d, which
particularly attracted my attention, as he stood at the
pony's head, rubbing his chin with it, and looking up at us
in the chaise."

Hawthorne thus begins his description of "The House of the Seven
Gables:"--

"Maule's Lane, or Pyncheon Street, as it were now more
decorous to call it, was thronged, at the appointed hour, as
with a congregation on its way to church. All, as they
approached, looked upward at the imposing edifice, which was
henceforth to assume its rank among the habitations of
mankind."

And in the same volume his description of "The Pyncheon of To-day"
begins:--

"As the child went down the steps, a gentleman ascended
them, and made his entrance into the shop. It was the
portly, and, had it possessed the advantage of a little more
height, would have been the stately figure of a man,
considerably in the decline of life, dressed in a black suit
of some thin stuff, resembling broadcloth as closely as
possible."

If the description be long, and the object will lend itself to such a
treatment, a definite, tangible, easily understood shape or form
should be suggested at once. Notice Newman's first sentence describing
Attica: "A confined triangle, perhaps fifty miles its greatest length,
and thirty its greatest breadth." Like this is the beginning of the
description of the battle of Waterloo by Victor Hugo.

"Those who would get a clear idea of the battle of Waterloo
have only to lay down upon the ground in their mind a
capital letter A. The left stroke of the A is the road to
Nivelles, the right stroke is the road from Genappe, the
cross of the A is the sunken road from Ohain to Braine
l'Alleud. The top of the A is Mont Saint Jean, Wellington is
there; the left-hand lower point is Hougomont, Reille is
there with Jerome Bonaparte; the right-hand lower point is
La Belle Alliance, Napoleon is there. A little below the
point where the cross of the A meets and cuts the right
stroke, is La Haie Sainte. At the middle of this cross is
the precise point where the final battle word was spoken.
There the lion is placed, the involuntary symbol of the
supreme heroism of the Imperial Guard. The triangle
contained at the top of the A, between the two strokes and
the cross, is the plateau of Mont Saint Jean. The struggle
for this plateau was t