rtance as another; no special feature is made primary by the
omission or subdual of other qualities. It has value in giving exact
details of objects, as if for their construction, and in including an
object in a class.

Suggestive Description.

Suggestive description, description the aim of which is not
information, but the reproduction of a picture, is the kind most
employed in literature. To present a picture, not all the details
should be given. The mind cannot carry them all, and, much worse, it
cannot arrange them. Nor is there any need for a detailed enumeration.
A room has walls, floor, and ceiling; a man naturally has ears, arms,
and feet. These things may be taken for granted. It is not what is
common to a class that describes; it is what is individual, what takes
one object out of a class.

Value of Observation.

This leads to the suggestion that _good description depends largely on
accurate observation._ A selection frequently quoted, but none the
less valuable because often seen, is in point here. It is the last
word on the value of observation.

"Talent is long patience. It is a question of regarding
whatever one desires to express long enough and with
attention close enough to discover a side which no one has
seen and which has been expressed by nobody. In everything
there is something of the unexplored, because we are
accustomed to use our eyes only with the thought of what has
already been said concerning the thing we see. The smallest
thing has in it a grain of the unknown. Discover it. In
order to describe a fire that flames or a tree in the plain,
we must remain face to face with that fire or that tree
until for us they no longer resemble any other tree or any
other fire. This is the way to become original.

"Having, moreover, impressed upon me the fact that there are
not in the whole world two grains of sand, two insects, two
hands, or two noses absolutely alike, he forced me to
describe a being or an object in such a manner as to
individualize it clearly, to distinguish it from all other
objects of the same kind. 'When you pass,' he said to me, 'a
grocer seated in his doorway, a concierge smoking his pipe,
a row of cabs, show me this grocer and this concierge, their
attitude, all their physical appearance; suggest by the
skill of your image all their moral nature, so that I shal