l
not confound them with any other grocer or any other
concierge; make me see, by a single word, wherein a
cab-horse differs from the fifty others that follow or
precede him.'... Whatever may be the thing which one wishes
to say, there is but one word for expressing it; only one
verb to animate it, but one adjective to qualify it. It is
essential to search for this verb, for this adjective, until
they are discovered, and never to be satisfied with anything
else."[7]

The Point of View.

With the closest observation, an author gets into his own mind what he
wishes to present to another; but with this essential step taken, he
is only ready to begin the work of communication. For the successful
communication of a picture there are some considerations of value. And
first is _the point of view._ It has much the same relation to
description as the main incident has to narration. In large measure it
determines what to exclude and what to include. When a writer has
assumed his point of view, he must stay there, and tell not a thing
more than he can see from there. It would hardly be possible for a
man, telling only so much as he saw while gazing from Eiffel Tower
into the streets below, to say that the people looked like
Lilliputians and that their hands were dirty. To one lying on the bank
of a stream, it does not look like "a silver thread running through
the landscape." Things do not look the same when they are near as when
at a distance. This fact has been acted upon more by the modern school
of painting than ever before in art. Verboeckhoven painted sheep in a
marvelous way. The drawing is perfect, giving the animal to the life.
Still, no matter how far away the artist was standing, there are the
same marvelously painted tufts of wool, showing almost the individual
fibres. Tufts of wool were on the sheep, and made of fibres; but no
artist at twenty rods could see them. The new school gives only what
actually can be seen. Its first law is that each "shall draw the thing
as he sees it for the God of Things as They Are." Make no additions to
what you can actually see because, as a result of experience, you know
that there are some things not yet mentioned in your description; the
hands may be dirty, but the man on the tower cannot see the dirt.
Neither make an addition simply because it sounds well; the "silver
thread through the landscape" is beautiful, but, unfortunately, it