ive description is so much more compact and
time-saving but because it is so vivid. Suggestive expressions connote
more than they literally say--they suggest ideas and pictures to the
mind of the hearer which supplement the direct words of the speaker.
When Dickens, in his "Christmas Carol," says: "In came Mrs. Fezziwig,
one vast substantial smile," our minds complete the picture so deftly
begun--a much more effective process than that of a minutely detailed
description because it leaves a unified, vivid impression, and that is
what we need. Here is a present-day bit of suggestion: "General Trinkle
was a gnarly oak of a man--rough, solid, and safe; you always knew where
to find him." Dickens presents Miss Peecher as: "A little pin-cushion, a
little housewife, a little book, a little work-box, a little set of
tables and weights and measures, and a little woman all in one." In his
"Knickerbocker's" "History of New York," Irving portrays Wouter van
Twiller as "a robustious beer-barrel, standing on skids."

Whatever forms of description you neglect, be sure to master the art of
suggestion.

_Description may be by simple hint._ Lowell notes a happy instance of
this sort of picturing by intimation when he says of Chaucer: "Sometimes
he describes amply by the merest hint, as where the Friar, before
setting himself down, drives away the cat. We know without need of more
words that he has chosen the snuggest corner."

_Description may depict a thing by its effects._ "When the spectator's
eye is dazzled, and he shades it," says Mozley in his "Essays," "we form
the idea of a splendid object; when his face turns pale, of a horrible
one; from his quick wonder and admiration we form the idea of great
beauty; from his silent awe, of great majesty."

_Brief description may be by epithet._ "Blue-eyed," "white-armed,"
"laughter-loving," are now conventional compounds, but they were fresh
enough when Homer first conjoined them. The centuries have not yet
improved upon "Wheels round, brazen, eight-spoked," or "Shields smooth,
beautiful, brazen, well-hammered." Observe the effective use of epithet
in Will Levington Comfort's "The Fighting Death," when he speaks of
soldiers in a Philippine skirmish as being "leeched against a rock."

_Description uses figures of speech._ Any advanced rhetoric will discuss
their forms and give examples for guidance.[21] This matter is most
important, be assured. A brilliant yet carefully restrained figura