The following is from Oscar Wilde's story of _The Young King_. Oscar
Wilde was a master of English, and if you have the opportunity, read all
of this beautiful story and watch his use of adjectives. Mark the
adjectives in this excerpt and use them in sentences of your own.
And as the young King slept he dreamed a dream, and this was his
dream. He thought that he was standing in a long, low attic, amidst
the whirr and clatter of many looms. The meager daylight peered in
through the grated windows and showed him the gaunt figures of the
weavers, bending over their cases. Pale, sickly-looking children were
crouched on the huge crossbeams. As the shuttles dashed through the
warp they lifted up the heavy battens, and when the shuttles stopped
they let the battens fall and pressed the threads together. Their
faces were pinched with famine, and their thin hands shook and
trembled. Some haggard women were seated at a table, sewing. A
horrible odor filled the place. The air was foul and heavy, and the
walls dripped and streamed with damp.
The young King went over to one of the weavers and stood by him and
watched him.
And the weaver looked at him angrily and said, "Why art thou watching
me? Art thou a spy set on us by our master?"
"Who is thy master?" asked the young King.
"Our master!" cried the weaver, bitterly. "He is a man like myself.
Indeed, there is but this difference between us--that he wears fine
clothes while I go in rags, and that while I am weak from hunger he
suffers not a little from overfeeding."
"The land is free," said the young King, "and thou art no man's
slave."
"In war," answered the weaver, "the strong make slaves of the weak,
and in peace the rich make slaves of the poor. We must work to live,
and they give us such mean wages that we die. We toil for them all day
long, and they heap up gold in their coffers, and our children fade
away before their time, and the faces of those we love become hard and
evil. We tread out the grapes, another drinks the wine. We sow the
corn, and our own board is empty. We have chains, though no eye
beholds them; and are slaves, though men call us free."
"Is it so with all?" he asked.
"It is so with all," answered the weaver, "with the young as well as
with the old, with the women as well as with the men, with the little
children as well as with those who are stricken in years. The
merchants grind us down, and we must needs do their bidding. The
priest rides by and tells his beads, and no man has care of us.
Through our sunless lanes creeps Poverty with her hungry eyes, and Sin
with his sodden face follows close behind her. Misery wakes us in the
morning, and Shame sits with us at night. But what are these things to
thee? Thou art not one of us. Thy face is too happy." And he turned
away scowling, and threw the shuttle across the loom, and the
young King saw that it was threaded with a thread of gold.
And a great terror seized upon him, and he said to the weaver, "What
robe is this that thou art weaving?"
"It is the robe for the coronation of the young King," he answered;
"What is that to thee?"
And the young King gave a loud cry and woke and lo! he was in his own
chamber, and through the window he saw the great honey-colored moon
hanging in the dusky air.