in a doze; but in any case you are aware of the locomotive hissing and coughing beyond the station, of flaring gas-jets, of clattering feet of passengers getting on and off; then of some one, conductor or station master, walking the whole length of the train; and then you are aware of an insane satisfaction in renewed flight through the darkness.  You think hazily of the folk in their beds in the town left behind, who stir uneasily at the sound of your train’s departing whistle; and so all is blank vigil or 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 attention both to our impression and to the selection of those details which create that impression.  One glance at a room may cause us to believe that the housekeeper is untidy.  If we wish to convey this impression to our reader, our description must include the details that give that impression of untidiness to us.