FOURTH STEP IN RENDERING.

DESCRIPTIVE STYLE.

To Describe is to represent by drawing; a represen tation by words or other signs. The figure to be delineated may be that which appeals to the eye: objects, persons, places.

The person who gives the description must, like a photographer, select a definite view-point and hold it unchanged for one picture lest the impression be indistinct. If the view-point is large and distant, a change may be allowed, otherwise but one impression should be given. The essential characteristics must be brought out. Take advantage of proper background, contrasts and comparisons. Use carefully and skillfully such words as will awaken mental pictures: for example, make use of words giving color, brilliancy and life.

Call attention to the various points to be brought out in such an order as to be easily grasped by the listener. Naturally the mind looks, first at the picture as a whole, next the parts, then the relation of one part to another, last, selects that which seems most important.

As the speaker presents his mental picture to his listeners he too should look at his picture as well as at his auditors. Both speaker and listeners inspect it together, so it cannot be placed between speaker and audience.

The Descriptive Style is closely related to the Conversational Style; because of this, the suggestions for rendering the Conversational Style may be applied to the Descriptive.

As in the Narrative Style so in the Descriptive Style there must be a Purpose. The Unity must be preserved. See that the picture is properly focused. It must be well bal anced and complete. It must be brief and well concentrated so a mind that has given no previous thought to it may grasp all readily like a picture. Enter into the description as if it is something new that you only know.

It is of importance to note at this point that knowing in an abstract way is cold and uninteresting, and has little power to influence or move; knowing things in a concrete way leads to life and action. Abstract and general ideas have no power to move the emotions, while the presenting of definite, actual ideas may be grasped first by the mind of the speaker after which he may move his listeners profoundly. We may illustrate what we mean by general ideas as compared with the particular by calling attention to the fact that we may hear, almost unmoved, of some great disaster, some horror costing hundreds of lives, while a definite description of one child perishing in some accident moves us profoundly, even to tears. Attention to what is barely suggested here will enable the speaker to make use of concrete rather than the abstract, particular rather than general ideas.

Where ideas of a general character must be used in the readings, the reader must create vivid mental pictures for himself, in this way adding reality and life. The following may serve to illustrate the mental action in creating real, concrete ideas from what is generally mere words.

Let the student read "The Ocean, " by Lord Byron. "Thou glorious mirror, "Let the mind behold a vast, glassy surface, wherein, in turn, is reflected tempest, calm,

convulsed, breeze, gale, storm, ice, and "dark heaving. Following these definite reflections in this vast mirror, the mind passes to the invisible, mystic, which cannot be described. But as the mind sees definite pictures of the surface of the water as the different word pictures are presented-pictured in detail, as if to reproduce in a painting, the listener will feel the force of something alive and interesting. Herein is art. Each artist must create his own ideals. He may introduce into this series of ocean views, boats, ships, clouds, rocks or anything to make it exist in mind as an object, concrete, not abstract or considered apart from a particular object.

ness:

Thou glorious mirror, where the Almighty's form
Glasses itself in tempests; in all time,

Calm or convulsed in breeze, or gale or storm,
Icing the pole, or in the torrid clime

Dark-heaving;- boundless, endless and sublime-
The image of Eternity- the throne

Of the Invisible; even from out thy slime-
The monsters of the deep are made; each zone
Obeys thee: thou goest forth, dread, fathomless, alone.

Says Dr. Campbell concerning the importance of clear"If the medium through which we look at any object is perfectly transparent, our whole attention is fixed on the object; we are scarcely sensible that there is a medium which intervenes, and we can hardly be said to perceive it, but if there is a flaw in the medium, if we see through it but dimly, if the object is imperfectly represented, or if we know it to be misrepresented, our attention is immediately taken off the object to the medium.

A discourse, then, excells in perspicuity when the subject engrosses the attention of the hearer, and the language is

so little minded by him that he can scarcely be said to be conscious it is through the medium he sees the speaker's thoughts.

The descriptive studies following are of an objective character. Care has been exercised in selecting such short and easy studies as have one simple picture to portray. Let the student form a complete mental image of each of the following studies. After careful study and concentration of the mind upon it, read your study to some one asking them, in turn, to describe to you the picture the reading has suggested to them. Practice of this kind will enable the pupil to know if he has ability to project mental pictures into the minds of others.

Objective studies with one prominent picture are given here. Subjective studies with one leading feeling come under the step headed Lyrics.

Experience has proven the objective studies, pictures, and the subjective, manifesting feeling are most helpful.

WASHINGTON.

George Washington's personal appearance was in harmony with his character; it was a model of manly strength and beauty. He was about six feet two inches in height and his person well proportioned,—in the earlier part of life, rather spare, and never too stout for action and graceful movement. The complexion inclined to the florid; the eyes blue and remarkably far apart; a profusion of brown hair was drawn back from the forehead, highly powdered, according to the fashion of the day, and gathered in a bag behind. He was scrupulously neat in his dress, and while in camp, though he habitually left his tent at sunrise, he was usually dressed for the day.

EVERETT.

JOHN BURNS OF GETTYSBURG.

Just where the tide of battle turns
Erect and lonely stood old John Burns.
How do you think the man was dressed?
He wore an ancient long buff vest,
Yellow as saffron- but his best;
And buttoned over his manly breast,

Was a bright blue coat with a rolling collar,
And large, gilt buttons- size of a dollar;
He wore a broad brimmed, bell-crowned hat,
White as the locks on which it sat.

But Burns unmindful of jeer and scoff,
Stood there picking the rebels off —

With his long, brown rifle and bell-crowned hat,
And the swallow-tails they were laughing at.
In fighting the battle, the question's whether
You'll show a hat that's white, or a feather!
BRETE HARTE.

JOHN HANCOCK.

One raw morning in spring, the town militia came together before daylight" for training. A great tall man, with a large head and a high, wide brow, their captain,— one who had "seen service " marshalled them into line, numbering but seventy, and bade every man to load his piece with powder and ball. "I will order the first man shot that runs away, "said he, when some faltered.

"Don't fire unless fired upon, but if they want to have

a war, let it begin here. "

You know what followed; those farmers and mechanics "fired the shot that was heard round the world. "

THEODORE PARKER.