English: Composition and Literature. William Franklin Webster
the following bit from “Lear,” where Edgar tells his blinded father how high the cliff is, only those details are included which measure distance.
“How fearful
And dizzy ’tis to cast one’s eyes so low!
The crows and choughs that wing the midway air
Show scarce so gross as beetles; half way down
Hangs one that gathers samphire,—dreadful trade!
Methinks he seems no bigger than his head:
The fishermen, that walk upon the beach,
Appear like mice; and yond tall anchoring bark,
Diminished to her cock; her cock, a buoy
Almost too small for sight: the murmuring surge,
That on th’ unnumbered idle pebbles chafes,
Cannot be heard so high.—I’ll look no more,
Lest my brain turn, and the deficient sight
Topple down headlong.”
The following is from Kipling’s “The Light that Failed:”—
“What do you think of a big, red, dead city built of red sandstone, with green aloes growing between the stones, lying out neglected on honey-colored sands? There are forty dead kings there, Maisie, each in a gorgeous tomb finer than all the others. You look at the palaces and streets and shops and tanks, and think that men must live there, till you find a wee gray squirrel rubbing its nose all alone in the marketplace, and a jeweled peacock struts out of a carved doorway and spreads its tail against a marble screen as fine pierced as point-lace. Then a monkey—a little black monkey—walks through the main square to get a drink from a tank forty feet deep. He slides down the creepers to the water’s edge, and a friend holds him by the tail, in case he should fall in.
“Is all that true?
“I have been there and seen. Then evening comes and the lights change till it’s just as though you stood in the heart of a king-opal. A little before sundown, as punctually as clockwork, a big bristly wild boar, with all his family following, trots through the city gate, churning the foam on his tusks. You climb on the shoulder of a big black stone god, and watch that pig choose himself a palace for the night and stump in wagging his tail. Then the night-wind gets up, and the sands move, and you hear the desert outside the city singing, ‘Now I lay me down to sleep,’ and everything is dark till the moon rises.”
Note how every detail introduced serves to make the city dead. Dead kings, a wee gray squirrel, a little black monkey, a bristly wild boar, the night wind, and the desert singing,—these could not be seen or heard in a live city with street cars; but all serve to emphasize the fact that here is “a big, red, dead city.”
At the risk of over-emphasizing this point that the purpose of the author, the mental point of view of the writer, the feeling which the object gives him and which he wishes to convey to the reader, the central thought in the description, is primary, and an element that cannot be overlooked in successful description, I give another example. This point really cannot be over-emphasized: a writer cannot be too careful in selecting materials. Careless grouping of incongruous matters cannot make a picture. Nor does the artistic author leave the reader in doubt as to the purpose of the description; its central thought is usually suggested in the first sentence. In the quotations from Shakespeare and Kipling, the opening sentences are the germ of what follows. Each detail seems to grow out of this sentence, and serves to emphasize it. In the following by Stevenson, the paragraphs spring from the opening sentence; they explain it, they elaborate it, and they accent it.
“Night is a dead monotonous period under a roof; but in the open world it passes lightly, with its stars and dews and perfumes, and the hours are marked by changes in the face of Nature. What seems a kind of temporal death to people choked between walls and curtains is only a light and living slumber to the man who sleeps afield. All night long he can hear Nature breathing deeply and freely; even as she takes her rest she turns and smiles; and there is one stirring hour unknown to those who dwell in houses, when a wakeful influence goes abroad over the sleeping hemisphere, and all the outdoor world are on their feet. It is then that the first cock crows, not this time to announce the dawn, but like a cheerful watchman speeding the course of the night. Cattle awake on the meadows; sheep break their fast on the dewy hillsides, and change to a new lair among the ferns; and houseless men, who have lain down with the fowls, open their dim eyes and behold the beauty of the night.
“At what inaudible summons, at what gentle touch of Nature, are all these sleepers thus recalled in the same hour to life? Do the stars rain down an influence, or do we share some thrill of mother earth below our resting bodies? Even shepherds and old country-folk, who are the deepest read in these arcana, have not a guess as to the means or purpose of this nightly resurrection. Towards two in the morning they declare the thing takes place; and neither know nor inquire further. And at least it is a pleasant incident. We are disturbed in our slumber only, like the luxurious Montaigne, ‘that we may the better and more sensibly enjoy it.’ We have a moment to look upon the stars. And there is a special pleasure for some minds in the reflection that we share the impulse with all outdoor creatures in our neighborhood, that we have escaped out of the Bastille of civilization, and are become, for the time being, a more kindly animal and a sheep of Nature’s flock.” (“Travels with a Donkey.”)
Length of Descriptions. There is one more step in the exclusion of details. This considers neither the point of view nor the purpose of the writer, but it is what is due the reader. Stevenson says in one of his essays that a description which lasts longer than two minutes is never attempted in conversation. The listener cannot hold the details enumerated. The clearest statement regarding this comes from Jules Lemaître in a criticism upon some descriptions by Emile Zola which the critic says are praised by persons who have never read them. He says:—
“It has been one of the greatest literary blunders of the time to suppose that an enumeration of parts is a picture, to think that forever placing details side by side, however picturesque they may be, is able in the end to make a picture, to give us any conception of the vast spectacles in the physical universe. In reality, a written description arranges its parts in our mind only when the impression of the first features of which it is formed are remembered sufficiently, so that we can easily join the first to those which complete and end it. In short, a piece of description is ineffective if we cannot hold in mind all its details at one time. It is necessary that all the details coexist in our memory just as the parts of a painting coexist under our eye. This becomes next to impossible if the description of one definite object last over fifteen minutes of reading. The longer it is, the more obscure it becomes. The individual features fade away in proportion to the number which are presented; and for this reason one might say that we cannot see the forest for the trees. Every description which is over fifty lines ceases to be clear to a mind of ordinary vigor. After that there is only a succession of fragmentary pictures which fatigues and overwhelms the reader.”8
These, then, are the principles that guide in the choice of materials for a description. First, the point of view, whether fixed or movable, should be made clear to the reader; it should be retained throughout the description, or the change should be announced. By regard for it the writer will be guided to the exclusion of matters that could not be observed, and to the inclusion of such details as can be seen and are essential. Second, the writer will keep out matters that do not contribute to his purpose, and will select only those details which assist in producing the desired impression. Third, the limitations of the reader’s powers advise a writer to be brief: five hundred words should be the outside; two hundred are enough for most writers. These principles will give to the whole that unity of materials and of structure which is the first requisite of an effective description.
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