—­Helen Hunt Jackson:  Bits of Travel at Home.

A mango tree is beautiful and attractive.  It grows as large as the oak, and has a rich and glossy foliage.  The fruit is shaped something like a short, thick cucumber, and is as large as a large pear.  It has a thick, tough skin, and a delicious, juicy pulp.  When ripe it is a golden color.  A tree often bears a hundred bushels of mangoes.

—­Marian M. George.

+Theme LXVII.+—­Write a description of some tree that you have seen.

(Consider your theme with reference to the general principles of composition treated in Chapter V.)

+134.  Description of Persons:  Character Sketches.+—­The general principles of description are applicable to the description of a person, and should be followed for the purpose of presenting a clear and vivid image.  Our interest, however, so naturally runs beyond the appearance and is concerned with the character, that most descriptions of persons become character sketches.  Even the commonest terms of description, such as keen gray eyes, square chin, rugged countenance, are interpreted as showing character, and depart to some degree from pure description.  Often the sole purpose of description is to show character, and only those details are introduced which accomplish this purpose.

In life we judge a man’s character by his actions, and so in the character sketch we are led to infer his character from what he does.  The character indicated by his appearance is corroborated by a statement of his actions and especially by showing how he acts. (See Section 10.) Sometimes no descriptive matter is given, but we are left to make our own picture to fit the character indicated by the actions.  In many books the descriptive elements which would enable us to form an image of some person are distributed over several pages, each being introduced where it supplements and emphasizes the character shown by the actions.

Notice the following examples:—­

The Rev. Daniel True stood beside the holy table.  For such a scene, perhaps for any scene, he was a memorable figure.  He had the dignity of early middle life, but none of its signs of advancing age.  His hair was quite black, and curled on his temples boyishly; his mustache, not without a worldly cut, was as dark as his hair, and concealed a mouth so clean and fine that it was an ethical mistake to cover it.  He had sturdy shoulders, although not quite straight; they had the scholar’s stoop; his hands were thin, with long fingers; his gestures were sparing and significant; his expression was so sincere that its evident devoutness commanded respect; so did his voice, which was authoritative enough to be a little priestly and lacking somewhat in elocutionary finish as the voices of ministers are apt to be, but genuine, musical, persuasive, at moments vibrant with oratorical power.  He had a warm eye and a lovable smile.  He was every inch a minister, but he was every nerve a man.