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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 shod 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 and age. She needed two things, -two things which are the second birth of women, the pretty trifles of her sex, and the shy delight of love-letters.

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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.

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

some of the peculiar personages who have made the lucrative profession of frog-catching their calling in life. Nor were the feelings awakened by these chance meetings altogether those of pleasure, for, so far as outward appearances were concerned, these oddities ranged all the way from the idiot to the madman. Oh, there was a variety of them; representatives of nearly all nationalities, and, I am sorry to say, even some of the gentler sex were numbered among them. But by far the most strikingly curious of them all is "the old hermit in the willows," as he is generally called; for no one knows his name.

Nobody who has ever seen the little log hut situated at the very bottom of the ravine which opens into the south end of Lake Merced, and several miles from any other habitation except of beast or bird, would doubt for a moment that no ordinary person dwelt within. Perched upon a slightly elevated island, yet crouching so as to avoid coming in contact with the branches of the lowgrowing willows that surround and almost entirely conceal it, this dingy gray, moss-covered cabin, with its one length of rusty stove-pipe for a chimney, is a picture of utter solitariness.

If you are awestruck by the aspect of the house, how can you describe the feeling that takes possession of you when you see its sole occupant? A man of medium stature, although bent with age and labor, he would not present an altogether mean appearance if respectably dressed. But so few people have ever seen him; and in his customary attire he is a picture at once ludicrous and pathetic. Coming upon him unawares in his lonely haunt, you would most likely find his costume to consist of a pair of rusty-brown pantaloons, with a huge patch of red flannel on one knee and one of blue drilling on the other; a red and black checked flannel shirt, patched with calico of various colors; a gigantic rubber boot on one foot and a low rubber overshoe on the other; and perhaps a hat (though he rarely wears such a thing) which, judging from the number of holes in its crown and broad brim, might at some time previous to the invention of modern targets have been used as a substitute for such. His entire makeup, so to speak, strikes you as ridiculous, and you laugh aloud, thereby attracting his attention. He turns his face toward you and you stop so suddenly in your laughter that you almost choke.

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