longer we look, the more details do we see. If we stand at the gate of a garden in July, our first look will give us nothing more than a vivid impression of bright colors in profusion. As we continue looking, the masses of color begin to arrange themselves in our mental picture, and we notice perhaps the plan and the extent of the garden. Only after repeated observations do we recognize in detail the individual objects and groups that make up the garden. In the presence of a building we are at first aware only of size, color, shape, and height. We must look repeatedly before our mental image will include the numerous lesser details.

In all of these instances we notice that our first observation gives us in more or less imperfect outline an image of the whole object or scene, and that this outline fills up with details as we repeat or continue our observations. It is not true that "First we observe the separate parts, then the unison of these parts, and finally the whole." The truth is that first we observe the whole, gaining from this observation a general impression, accurate in proportion to our familiarity with the thing observed, and then we notice the parts in their relation to the whole.

60.

Assignments on the Order of Observation.

A. Look for a moment down a busy street (an unfamiliar street if possible), and then, turning aside, make note of your first impression. Look a second time somewhat longer, and record the details of your second observation. Note especially what elements appear with greater clearness in your picture and what new elements appear.

B. Try the same experiment with a deep well, a tall chimney seen first from a distance and next at close quarters, an approach

ing street car at night, a freight train slowly disappearing around a curve, a boat coming into port.

C. Walk rapidly by a shop-window, and note down the general impression and the things observed. Walk by a second time, and add to your list.

D. Do you think that this description is written in the order of the writer's observations? Give your reasons.

The room in which the House meets is the south wing of the Capitol, the Senate and the Supreme Court being lodged in the north wing. It is more than thrice as large as the English House of Commons, with a floor about equal in area to that of Westminster Hall, 139 feet long by 93 feet wide and 36 feet high. Light is admitted through the ceiling. There are on all sides deep galleries running backwards over the lobbies, and capable of holding two thousand five hundred persons. The proportions are so good that it is not till you observe how small a man looks at the farther end, and how faint ordinary voices sound, that you realize its vast size. The seats are arranged in curved concentric rows looking towards the Speaker, whose handsome marble chair is placed on a raised marble platform projecting slightly forward into the room, the clerks and the mace below in front of him, in front of the clerks the official stenographers, to the right the seat of the sergeant-at-arms. Each member has a revolving arm-chair, with a roomy desk in front of it, where he writes and keeps his papers. Behind these chairs runs a railing, and behind the railing is an open space into which some classes of strangers may be brought, where sofas stand against the wall, and where smoking is practised, even by strangers, though the rules forbid it.

When you enter, your first impression is of noise and tumult, a noise like that of short, sharp waves in a High

land loch, fretting under a squall against a rocky shore. The raising and dropping of desk lids, the scratching of pens, the clapping of hands to call the pages, keen little boys who race along the gangways, the pattering of many feet, the hum of talking on the floor and in the galleries, make up a din over which the Speaker, with the sharp taps of his hammer, or the orators, straining shrill throats, find it hard to make themselves audible. Nor is it only the noise that gives the impression of disorder. Often three or four members are on their feet at once, each shouting to catch the Speaker's attention. Others, tired of sitting still, rise to stretch themselves, while the Western visitor, long, lank, and imperturbable, leans his arms on the railing, chews his cigar, and surveys the scene with little reverence.

- BRYCE: American Commonwealth.

E. The next time you take a walk go in some new direction, and note the order of your impressions as you come suddenly upon an unfamiliar scene.

F. Note your successive impressions as you ride swiftly through a village after dark, or as you stand in the presence of a waterfall.

G. Does the following seem to reproduce the writer's impressions in the original order?

When we came to the Court, there was the Lord Chancellor sitting in great state and gravity, on the bench, with the mace and seals on a red table below him, and an immense flat nosegay, like a little garden, which scented the whole Court. Below the table, again, was a long row of solicitors, with bundles of papers on the matting at their feet; and then there were the gentlemen of the bar in wigs and gowns some awake and some asleep, and one talking and no one paying 'much attention to what he said. The Lord Chancellor leaned back in his very easy chair, with his

elbow on the cushioned arm, and his forehead resting on his hand; some of those who were present dozed; some read the newspaper; some walked about, or whispered in groups all seemed perfectly at their ease, by no means in a hurry, very unconcerned, and extremely comfortable. DICKENS: Bleak House.

The Fundamental Image.

61. The order of our observation shows us what is the best order in which to describe objects or scenes so that others may see them as we see them. Since we see first, not the separate details, but the whole object or scene, receiving a general impression, more or less definite, of size, color, shape, or of the most striking characteristic, it is evident that we should begin our descriptions with this general impression. By beginning with the general impression we furnish our readers with what is called "the fundamental image" or "the comprehensive outline." The following furnishes us with the fundamental image resulting from the first glance or two at a harbor. How easy to make the mental picture as we learn at once of the size (in the word "vast"), the shape (in the words "semicircular basin "), the color (in "blue sea"), and then, without delay, of the prominent objects that were seen at the same time, vessels, palaces, churches, gardens, terraces, etc.

the

Only figure to yourself a vast semicircular basin full of fine blue sea, and vessels of all sorts and sizes, some sailing out, some coming in, and others at anchor; and all around it palaces and churches peeping over one another's heads, gardens, and marble terraces full of orange and cypress

trees, fountains and trellis-works covered with vines, which altogether compose the grandest of theatres.

-THOMAS GRAY to Richard West, Genoa, November 21, 1739.

Dickens gives in a single sentence Nicholas Nickleby's first impression of Dotheboys Hall : —

While the schoolmaster was uttering these and other impatient cries, Nicholas had time to observe that the school was a long, cold-looking house, one story high, with a few straggling outbuildings behind, and a barn and stable adjoining.

The fundamental image for a long description is often presented by means of a graphic comparison which gives at once the comprehensive outline. Sir Walter Scott (Ivanhoe, chap. iii) explains the arrangement of the tables in the hall of Cedric the Saxon by saying that they formed a large T. Creasy compares the field of Marathon to a crescent. Shelley compares Lake Como to "a mighty river winding among the mountains and forests." De Quincey (The English Mail Coach, Section 11) helps his reader to locate the scene of a thrilling adventure by the aid of the following note:

Suppose a capital Y: Lancaster at the foot of the letter; Liverpool at the top of the right branch; Manchester at the top of the left; proud Preston at the centre where the two branches unite. It is thirty-three miles along either of the two branches; it is twenty-two miles along the stem-viz. from Preston in the middle to Lancaster at the root. There's a lesson in geography for the reader.