suggests some effect, and gives in itself what one or more sentences would be required to express entirely. Notice the choice of adjectives in the following: There is the gigantic body, the huge face seamed with the scars of disease, the brown coat, the black worsted stockings, the gray wig with the scorched foretop, the dirty hands, the nails bitten and pared to the quick. We see the eyes and mouth moving with convulsive twitches; we see the heavy form rolling; we hear it puffing; and then comes the "Why, sir!" and the "What then, sir?" and the "No, sir!" and the "You don't see your way through the question, sir!" MACAULAY, Boswell's Portrait of Johnson. In the following both verbs and adjectives aid in describing: A large-headed, dwarfish individual of smoke-bleared aspect, shambles forward, opening his blue lips, for there is sense in him, and croaks, "Alight, then, and give up your arms." EXERCISE Describe a sunset using distinctive adjectives to express color, and paying attention to grouping details. (2) Describe the personal appearance of some character from the literature you have read this year, following carefully the order for the description of an individual and paying particular attention to the choice of words. (3) Write a description of some scene where hurry and activity prevail, paying particular attention to the choice of verbs as well as adjectives. (4) Write a brief description of some person or animal, choosing only those details that are especially striking. become 68 Character sketches. In real life we acquainted with people from what they do, what they say, and what others say about them. In a story we must consider these same things in determining what kind of individual we are reading about. An estimate of an individual, based upon those points or upon his feelings, and the feelings of others toward him forms a character sketch or characterization of that person. The description of the personal appearance and the peculiar habits of the individual concerned, as well as an account of his friends, are all details that may be introduced into a character sketch. When the sketch, however, inclines mainly toward the humorous and grotesque, a caricature is likely to be the result. Jerry Cruncher, in A Tale of Two Cities belongs to this type. In a character sketch, narration and description are often combined, the latter being used in enumerating the traits of the character, the former in relating incidents to justify the conclusion drawn. Study the following character sketches. Do the characters seem real or fanciful? Upon what do you base your conclusion? Does any one of the selections present a caricature? Of quite another stamp was the then accountant, John Tipp. He neither pretended to high blood, nor, in good truth, cared one fig about the matter. He "thought an accountant the greatest character in the world, and himself the greatest accountant in it." Yet John was not without his hobby. The fiddle relieved his vacant hours. He sang, certainly, with other notes than to the Orphean lyre. He did, indeed, scream and scrape most abominably. His fine suite of official rooms in Threadneedle street, which, without anything very substantial appended to them, were enough to enlarge a man's notions of himself who lived in them (I know not who is the occupier of them now), resounded fortnightly to the notes of a concert of "sweet breasts" as our ancestors would have called them, culled from clubrooms and orchestras chorus-singers, first and second violoncellos, double basses, and clarionets who ate his cold mutton and drank his punch and praised his ear. He sate like Lord Midas among them. But at his desk Tipp was quite another sort of creature. Thence all ideas, that were purely ornamental, were banished. You could not speak of anything romantic without rebuke. Politics were excluded. A newspaper was thought too refined and abstracted. The whole duty of man consisted in writing off dividend warrants. The striking of the annual balance in the company's books (which, perhaps, differed from the balance of last year in the sum of £25 1s. 6d.) occupied his days and nights for a month previous. With Tipp form was everything His life was formal. His actions seemed ruled with a ruler. His pen was not less erring than his heart. He made the best executor in the world; he was plagued with incessant executorships accordingly, which excited his spleen and soothed his vanity in equal ratios. He would swear (for Tipp swore) |