5. Describe a pond, some pleasant nook in the woods, a fishing hole, a thicket, a spring, a noteworthy tree, or similar object, so that some one else, who knows nothing about it, can find it.

6. Describe some room of a house, - parlor, library, sitting room, dining room, or kitchen, — in such a way as to make clear the family traits of the people who live in the house.

7. Describe the most foppish looking boy in the class. Describe the most handsome; the most distinguished looking; the happiest looking; the most sober.

8. Describe in a sentence or two the voice of some person talking. Look up the description of voices of characters in works of fiction to know how to do this. Make a list of the adjectives, figures, and so on, which you find used for this purpose.

9. Describe the manner of walk of a drunkard; of an old man; of a strong, athletic man. Use your own observations only.

10. Describe for a city boy some one of the following things: (1) The parlor of a country hotel; (2) a country store; (3) a country fisherman; (4) a country gossip; (5) a village humorist; (6) a place where hazelnuts are found. This list, which may be added to indefinitely, may suggest subjects which will be suitable to describe for a country boy or girl.

11. Find some picture in a recent or an old number of a magazine - select a really good picture — and describe it. If you can find two pictures dealing with the same subject, and will compare or contrast them, the work will be even more interesting.

12. Describe the personal appearance of some strikingly odd character you have met. Before beginning this work, make a list of the adjectives you think of which may be used to describe the prominent features of a person - eyes, nose, hair, manner, figure, and expression. Thus, the eyes may be described as startled, laughing, heavy-lidded, noticeable, expressive, dreamy, or speaking eyes, etc.

13. Describe some bit of natural scenery: (1) A brook; (2) a solitary tree; (3) a waterfall; (4) a river; (5) a woodland; (6) a mountain; (7) a lake; (8) a wooded hill; (9) the shore of the ocean; (10) a prairie; (11) a landscape similar to one you have seen in some picture. Visit the scene to be described, and write your description with the scene before your eyes—just as a painter would paint it.

14. Describe some object or scene, using a diagram or sketch to supplement your word description.

15. Find in some work of fiction a rather full description of some one of the characters, and then try to describe the same character in a sentence or two by means of rapid suggestion. Make the experiment with five or six characters of different ages and temperaments.

16. In description much use can be made of the emotions aroused in a beholder or a listener-description by effect, as it is sometimes called. The following passage is an example:

There is not a man yet alive who has forgotten the tones of Nathan's flute as they soared that night through the clouds of tobacco smoke that filled the great banquet-hall. Every shade and gradation of tone was a delight. Now soft as the cooing of doves, now low as the music of a brook rippling over the shallows and again swelling into song like a chorus of birds rejoicing in the coming of spring.

Not until the voice in the slender instrument had become silent and the last note of Richard's bow had ceased reverberating — not, in fact, until both men had laid down their instruments, and had turned from the piano- did the room seem to recover from the spell that had bound it. Even then there was no applause; no clapping of hands nor stamping of feet. There followed, from members and guests alike, only a deep, pent-up sigh and a long breath of relief, as if from a strain unbearable. Simmons, who had sat with his head buried in his hands, gave no other sign of his approval than by rising from his chair, taking Nathan's thin hand in his own and grasping it tightly, without a word. Stedman blurted out, in a low voice to himself: "My God! Who ever heard anything like that?” and remained fixed in his seat. As for Richard and Nathan, they resumed their places on the divan as men who had read a message not their own to willing ears. - F. HOPKINSON SMITH, The Fortunes of Oliver Horn, chap. xxiii.

Try to find other examples of this same sort of description.

17. Write a description of one of the following things, giving the effect of the thing upon some beholder or listener-yourself if you choose: (1) a person seen for the first time; (2) some bit of natural scenery (see 13 above); (3) an eloquent speaker; (4) a moving scene at the theatre; (5) a stirring plea in defence of a man on trial for his life; (6) a midnight song.

18. Write a description of something that arouses one of these emotions: (1) Disgust; (2) contempt; (3) fear; (4) sorrow.

19. Note how, in the last sentence of the first paragraph of the selection in 16 above, comparison is made use of to describe the tones of the flute's music. Find other examples of this sort of description, and then try to describe something by means of comparison. Comparison is especially effective in describing sensations other than of sight.

20. Find a good picture of one of the following persons, and then describe the person from the picture: Washington, Franklin, Lafayette, King George III, Lincoln, Grant, Sherman, Webster, Queen Victoria.

21. Write a description of one of the characters named in Exercise 71 (2).

22. Write a description of any fictitious person that interests you. 23. Try to describe accurately the features of some person whose photograph you have. Bring the photograph to class to see if your description can be recognized.

24. CLASS EXERCISE: Study some picture to ascertain just what a word description can do that a picture cannot. Which of the two, word description or picture, has the advantage in describing color? Form? Light? Sound? Odor? Motion? Heat?

25. Describe some person you know in such a way as to give some hint of his character. You can find a model in almost any novel or history.

26. Find a description of some place. Make an outline of the description, and, after two or three days, write the description from the outline. Describe a place near where you live.

27. Write a description of your most intimate friend. Put in a few character touches.

28. Write a letter to some one, giving a general description of the town in which you live. You may imagine that the person to whom you are writing has expressed a desire to move to your town.

29. Describe some store or church in your town so as to suggest the traits of the community.

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30. On one of the following subjects write a descriptive paragraph. Most of the subjects in the list are stated in a general form, mountain cottage," "a country schoolhouse," etc., and should be

made strictly definite before being written on. That is, write about some mountain cottage, some country schoolhouse, that you yourself know, and, by all means, write with your eye on it while you write. 1. A mountain cottage.

CHAPTER VIII

EXPLANATION AND ARGUMENT

SECTION 78

The Nature of Explanation

After narration (most talk and writing has to do with the telling of every-day experiences), explanation is the commonest form of discourse. You use explanation, for instance, when you set forth your ideas about the weather or about the news in the morning paper, when you direct a stranger to a house in your neighborhood, when you demonstrate a problem in geometry or in algebra, when you make a reflection on an experiment in physics or in chemistry, when you expound the meaning of a passage in an English or in a foreign classic, or when, on the hundred and one other occasions every day, you make a statement, or express an opinion, in which you try to make clear your thoughts about this, that, or the other thing. So does the lawyer use explanation, when he makes clear the principles on which a case turns; so does the physician, when he explains the nature of an ailment; so does the journalist, when he comments on a piece of news; so does the man of affairs, when he gives direction about his business. In fact, there is not a trade or a profession you can adopt that will not make large demands on your power to explain your ideas.2

1 Explanation is sometimes called exposition.

2 See what is said about this in A Word at the Start, pp. xxiii-xxvii.