Читать книгу Composition-Rhetoric - Stratton D. Brooks - Страница 17

A. Make a list of the words in the following selections whose meanings you need to look up in order to make the images exact and complete. Do not attempt to memorize the language of the definition, but to form a correct image.

1. The sun stared brazenly down on a gray farmhouse, on ranges of whitewashed outbuildings, and on a goodly array of dark-thatched ricks.

2. In his shabby frieze jacket and mud-laden brogans, he was scarcely an attractive object.

3. In a sunlit corner of an old coquina fort they came suddenly face to face with a familiar figure.

4. Somewhat back from the village street

Stands the old-fashioned country seat.

Across its antique portico

Tall poplar trees their shadows throw,

And from its station in the hall

An ancient timepiece says to all:

"Forever—never!

Never—forever!"

—Longfellow: The Old Clock on the Stairs.

5. There was a room which bore the appearance of a vault. Four spandrels from the corners ran up to join a sharp cup-shaped roof. The architecture was rough, but very strong. It was evidently part of a great building.

6. The officer proceeded, without affecting to hear the words which escaped the sentinel in his surprise; nor did he again pause, until he had reached the low strand, and in a somewhat dangerous vicinity to the western water bastion of the fort.

7. She stood on the top step under the porte-cochère, on the extreme edge, so that the toes of her small slippers extended a little over it. She bent forward, and then tipped back on the high, exiguous heels again.

8. Before the caryatides of the fireplace, under the ancestral portraits, a valet moves noiselessly about, arranging the glistening silver service on the long table and putting in order the fruits, sweets, and ices.

9. No sooner is the heavy gate of the portal passed than one sees from afar among the leafage the court of honor, to which one comes along an alley decorated uniformly with upright square shafts like classic termae in stone and bronze. The impression of the antique lines is striking: it springs at once to the eyes, at first in this portico with columns and a heavy entablature, but lacking a pediment.

B. Read again the selections beginning on page 46. Do you form complete images in every case?

C. Notice in each of your lessons for to-day what images are incomplete. Bring to class a list of the words you would need to look up in order to form complete images. Do not include all the words whose meanings are not clear, but only those that assist in forming images.

+Theme XII.+—Form a clear mental image of some incident, person, or place. Write about it, using such words as will give your classmates complete and accurate images. The following may suggest a subject:—

1. A party dress I should like. 2. My room. 3. A cozy glen. 4. In the apple orchard. 5. Going to the fire. 6. The hand-organ man. 7. A hornets' nest. 8. The last inning. 9. An exciting race.

(Consider what you have written with reference to the images which the reader will form. Do you think that when the members of the class hear your theme, each will form the same images that you had in mind when writing? Notice how many of your sentences begin in the same way. Can you rewrite them so as to give variety?)

+28. Reproduction of Images.+—If we were asked to tell about an accident which we had seen, we could recall the various incidents in the order of their occurrence. If the accident had occurred recently, or had made a vivid impression upon us, we could easily form mental images of each scene. If we had only read a description of the accident, it would be more difficult to recall the image; because that which we gain through language is less vitally a part of ourselves than is that which comes to us through experience.

When called upon to reproduce the images suggested to us by language, our memory is apt to concern itself with the words that suggested the image, and our expression is hampered rather than aided by this remembrance. The author has made, or should have made, the best possible selection of words and phrases. If we repeat his language, we have but memory drill or copy work; and if we do not, we are limited to such second-class language as we may be able to find.

Word memory has its uses, but it is less valuable than image memory. It is necessary to distinguish carefully between the images that a writer presents and the words that he uses. If a botany lesson should consist of a description of fifteen different leaves, a pupil deficient in image memory will attempt to memorize the language of the book. A better-trained pupil, on meeting such a term as serrated, will ask himself: "Have I ever seen such a leaf? Can I form an image of it?" If so, his only task will be to give the new name, serrated, to the idea that he already has. In a similar way he will form images for each of the fifteen leaves described in the lesson. The language of the book may help him form these images, but he will make no attempt to commit the language to memory. With him, "getting the lesson" means forming images and naming them, and reciting the lesson will be but talking about an image that he has clearly in mind. Try this in your own lessons.

If we are called upon to reproduce the incidents and scenes of some story that has been read to us, our success will depend upon the clearness of the images that we have formed. Our efforts should be directed to making the images as definite and vivid as possible, and our memory will be concerned with the recalling of these images in their proper order, and not with the language that first caused them to appear.