiful peasant girl, tall and slender, dressed in
the fashion of the country, and carrying in her hand a bunch of
scarlet poppies. Her snowy coif was pushed back, showing brown
cheeks, a mass of black hair, and bright, startled eyes.

2. Paul watched the tall, slender peasant come up the flowery
lane, twirling in her hand as she walked a handful of flaming red
poppies. He was sure that she had not noticed him, and he smiled
at the unconscious beauty of her brown face, clear eyes, and
black, wavy hair.

3. The artist’s gaze was suddenly arrested by a tall peasant girl,
who walked slowly up the lane. He stopped to watch her, attracted
by the grace of her slender figure, and noting appreciatively the
effect against her gray gown of the scarlet poppies which she was
twirling in her brown hands. As she drew nearer, and unconsciously
pushed back the snowy coif, an involuntary exclamation escaped his
lips at the brilliancy of the eyes which flashed out at him from
beneath her black, tumbled hair.

Such movement as there is in the first of these depends upon the arrangement of the particulars in the order in which they would naturally be perceived by the reader; in the second this order is shown to be natural by presentation of the details as if they were seen by a spectator; while in the third the effect is heightened by the introduction of the emotions aroused in the mind of the artist by the sight of the girl. Whether these examples make the fact clear or not, there is no question that the last form is the most effective. It is not always available, nor is it always appropriate; but when it is possible it is more vivid and persuasive than any other method. There is in it more suggestiveness, and hence there is more force.

As a practical example of the use of this method, this from Thomas Hardy may serve:--

How very lovable her face was to him! There was nothing ethereal
about it; all was real vitality, real warmth, real incarnation.
Yet when all was thought and felt that could be thought and felt
about her features in general, it was her mouth which turned out
to be the magnetic pole thereof. Eyes almost as deep and speaking
he had seen before, and cheeks perhaps as fair; brows as arched, a
chin and throat almost as shapely; her mouth he had seen nothing
at all to equal on the face of the earth. To a young man with the
least fire in him, that little upward lift in the middle of her
top lip was distracting, infatuating, maddening. He had never
before seen a woman’s lips and teeth which forced upon his mind,
with such persistent iteration, the old Elizabethan simile of
roses filled with snow.--_Tess of the D’Urbervilles_, xxiv.

[Footnote 5: A pleasant if a little exaggerated illustration of the way in which pictures are made up from materials in the mind is afforded by this account of the vision of Rome which a boy conjured up in his mind: “Rome!... I tried to imagine what it would be like when I got there. The Coliseum I knew, of course, from a woodcut in the history-book; so to begin with I plumped that down in the middle. The rest had to be patched up from the little gray market-town where twice a year we went to have our hair cut; hence, in the result, Vespasian’s amphitheatre was approached by muddy little streets, wherein the Red Lion and the Blue Boar, with Somebody’s Entire along their front, and “Commercial Room” on their windows; the doctor’s house, of substantial red brick; and the façade of the New Wesleyan Chapel, which we thought very fine, were the chief architectural ornaments; while the Roman populace pottered about in smocks and corduroys, twisting the tails of the Roman calves and inviting each other to beer in musical Wessex.”--KENNETH GRAHAM: _The Golden Age_.]

[Footnote 6: _Sic_.]

[Footnote 7: _Sic_.]

XV

DESCRIPTION CONTINUED

Description by Suggestion is perhaps not to be called Description in the exact meaning of the word, but in so far as it is an attempt to call up an image it is proper to consider it so. Even if it seem but an attempt to induce in the mind the spirit of a scene, a character, or a thing, it may still be treated as Description, since the main purpose is to bring vividly to the thought of the reader the image of the thing spoken of.

It has already been said that words can add no material image to those in the mind, but must work by the rearrangement of what is already there. If I read the account of a little rustic pond I call to mind some sheet of water that I have seen. If I have lived in the South the picture is likely to be that of a lakelet bordered by moss-hung trees, while if my experiences have been confined to New England I shall involuntarily think of northern foliage and scenery. I shall in any case construct out of old images this new one. Now the mind is best able to do this for itself if simply properly aroused and guided instead of being too minutely directed. In direct description the author adds particular to particular, bidding the reader put one detail in place by the others. If a writer do this with sufficient skill, he may succeed in inducing the consciousness of the reader to follow him; but always he is leading and the other is being led. On the other hand, when a suggestion is used the reader is aroused to take, as it were, the initiative. When Dickens calls Mrs. Fezziwig “one vast, substantial smile,” he stimulates the reader to picture the woman for himself. Here the imagination of the one who reads takes the lead instead of following. It goes by the path pointed out by the author, but it goes by itself. The result is that freshness and clearness of impression which belong only to what the mind does or seems to do voluntarily.

This is perhaps making more of a show of psychology than the occasion calls for or than my knowledge of that difficult science warrants; but at least it may serve to emphasize once more the fact that whatever the writer can induce the reader to do for himself is sure to be greatly more effective than anything which the writer can do for him. Herein lies the value of suggestive description. It arouses the mind to be actively receptive. Another way of putting the same thing would perhaps be to say that avowed description appeals more to the understanding, while suggestion addresses itself more directly to the imagination.

The simplest form of any description is of course the epithet. This in literal description is apt to be ineffective from its meagreness. In suggestion it is often rich and satisfactory. When Homer speaks of the “swift-footed Achilles,” he has not pictured the hero, yet he conveys by the implication of the epithet an image which is not without distinctness. The same is true of such Homeric phrases as “far-darting Apollo,” “laughter-loving Aphrodite,” or “ox-eyed Juno.” In the same way into a single simile may be condensed a description by suggestion which could be given directly only by pages. To go to the “Iliad,” again, take this example:--

As the gusts speed on, when shrill winds blow, on a day when dust
lies thickest on the roads, and the winds raise together a great
cloud of dust, even so their battle clashed together, and all
were fain of heart to slay each other in the press with the keen
bronze.--Lang’s _Iliad_, xiii.

There is here no direct picture, yet the mind sees the confused and furious onslaught more clearly than if all its details were enumerated.

Lowell notes a happy instance of this sort of picturing by intimation when he says of Chaucer:

Sometimes he describes amply by the merest hint, as where the
Friar, before setting himself down, drives away the cat. We know
without need of more words that he has chosen the snuggest corner.

Another remark which Lowell makes in this connection I cannot pass without quoting:--

When Chaucer describes anything, it is commonly in one of those
simple and obvious epithets or qualities that are so easy to miss.
Is it a woman? He tells us that she is _fresh_; that she has
_glad_ eyes; that “every day her beauty newed.”

Notice the phrase, “those simple and obvious epithets or qualities that are so easy to miss.” Whatever we may learn later, we all begin by supposing that it is imperative for a writer to go far afield, and to discover traits, epithets, and thoughts that nobody has used before. Here as in all writing he succeeds best who most carefully confines himself to just those traits, epithets, and thoughts which people have used before, but who so uses them that they have new force. He must feel so keenly whatever he writes that his words shall seem new because of the conviction behind them; and the reader will find a continual charm in this discovery, as it were, of the meaning of familiar terms.

In common practice it is seldom that either of the two sorts of composition which I have named is used alone, and the most successful method is that which happily unites them. No literature can go far or effect much which does not call suggestion to its aid, and this is perhaps more emphatically true in Description than in any other division of composition. Description is really a kind of continued comparison of the image which is in the mind of the writer with things which the reader may be supposed to have seen. As in the use of comparison in simile, suggestion is the most effective tool at the hand of the craftsman. It might be added that the rules given for the use of figures will be found, by one who takes the trouble to examine them, to be practically and directly applicable to Description.