by moonlight, or of Gladstone as a statesman, let us hold to our point of view or else we shall give our reader but a blurred or mixed impression. Or, to take a more homely example, suppose we are writing a description of one of the college buildings from the front gate perhaps; let us not mention that it is one hundred and twenty-one feet long and sixty high. Aside from the fact that it is probably too much of a piece of information for your purposes, we should hardly be able to tell the exact dimensions from where we stand; it certainly makes no exact impression upon us. And let us not say that the steps have been worn down by the feet of generations of students nor mention minor facts about the bulletin board by the front door; we are probably too far away to see such things.

This is certainly an important point. We shall find, however, that we do not need counsel here so much as caution. If we bear the principle in mind it is easy enough in most cases to observe it. We shall find out that this matter takes care of itself if only we will define our subject carefully to ourselves, and stick to it. are unwilling to take so much trouble even as that, we can hardly expect to accomplish very much.

EXERCISES.

If we

Take one of the subjects given in 19, 1–25, and write a description from a definite standpoint, as in Nos. 16, 18, 20.

21. Selection. More necessary is it to remember another Canon, which was of importance to us in Narration as well, that of Selection. We have been speaking of this matter already (Exercises, p. 43); is there anything more to say of it? We have seen that Descriptions of the same thing may be very different, according to the purpose that we have in mind. There are so many things that might be said about anything; how can we pick out only the right ones?

This is a place where, as you know already, a teacher cannot do very much more than give you his blessing. He cannot put himself in your shoes, and until he can do that you must do your selection of details for yourself. Don't feel as though your teacher failed you here. Be thankful that you have an opportunity to show your own originality. This is one of those happy chances that a man gets to show the stuff he's made of. We have already had a word or two about the matter. But you can hardly have too strong a sense of it. Our study is called constructive, but no study of rhetoric can be really constructive except in so far as it gives you a chance to construct for yourself. A distinguished teacher used to say, Young men come to me and say, 'We should like to acquire a Style.' Acquire a Style! I have to say to them, 'Supply yourselves first with a good stock of Originality, and then we'll begin to think about Style.""

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Different people will notice very different things. Just why and just what are interesting subjects in Psychology, although in Rhetoric we cannot go into them. I happened once to be lecturing upon this subject at a university where I was not a member of the faculty. My classes were held in the Geological Lecture-room. I asked the class to describe the room. Some mentioned one thing, some another, its size, its height, its ventilation, its blackboards, the view from the window. My own idea had been that if I had had to describe the room, I should have spoken of the geological models, the photographs of cañons, the pictures of primeval forests, the plans of different strata. You see lecture-rooms are pretty much alike in general characteristics, but I had never before held classes in a geological lecture-room, so I remarked things which escaped the attention of the students who were familiar with the place. It is always so with travellers: they notice things about a town which those who

have lived there all their lives would never think of mentioning. Everybody has a somewhat different standpoint. Here is an opportunity to make your writing represent yourself.

This matter of Individuality, which counts for so much. in Selection, is of more importance in Narration and Description than in Exposition or Argument. The first two are the Artist's kinds of composition; the two latter belong rather to the Scientist. And we can see how the Canon of Selection plays a vastly more important part in the former two than in the latter. For with particulars there are always so many more things that may be said, there is so much more opportunity to select those things that must be said. Almost all the general characteristics of a general idea are important, and almost all the proofs of a truth; in Exposition and Argument there is not nearly so much room for selection, nor for the individuality which it expresses. I sometimes think that this is the reason why we are more apt to call our artists men of genius than our scientists. The first must make choice of what they will say, the second are content to tell us all the truth.

22. Sequence. As we consider these Canons of Rhetoric further we shall see that there is one which was not of so much service to us in studying Narration as it will be now. I mean the Canon of Sequence. We have seen that the very thing that made such a striking difference between the subjects for Narration and Description was that in the former there was a natural sequence, while in the latter there was not. In Narration we saw that there were sometimes reasons for varying from the natural order, but in Description there hardly seems to be any natural order to vary from. In some special cases, it is true, we saw a certain order more or less prescribed for us (16), but as a rule a single object does not offer us any such chronological sequence. We see everything all at once, or so

nearly so that the difference is hardly worth mentioning. Now in language we must have some order for our statements, and one question in Description is, What shall it be?

It sometimes seems to me as though that great writer Walt Whitman tried to get along in defiance of any such ideas.

"Now I see what there is in a name, a word, liquid, sane, unruly, musical, self-sufficient,

I see that the word of my city is that word from of old, Because I see that word nested in nests of water-bays,

superb,

Rich, hemm'd thick all around with sailships and steamships, an island sixteen miles long, solid founded. Numberless crowded streets, high growths of iron, slender, strong, light, splendidly uprising toward clear skies,

Tides swift and ample, well-loved by me, toward sundown, The flowing sea-currents, the little islands, larger adjoining islands, the heights, the villas,

The countless masts, the white shore-steamers, the lighters. The ferryboats, the black sea-steamers well-model'd, The down-town streets, the jobbers' houses of business, the houses of business of the ship-merchants and money brokers, the river-streets.

Immigrants arriving, fifteen or twenty thousand in a week, The carts hauling goods, the manly race of drivers of horses, the brown-faced sailors,

The summer air, the bright sun shining, and the sailing clouds aloft,

The winter snows, the sleigh-bells, the broken ice in the river, passing along up or down with the flood-tide or ebb-tide,

The mechanics of this city, the masters, well-formed, beautiful-faced, looking you straight in the eyes,

Trottoirs throng'd, vehicles, Broadway, the women, the shops and shows,

A million people-manners free and superb-open voiceshospitality-the most courageous and friendly young

men,

City of hurried and sparkling waters! city of spires and masts!

City nested in bays! my city!"

-Walt Whitman: Mannahatta.

Here, in spite of the connection of two or three thoughts into different groups, I feel as though Walt Whitman were saying, "This is the way you see things, all at a time, disorderly, confused. Take them as they come to me, these impressions, piling in one upon the other, all of a heap, chaotic. It is not my part to sort them for you." Whether that were Walt Whitman's thought or not, that is my impression of such parts of his work as I have cited. It was a daring experiment, and only to a certain extent can we say that it succeeded. Successful with Walt Whitman or not, it is by no means an experiment to urge upon young writers. No, one would rather say, Try to find

some good sort of Sequence.

It would probably be a futile search if we endeavored to find any general principle which would serve us here, as the chronological order serves us in Narration. But we have seen that in some cases this same chronological order may serve us in Description as well (16 a). It is so convenient that one is readily tempted to try to extend it as far as possible. In the example on page 35 we saw that the different particulars came to notice one after another. In that case it was quite noticeable, but of course the peculiarity may exist where it is not so marked. Here is a description by Walter Scott:

"The library at Osbaldistone Hall was a gloomy room, whose antique shelves bent beneath the weight of ponder