r a
blank slumber.

--Howells: _Their Wedding Journey_.

+136. Impression as the Purpose of Description.+--The impression that it
gives may become the central purpose of a description. It is evident in
Howells's description of the Battery that the purpose was the creating of
an impression of forlornness, and that the author kept this purpose in
mind when choosing the details. If his aim had been to enable us to form a
clear picture of the Battery in its physical outlines, he would have
chosen different details and would have presented them in different
language.

The same scene or object may present a different appearance to two
different observers because each may discover a different set of
likenesses or resemblances and so select different essential
characteristics. An artist will paint a picture that centers around some
one feature. Each added detail seems but to set forth and increase the
effect of this central element of the picture. Similarly the observer will
in his description lay emphasis on the central point and will select
details that bear a helpful relation to it. If he wishes to present the
picture of a valley, he will lay emphasis on its fundamental image and
essential details with reference to its appearance; but if his desire is
to present the impression of fertility or of rural simplicity and quiet,
the elements that are important for the producing of the desired
impression may not be at all the ones essential to his former picture.

When the presentation of a picture is our central purpose, we attempt to
present it as it appears to us, and select details that will enable others
to form the desired image; but if we desire to set forth how a scene
affected us, we must choose details that will make our reader feel as we
felt.

+137. Necessity of Observing our Impressions.+--In order to write a
description which shall give our impression of an object or scene, we must
know definitely what that impression is. Just as clear seeing is necessary
for the reproduction of definite images, so is the clear perception of our
impressions necessary to their reproduction. Furthermore, we may know what
our impressions are without being able to select those elements in a scene
that have produced them; but in order to write a description that shall
affect others as the scene itself affected us, we must know what these
elements are and emphasize them in the description. Thus it becomes
necessary to pay attentio