Chapter XV: The Exposition of Ideas

"But words are things, and a small drop of ink,
Falling like dew upon a thought, produces
That which makes thousands, perhaps millions, think."
LORD BYRON.

I. Introduction

The exposition of ideas is difficult and important. It takes many forms, but only three can be noticed in this chapter: (1) Exposition through Narration; (2) Exposition through Condensation; (3) Exposition through Comparison. The three following models illustrate these three forms, respectively.

II. Model I

PUFFERS

The wise men of antiquity loved to convey instruction under the
covering of apologue; and, though this practice is generally
thought childish, we shall make no apology for adopting it on
the present occasion. A generation which has bought eleven
editions of a poem by Mr. Robert Montgomery may well condescend
to listen to a fable of Pilpay.

A pious Brahmin, it is written, made a vow that on a certain day
he would sacrifice a sheep, and on the appointed morning he went
forth to buy one. There lived in his neighborhood three rogues
who knew of his vow, and laid a scheme for profiting by it. The
first met him and said, "Oh Brahmin, wilt thou buy a sheep? I
have one fit for sacrifice." "It is for that very purpose," said
the holy man, "that I came forth this day." Then the impostor
opened a bag, and brought out of it an unclean beast, an ugly
dog, lame and blind. Thereon the Brahmin cried out, "Wretch, who
touchest things impure, and utterest things untrue, callest
thou that cur a sheep?" "Truly," answered the other, "it is a
sheep of the finest fleece and of the sweetest flesh. O Brahmin,
it will be an offering most acceptable to the gods." "Friend,"
said the Brahmin, "either thou or I must be blind."

Just then one of the accomplices came up. "Praised be the gods,"
said this second rogue, "that I have been saved the trouble of
going to the market for a sheep! This is such a sheep as I
wanted. For how much wilt thou sell it?" When the Brahmin heard
this his mind waved to and fro, like one swinging in the air at
a holy festival. "Sir," said he to the newcomer, "take heed what
thou dost; this is no sheep, but an unclean cur." "O Brahmin,"
said the newcomer, "thou art drunk or mad!"

At this time the third confederate drew near. "Let us ask this
man," said the Brahmin, "what the creature is, and I will stand
by what he shall say." To this the others agreed, and the
Brahmin called out, "O stranger, what dost thou call this
beast?" "Surely, O Brahmin," said the knave, "it is a fine
sheep." Then the Brahmin said, "Surely the gods have taken away
my senses"; and he asked pardon of him who carried the dog, and
bought it for a measure of rice and a pot of ghee, and offered
it up to the gods, who, being wroth at this unclean sacrifice,
smote him with a sore disease in all his joints.

Thus, or nearly thus, if we remember rightly, runs the story of
the Sanscrit Æsop. The moral, like the moral of every fable that
is worth the telling, lies on the surface. The writer evidently
means to caution us against the practices of puffers, a class of
people who have more than once talked the public into the most
absurd errors, but who surely never played a more curious or a
more difficult trick than when they passed Mr. Robert Montgomery
off upon the world as a great poet.--THOMAS BABINGTON MACAULAY,
_Essay on Mr. Robert Montgomery's Poems_.

III. Topics for Discussion

1. The Fable, which is here illustrated, is a simple story told to
point a moral or to make clear a complicated situation. Æsop and
George Ade are perhaps the most interesting authors of
fables--at least to twentieth-century Americans. An entertaining
program may be arranged by assigning each member of the class a
fable of one of these writers for oral reporting. The model
illustrates well the value of the fable form in newspaper
exposition.

2. Note the paragraph structure: (1) Introduction; (2) "Four W's,"
or Situation 1; (3) Climax, or Situation 2; (4) Dénouement,
Result, or Situation 3; (5) Moral, or Point.

3. Define and discuss the etymology of "antiquity," "apologue,"
"apology," "edition," "fable," "impostor," "accomplice,"
"confederate," "knave," "ghee," "caution," "puffers."

4. What proportion of Macaulay's words in Paragraphs 2, 3, and 4
are monosyllables and dissyllables? Does he here use more or
fewer big words in proportion than in Paragraphs 1 and 5? What
is the effect on his style?

5. What proportion of his sentences are simple? Compound? Complex?

6. Topics for reports or speeches: Mr. Robert Montgomery; Pilpay;
The Brahmins; Æsop; Sanscrit.

7. Explain the allusion in the phrase, "the Sanscrit Æsop."

8. Explain some episode in American history by means of a fable.

9. Write an editorial on some question of local and current
interest, using the fable method to illustrate the situation.

IV. Model II

A Voltairean view of war may be of interest at this time. Some
one has called attention to the illuminating discourse between
Micromegas, gigantic dweller on one of the planets revolving
about Sirius, and a company of our philosophers, as reported in
the seventh chapter of the amusing fantasy bearing the name of
the above-mentioned Sirian visitor. A free translation of a part
of this conversation is here offered. After congratulating his
terrestrial hearers on being so small and adding that, with so
manifest a subordination of matter to mind, they must pass
their lives in the pleasures of intellectual pursuits and mutual
love--a veritable spiritual existence--the stranger is thus
answered by one of the philosophers: "We have more matter than
we need for the accomplishment of much evil, if evil comes from
matter, and more mind than we need if evil comes from mind. Do
you know that at the present moment there are a hundred thousand
fools of our species, wearing caps, who are killing a hundred
thousand other animals wearing turbans, or who are themselves
being massacred by the latter, and that almost everywhere on
earth this is the immemorial usage?" The Sirian, properly
shocked, demands the reason of these horrible encounters between
creatures so puny. "It is all about a pile of dirt no bigger
than your heel," is the reply. "Not that any one of these
millions of men marching to slaughter has the slightest claim to
this pile of dirt; the only question is whether it shall belong
to a certain man known as Sultan or to another having the title
of Czar. Neither of the two has ever seen or ever will see the
patch of ground in dispute, and hardly a single one of these
animals engaged in killing one another has ever seen the animal
for whom they are thus employed." Again the stranger expresses
his horror, and declares he has half a mind to annihilate with a
kick or two the whole batch of ridiculous assassins. "Don't give
yourself the trouble," is the rejoinder; "they will accomplish
their own destruction fast enough. Know that ten years hence not
a hundredth part of these miserable wretches will be left alive;
and know, too, that even if they were not to draw the sword,
hunger, exhaustion, or intemperance would make an end of most of
them. Besides, they are not the ones to punish, but rather those
sedentary barbarians who, from the ease and security of their
private apartments, and while their dinner is digesting, order
the massacre of a million men, and then solemnly return thanks
to God for the achievement." The visitor from Sirius is moved
with pity for a race of beings presenting such astonishing
contrasts.--_The Dial_, January 1, 1915.[9]

[9] Reprinted by permission of _The Dial_.

V. Exercises

1. Topics for short speeches: Voltaire; Micromegas; planets;
Sirius.

2. What is the moral of this fable?

3. Discuss the meaning and etymology of "Micromegas,"
"philosophers," "fantasy," "translation," "terrestrial,"
"intellectual," "Czar," "annihilate," "ridiculous," "rejoinder,"
"sedentary."

4. Find in the model one simple, one compound, and one complex
sentence.

5. One loose and one periodic sentence.

6. Two antitheses.

7. Explain in one paragraph the point of some old book of current
interest.

VI. Model III

Theodor Mommsen's "Law of National Expansion," in view of the
present war, is interesting. In his _History of Rome_, which was
published in 1857, he says in substance that a young nation
which has both vigor and culture is sure to absorb older nations
whose vigor is waning and younger nations whose civilization is
undeveloped, just as an educated young man is sure to supplant
an old man in his dotage and to get the better of a muscular
ignoramus. That nations, as well as individuals, should do this
is, in Mommsen's opinion, not only inevitable but right.

In ancient times the Romans were the only people in whom were
combined a superior political organization and a superior
civilization. The result was that they subdued the Greek states
of the East, which were ripe for destruction, and dispossessed
the people of lower grades of culture in the West. The union of
Italy was accomplished through the overthrow of the Samnite and
Etruscan civilizations. The Roman Empire was built upon the
ruins of countless secondary nationalities which had long before
been marked out for destruction by the levelling hand of
civilization. When Latium became too narrow for the Romans, they
cured their political ills by conquering the rest of Italy. When
Italy became too narrow, Cæsar crossed the Alps.

So far Mommsen. The conclusions drawn from his "law" by some of
his successors are ingenious. They amount to this: As Rome grew
in power and culture, so Brandenburg, since the days of the
Great Elector, has been expanding in spirit and in territory.
That illustrious prince began by absorbing Prussia. Frederick
the Great added Silesia and a slice of Poland. Wilhelm I
obtained Schleswig, Holstein, Alsace, and Lorraine by war, and
Saxony and Bavaria by benevolent assimilation. The present
Kaiser has already acquired Belgium by the former and Austria by
the latter process. Like the Rome of Cæsar, the German Empire is
now at war on the one hand with decadent civilizations and on
the other with a horde of barbarians. What Greece and Carthage
were to Rome, France and England are to Germany, while Russia is
the modern counterpart of the Gauls, Britons, and Germans of the
_Commentaries_. Such at least is what certain writers think the
Germans think.

VII. Notes and Exercises

1. Note the framework: (Par. 1) Mommsen's Law; (Par. 2)
Illustration 1--Rome; (Par. 3) Illustration 2--Germany.

2. Topics for short speeches: Theodor Mommsen; The Rise of the
Roman Empire; The Greeks; The People of the West; The Samnites
and Etruscans; Brandenburg; The Great Elector; Prussia;
Frederick the Great; Silesia; Poland; Schleswig and Holstein;
Alsace and Lorraine; Saxony and Bavaria; Carthage; Julius Cæsar
and his _Commentaries_.

3. Add to the model paragraphs on the expansion of Spain, France,
Russia, England, and the United States, or on any one of them.

VIII. Suggested Reading

Cæsar's _Commentaries on the Gallic War_. Macaulay's _Frederick the Great_. Southey's _Life of Nelson_. Parkman's _The Conspiracy of Pontiac_. Parkman's _Montcalm and Wolfe_. Fiske's _The Mississippi Valley in the Civil War_.

IX. Memorize

HUMANITY

I would not enter on my list of friends,
Though graced with polished manners and fine sense,
Yet wanting sensibility, the man
Who needlessly sets foot upon a worm.
An inadvertent step may crush the snail
That crawls at evening in the public path;
But he that has humanity, forewarned,
Will tread aside and let the reptile live.
The creeping vermin, loathsome to the sight,
And charged perhaps with venom, that intrudes,
A visitor unwelcome, into scenes
Sacred to neatness and repose, the alcove,
The chamber, or refectory, may die;
A necessary act incurs no blame.
Not so when, held within their proper bounds,
And guiltless of offence, they range the air,
Or take their pastime in the spacious field.
There they are privileged; and he that hunts
Or harms them there is guilty of a wrong.
The sum is this: If man's convenience, health,
Or safety interfere, his rights and claims
Are paramount, and must extinguish theirs.
Else they are all--the meanest things that are--
As free to live and to enjoy that life,
As God was free to form them at the first,
Who, in his sovereign wisdom, made them all.
Ye, therefore, who love mercy, teach your sons
To love it too.
WILLIAM COWPER.