Mrs. Macomber stayed in the camp. It was too hot to go out, she said, and she was going with them in the early morning. As they drove off Wilson saw her standing under the big tree, looking pretty rather than beautiful in her faintly rosy khaki, her dark hair drawn back off her forehead and gathered in a knot low on her neck, her face as fresh, he thought, as though she were in England. She waved to them as the car went off through the swale of high grass and curved around through the trees into the small hills of orchard bush.

From “The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber” by Ernest Hemingway

Ernest Hemingway uses brief descriptions and stays away from elaborate narrative. A few clues are enough for the reader to visualize the scene.  In this snippet, he describes Mrs. Macomber in a single sentence: “As they drove off Wilson saw her standing under the big tree, looking pretty rather than beautiful … her face as fresh, he thought, as though she were in England.”  When I write, I often think of his novel “For Whom the Bell Tolls” and his gripping account of the killing of officials and civilians by the leftist guerrilla that seize a small town. Hemingway can paint the emotions that loom over a story.

By the way, Hemingway was obsessed  with a short happy life. He repeated the subject over and over.  It makes me think that perhaps this idea contributed to his suicide.  One can fantasize something for so long that it becomes a reality. He certainly made his life too short.