We are so dependent on our eyesight that it is well to remind ourselves occasionally that we have other senses. Obviously one will not often sit down and say, " In writing to-day I will use words that describe taste, touch, smell, and sound." We use the words that the subject demands. On the other hand, if we are well developed, if we are in the habit of using the five senses, we are much more likely to recognize and respond to the demands of the subject.

The man of rich and varied experience is the man whom we expect to be most interesting as a talker or as a writer. The man whose senses are constantly contributing to his appreciation and enjoyment of life naturally speaks and writes in a vigorous, hearty style. If we study men like Stevenson and Kipling, we shall find that they make frequent use of the five senses. They could not have written with such accuracy, completeness, and point unless they had acquired the habit of being alert. Like them we must learn our trade. Not satisfied with hazy notions about things, we must take pains repeatedly to put into words just what we see or hear or taste or smell or touch. By using our senses in this way we shall gain real enjoyment, and we shall become much more interesting to those with whom we associate; for whether we write or talk, we shall have an inexhaustible fund to draw from in making our meaning clear both in statement and in illustrations. Rich indeed is the writer who has at his command illustrative material that he has gathered from a vigorous use of keen senses, in doors and out.

Exercises

661. How many of the five senses did the writer use in connection with the following paragraphs? Note all indications of activity. Read the selections aloud until you can enter into the spirit of each of them.

It was one January morning, very early - a pinching, frosty morning - the cove all gray with hoarfrost, the ripple lapping softly on the stones, the sun still low and only touching the hilltops and shining far to seaward. The captain had risen earlier than usual, and set out down the beach, his cutlass swinging under the broad skirts of the old blue coat, his brass telescope under his arm, his hat tilted back upon his head. I remember his breath hanging like smoke in his wake as he strode off, and the last sound I heard of him, as he turned the big rock, was a loud snort of indignation, as though his mind was still running upon Dr. Livesey.

- Stevenson, "Treasure Island," chap. ii.

There is one day when all things are tired, and the very smells, as they drift on the heavy air, are old and used. One cannot explain this, but it feels so. Then there is another day - to the eye nothing whatever has changed - when all the smells are new and delightful, and the whiskers of the Jungle People quiver to their roots and the winter hair comes away from their sides in long, draggled locks. Then, perhaps, a little rain falls, and all the trees and the bushes and the bamboos and the mosses and the juicy-leaved plants wake with a noise of growing that you can almost hear, and under this noise runs, day and night, a deep hum. That is the noise of the spring - a vibrating boom which is neither bees, nor falling water, nor the wind in the tree tops, but the purring of the warm, happy world. - Kipling, "The Spring Running," in "The Second Jungle Book."

552. Read to the class the last paragraph from Burroughs on page 43, and describe the feeling it gives.

553. Write a description of one of the following: (1) the silence of a heavy snowfall on a windless night; (2) the silence of a hot summer night; (3) the loudness of the ticking of a clock at midnight; (4) the drowsiness of a church on a hot forenoon; (5) the restlessness of a windy March morning.

554. Make a list of a few instances in which an appeal to the sense of smell might add to your description. Consider the following expressions and put any of them on your list: fresh lumber, fresh-cut hay, burning leaves, lilacs, mignonette, summer dust in the country, the earth in spring, a rank low-tide odor, pine trees, moist meadow, musty meadow, porgy factory, barn.

555. (1) Name ten sounds that you have heard within the last twenty-four hours. (2) Write fully about one of these.

556. Describe in a single word the atmosphere of (1) a room, (2) a home, (3) a school building, (4) a town or village, (5) a city.