s easier to
describe a person if you and the person you describe move toward each
other. Remember that you begin the description at a distance. Details
should be mentioned as they actually come into view.

22. Describe your father in his favorite corner at home.

23. Describe a person you do not like, by telling what he is not.

24. Describe a person you admire, but are not acquainted with, using
the paragraph of comparisons.

25. Describe a picture.

It would be well to have at the end of this year four or five stories
written, in which description plays a part. Its principal use is to
give the setting to the story, to give concreteness to the characters,
and to accent the mood of the story.

Most passages of description are short. Rarely will any pupil write
over three hundred words. One hundred are often better. The short
composition gives an opportunity for the study of accuracy of
expression. What details to include; in what order to arrange them
that they produce the best effect, both of vividness and naturalness;
and the influence of the point of view and the purpose of the author
on the unity of description should be kept constantly present in the
exercises. Careful attention should be paid to choice of words, for on
right words depends in a large degree the vividness of a description.
Right words in well-massed paragraphs of vivid description should be
the object this term.

* * * * *

CHAPTER V

EXPOSITION

So far we have studied discourse which deals with things,--things
active, doing something, considered under the head of narration; and
things at rest, and pictured, considered in description. Now we come
to exposition, which deals with ideas either separately or in
combinations. Instead of Mr. Smith's horse, exposition treats of the
general term, horse. "The Great Stone Face" may have taught a lesson
by its story, but the discussion of the value of lofty ideals is a
subject for exposition.

General Terms Difficult.

That general terms and propositions are harder to get hold of than
concrete facts is readily apparent in the first reading of an author
like Emerson. To a young person it means little. Yet when he puts in
the place of the general terms some specific examples, and so verifies
the statements, the general propositions have a mine of meaning, and
"the sense of the author is a