already described buildings from another point of view. But even an ordinary dwelling-house may be constructed so as to attract the eye of the passer-by as well as to contribute to the comfort of those who live in it. Thus we have two radically different points of view. In the present exercise the point of view is that of a person who has an eye for artistic effects.

Note that the point of view is not said to be that of the student of the beautiful or the connoisseur in art. The work before you is still description and not criticism, which latter involves comparisons and the passing of individual judgment. Try to tell what you can plainly see, and not all that your imagination may read into the object, nor all that you think should be there and is not. Have the object before you if possible. It is not safe to trust to memory. Few painters or sculptors will venture far without their models. You are a word-painter now.

There are other fields of art in which the artist appeals to other senses than the sight. But description here becomes so extremely difficult that it is deemed best to omit it. It would indeed be rash, unless one were exceptionally well equipped, to attempt to describe an organ fugue or an orchestral symphony.

EXERCISE XXXII.

DESCRIPTION OF PERSONS.

Take as a subject one of your friends, or perhaps better some one whom you have seen only once or twice, and describe him (or her) as he would appear to

a person who met him for the first time. This means, of course, that the description shall be one almost entirely of externals, of those qualities, essential or adventitious, which manifest themselves at once to the senses. Character will not play any part in this except so far as it can be inferred from such features as eyes, complexion, gait, and even manner of dress. If the description is of some one who is well known to your readers or hearers, try to make it so accurate and lifelike that they will recognize the subject at once.

Here again let us insist upon the necessity of observing a due proportion and relation of parts. Do not continually leap from one detail to another without any apparent connection between the two, whether that connection be expressed or understood. Now and then it may be necessary to do this. In any composition of length there must be some gaps in the train of thought wider than others; and paragraph division is the external sign of this. But such gaps must not occur at every sentence, and even where they do occur let them be as narrow as possible.

The following description is taken from Victor Hugo's Les Misérables, Part I, Book II, Chapter I. The point of view is that of a chance observer. Notice how the general appearance of wretchedness is heightened by dwelling on the details of clothing.

One day early in the month of October, 1815, about an hour before sunset, a man traveling afoot entered the town of D The few inhabitants who at this moment chanced to be at their windows or on the doorsteps of their houses, looked at this traveler with a vague sense of uneasiness. One would not often meet a wayfarer more wretched in appearance. He was a man of medium height, thickset and sturdy, and in the full vigor of life. He might

be forty-six or forty-eight years of age. A cap with a leather tip well pulled down partly concealed his face which was bronzed by the sun and was dripping with sweat. His shirt, of some coarse yellow stuff, fastened at the throat by a little silver anchor, fell open sufficiently to give a glimpse of a shaggy breast. He wore a twisted cravat, shabby breeches of blue ticking, white at one knee, worn through at the other, and an old tattered gray blouse, pieced at one of the elbows with a patch of green cloth sewed on with pack-thread. On his back he carried a well filled knapsack, tightly buckled and quite new; in his hand an enormous knotted stick. His stockingless feet were encased in shoes Ishod with iron. His head was shaved, his beard long. The perspiration, the heat, the journey on foot, the dust, gave to his whole person an inexpressible air of misery and squalor.

Compare with the above the following from Balzac's Père Goriot, and note that here more essential attributes are dwelt upon as indicative of the girl's spiritual environment.

Though Mademoiselle Victorine Taillefer was of a sickly paleness like a girl in feeble health, and though this paleness, joined to an habitual expression of sadness and self-restraint, linked her with the general misery which formed the background of the life about her, yet her face was not an old face, and her movements and her voice were young and sprightly. She seemed like a sickly shrub transplanted into uncongenial soil. Her fair complexion, her auburn hair, her too-slender figure, gave her the grace that modern critics find in the art of the Middle Ages. Her eyes, which were gray with a radiation of dark streaks, expressed the sweetness and resignation of a Christian. Her dress was simple and cheap, but it revealed a youthful form. She was pretty by juxtaposition. Had she been happy she might have been lovely; for happiness lends poetic charm to women, and dress adorns them like a delicate tint of rouge. If the pleasures of a ball had called out the rose-tints on her pallid face; if the comforts and elegancies of life had filled out and remodeled her cheeks, already, alas, too hollow; if love had ever brightened her sad eyes; - then

Victorine might have held her own among the fairest of her sex She needed two things,—two things which are the

and age.

For this work you should know your subject well. The description of external and physical features is not intended to be excluded at all. It was said in the last exercise that these things may give a clue to the real character, and when you assume to know that character it will often be the happiest kind of description merely to suggest it by these features. The reader, knowing your purpose in introducing them, will trust to your more intimate knowledge and so not be afraid of misinterpreting them. The characters described are to be real, that is, actually existing, with all their natural virtues and defects, though of course when you are dealing with a well-known person, even in a school essay, nothing can excuse the failure on your part to exercise both charity and courtesy.

The last subject in the list above has been found an excellent one, and many interesting essays are recalled with such titles as "The Village Factotum,” “The

Philosopher of Pine Ridge," "Uncle Billy," "Old January," "Ben the Ubiquitous," "Garesché, Ord." Nearly every community can boast of one or more of those characters who, for some striking peculiarity or unusual originality in their natures, are branded as eccentric. The term need not convey reproach-it is by no means always invidious. It simply means that these people, in their personal appearance or in their habits of life, depart unusually far from the standards which the average man recognizes. The greatest genius may do that.

Notice in the following how ingeniously the point of view is taken and how impressive the preliminary description of outward appearance makes the sudden revelation of the real man. A subject of this kind must be treated somewhat like those of the preceding exercise, for such a character cannot, from its very nature, be so intimately known to you as that of your bosom friend.

THE HERMIT IN THE WILLOWS.

I am sure I do not know what there is connected with the science of frog-catching so essentially different from all other sciences, and so very peculiar that only eccentric characters are able to pursue this profession with marked success. Can it be that frogs are themselves eccentric, and so, since "not to sympathize is not to understand," only "eccentrics" have the power to comprehend the laws which govern them so as to be ever master of their situation? Whatever it is and it is almost vain to attempt to solve the mystery- the fact remains that the aforementioned class of individuals does excel in the aforementioned vocation, and furthermore, very few who do not belong to that class ever attempt to become professors of that science.

Happening to live in a country where frogs are as plentiful as flies are elsewhere, I have often had the opportunity of meeting