all the World does not Know. From these discussions of work in. another art you can get many helpful suggestions about writing. 4. When you read, observe how skillful descriptive writers manage point of view, noting especially the ways in which they indicate changes. Then try (a) to describe the same person or object from two different positions; (b) to describe some scene from a progressing point of view; (c) to describe some object or scene as it appears at different times, for example, a garden in October and in June, or a city street on Saturday night and on Sunday morning. 5. Try to describe the hands of four or five friends or classmates. Before you begin, it will be well for you to study the human hand in order to find out just what details are really distinctive. 6. We are told that when Saint-Gaudens undertook to make his statue of Lincoln for Lincoln Park, Chicago, he asked several of Lincoln's friends what detail of posture would seem most characteristic to those who knew him well. They mentioned the position of his left hand and thumb. Can you find similarly distinctive details in the appearance of your friends? 7. What are the characteristic details of a town barber shop? of a crowded street car? of a dog fight? of a July thunder storm? of a milliner's shop? 8. Study the place which memory inevitably has in description. What image comes to mind upon mention of chapel, bridge, automobile, cottage, plume, teacher? 9. Read John LaFarge's Considerations on Painting, Chapter II. He shows how any artist reveals his individuality through selection of details. 10. In order to increase your appreciation of the less used senses, read in The Story of My Life what Helen Keller has to say of her sensations. The following is typical: What a joy it is to feel the soft, springy earth under my feet once more, to follow grassy roads that lead to ferny brooks where I can bathe my fingers in a cataract of rippling notes, or to clamber over a stone wall into green fields that tumble and roll and climb in riotous gladness." II. Can you describe the odors of an apple orchard in blossom? of an old attic? of a chemical laboratory? Can you describe the sounds of a bird store? of a city fire? of a ball game? of early morning in the country? Can you describe the sensations of a sickbed? of diving? of exploring a cave? 12. Make a list of at least thirty nouns and verbs which might be useful in describing human gait; facial expression; children's voices; water; trees. 13. What is meant by the "pathetic fallacy"? Read Ruskin's discussion of it. 14. Which of the following passages seem to you effective? In what respects is each superior or inferior? a. The millionaire's south-bound express [was] laying the miles over his shoulder as a man peels a shaving from a soft board. b. Directly above the house was a small cemetery with tombstones intermingling among the numerous cedars. c. The sky was full of stars, but there was no moon. d. The sky was clear and serene, and full of stars, but the moon was not there, for she had sought the stillness of peaceful walks of ancient nights. e. The Spyglass, which was by three or four hundred feet the tallest [hill] on the island, was likewise the strangest in configuration, running up sheer from almost every side, and then suddenly cut off at the top like a pedestal to put a statue on. f. Far up, into the recesses of the valley, the green vistas arched like the hollows of mighty waves of some crystalline sea, with the arbutus flowers dashed along their flanks for foam, and silver flakes of orange spray tossed into the air around them, breaking over the gray walls of rock into a thousand separate stars, fading and kindling alternately as the weak wind lifted and let them fall. CHAPTER X-NARRATION I. THE FIELD OF NARRATION A. THE NATURE OF NARRATION NARRATION recounts sequential events. In one respect it is unlike exposition, argumentation, and description: it finds an almost unqualified advantage in the passing of time. In exposition and argumentation, where the writer's purpose is to make one understand or to win assent, it is important that the reader have many things in mind at one time in order that he may see their essential relations or comparative values; in description, where the writer's purpose is to make one see, the reader must perform the almost impossible mental feat of holding fragments of images in mind until some unifying suggestion blends them into one effect; but in narration, the time that passes while the reader is scanning the pages contributes to his more perfect comprehension by constantly suggesting the time that is passing in the narrative itself. B. THE RELATION OF NARRATION TO OTHER FORMS Nevertheless, narration is very closely related to exposition and description. In the first place, it is almost inseparable from them because of characteristics which all three hold in common. Exposition, we have already noticed, sometimes explains most clearly when it takes the form of narration, as we easily discover if we attempt to explain a process of any kind. Description, too, is at times so much like narration that it is not always easy to distinguish the one from the other. As a matter of fact, in literature they are ever merging so completely that the lines of demarcation are quite shadowy. But narration stands in close relation to exposition, description, and even argumentation in another way; it includes them. We cannot proceed very far in any narrative without employing exposition. Often it is quite necessary to explain kinship, to analyze motive, to comment, or to apologize, as in history, biography, and the longer pieces of fiction. Occasionally, too, as in Stevenson's Travels with a Donkey, the narrative style and the expository are combined to great advantage. Narration likewise includes description. When we begin a narrative, we almost immediately find ourselves employing description to give the necessary background, and sooner or later we must use it in clothing the characters with reality. C. THE UNIVERSAL INTEREST IN NARRATION The wide inclusiveness of the field of narration well represents the almost universal attention which this form of writing receives from readers. An inherent curiosity makes us want to know how other people look, what they think, what their neighbors think of them, what they have done, what they are doing, what they are going to do, and what they would probably do under given circumstances. Some of us profess a dislike for gossip by word of mouth, but all of us enjoy it when it is tempered with a reasonable amount of dignity and printed in newspapers, magazines, and books. Thus narration, though not used so frequently as exposition in the daily routine of our lives, probably commands a wider and deeper interest than any of the other forms of composition. It is not only the medium through which we gain our knowledge of the people who carry on the world's work and the world's play, but it is the source of a large part of our intellectual recreation. D. CLASSIFICATIONS OF NARRATION No attempt to classify the many varieties of narrative art has been very successful. It is difficult to bring the novel, the 66 66 drama, the short story, the tale, the news story, the autobiography, the biography, and the narrative parts of history into any division that will result in a real simplification. Some writers have sought to divide the entire field into "simple narrative" and complex narrative," and others have tried to arrive at the same end by making the basis of classification mere chronology" and "cause and effect." These divisions are more or less inadequate, first, because it is not possible to have many persons agree concerning the point at which narrative ceases to be simple and becomes complex; and secondly, because any narrative that deserves the name involves logical as well as chronological arrangement. It is true, of course, that in primitive literature we may find a near approach to the purely chronological; but in the present day we are not writing after the manner of primitive peoples. We do not choose between chronology and some order of cause and effect; we simply try to adjust them. Perhaps the most nearly satisfactory division is the one we have followed throughout this book; that is to say, we may bring all narration into two classes, instrumental and æsthetic, — narratives that aim primarily to give information, and narratives that seek to quicken the emotional life and satisfy the artistic instincts. Objection may be made that in this case the classification does not really classify; and there is some foundation for the objection. But inasmuch as it is a division that runs throughout the entire field of writing, and can be used here with a degree of convenience, we may well employ it. Thus the news story, the narrative parts of history, and virtually all biography and autobiography would be classed as instrumental; while the tale, the short story, the novel, and the drama would be classed as æsthetic. II. THE ELEMENTS OF NARRATION It should be borne in mind, however, that classifications are merely for convenience of study; that whether the narrative |