The Portland daily press., 1881-02-07
THE PRESS.
Poor Comp osition.
[Rockland Courier.1

These irst-page stories which travel the
rounds of the country papers are something
fearful to contemplate. The latest production
Of this sort starts out as follows
1t was Saturday night. Gamblers of every grade
had assembled at the ivy Green" and their evil
games were reaping rich harvest from the many
hard earnings of weeks work. Between the
heavy caps of thunder could be heard wild snatches
of music played by an expert violinist, and accom-
panied by some coarse song that gave way now and
then TO the shouts, etc.
What we don't like about such thrilling bits
of descriptive writing is the uncompleteness of
the thing. The author leaves too much for
the readers imagination. For instance, he
says sit was Saturday night" What Satur-
day night, the reader instinctively enquiries?
What kind of Saturday night was it? Was
it the Saturday night just previous to the
Fonrth? or was it the Saturday night follow
ing New Years? Was it pleasant Saturday
night, or a stormy Saturday night? What the
author should have written was: sit was Sat
urday night--that beautiful ending of the
week, when all the world puts off its load of
care and toll and sinks to rest 1t was fierce,
wild night, and darkness brooded over the
land like curse" Here the reader gets it all
erence to the sentimental, and instincsi vely he
associates the idea of its being paying-off time
with the thought that there will be beans for
supper, and his whole intellect is lifted up and
improved. Then the descriptive part has
tendency to fix the event firmly in his mind,
while the employment of the style of language
used, prepares him for something startling in
the succeeding chapters.
Then-"Gamblers of every grade were as
sembled at the Ivy Green, and their evil games
were reaping rich harvest from the many
hard earnings of weeks work" This is very
faulty-very faulty indeed it is SO incom plete.
Why not say right out what the grades of the
gamblers were? Why this limiting around as
If seeking to conceal something?-unless, as
we more than half suspect, the author is in
league with the parties referred to. Why not
say right out, "Gamblers of every grade, in
Guiding common. fair to prime, good, mixed,
superfine, assorted lots, etc., we're reaping,
reader at once grasps the idea that it was
pretty tough locality, and the young are
taught to forever beware the gambler when he
is red in the nose. And their evil games
there it is again. What games? Why not
specify what the games are? Why not put it
right down in print what the gamblers were
playing, like this: "their evil games of draw
poker, euchre, seven-up, button and copenha.
gam" In this way the writer is enabled to ac-
complish much good for society, as the asso-
citation of these games with a disreputable set
as the gamblers, is sure to teach the youthful
mind to forever shun such depraving influ-
ences
Between the heavy claps of thunder, could
be heard wild snatches of music played by an
expert violinist," is the way the next sentence
reads, and just at this point we must read bit
and smile. Having smiled briefly let us pro-
ceed. What the writer should have said is:
Ever and anon the darkened heavens were
lllumined by fierce and jagged sheets of
lightning, which dashed athwart the
black empyrean, followed by most unearthly
peals OF the artillery OF heaven,I (which crashed
and doomed with awful violence, filling the
bosom Of the listener with the widest emotions
OF fear" There-that's what we call compo-
sition with genuine merit in it, and the peruser
gets the idea at once that it was a bad night,
and none OF your ordinary summer evening
scenery. And then right in between these
terrific bursts of thunder comes the beautiful,
the soul-entrancing strains of the fiddle. How
sweet-how natural. Dickens himself couldn't
have done anything neater. But he would
have made it more complete, like this: Gas
the awful flashes lit up the wild scene of rev.
rending asunder the very foundations of earth
itself, the listening ear might have distin-
guished the sweet and mellifuous strains of a
fiddle, as they now and then forced their way
In from an adjoining apartment" Here you
get the whole thing in nutshell First is the
lightning, then the thunder, and then the i'd
die: 1t is something indescribably grand, and
If the writer of this piece understood the use
OF language the way the Courier does he
would have made ten-strike with the fiddle
and the other refreshments. The idea of wild
snatches of music played in tavern on
fiddle is something every novelist doesn't
think Of and it deserves. to be clothed in fitting
language.