el once more the formidable appetite, the herculean
strength of jaw, the exuberant life and spirits of those far-off
days.[23]

--EDMONDO DE AMICIS, _College Friends_.

_Suggestions for the Use of Description_

Decide, on beginning a description, what point of view you wish your
hearers to take. One cannot see either a mountain or a man on all sides
at once. Establish a view-point, and do not shift without giving notice.

Choose an attitude toward your subject--shall it be idealized?
caricatured? ridiculed? exaggerated? defended? or described impartially?

Be sure of your mood, too, for it will color the subject to be
described. Melancholy will make a rose-garden look gray.

Adopt an order in which you will proceed--do not shift backward and
forward from near to far, remote to close in time, general to
particular, large to small, important to unimportant, concrete to
abstract, physical to mental; but follow your chosen order. Scattered
and shifting observations produce hazy impressions just as a moving
camera spoils the time-exposure.

Do not go into needless minutiae. Some details identify a thing with its
class, while other details differentiate it from its class. Choose only
the significant, suggestive characteristics and bring those out with
terse vividness. Learn a lesson from the few strokes used by the poster
artist.

In determining what to describe and what merely to name, seek to read
the knowledge of your audience. The difference to them between the
unknown and the known is a vital one also to you.

Relentlessly cut out all ideas and words not necessary to produce the
effect you desire. Each element in a mental picture either helps or
hinders. Be sure they do not hinder, for they cannot be passively
present in any discourse.

Interruptions of the description to make side-remarks are as powerful to
destroy unity as are scattered descriptive phrases. The only visual
impression that can be effective is one that is unified.

In describing, try to call up the emotions you felt when first you saw
the scene, and then try to reproduce those emotions in your hearers.
Description is primarily emotional in its appeal; nothing can be more
deadly dull than a cold, unemotional outline, while nothing leaves a
warmer impression than a glowing, spirited description.

Give a swift and vivid general view at the close of the portrayal. First
and final impressions remain the longest. The mind may be tra