Chapter XXII: Style 299 (4)

I give carefully the origin of this, since it seems like an absurd mock simile manufactured for the occasion. If the author had felt the force of the word “slake,” and how it involves the idea of thirst, she could not have coupled it with “weapon” or with “glittered in his eye.” A thirst which is slaked with a sword and glitters in the eye needs only to be realized to be cast aside.

Goethe, in speaking of Klopstock, once said:--

An ode occurs to me where he makes the German muse run a race
with the British; and indeed, when one thinks what a picture
it is, where the girls run one against the other, throwing
about their legs, and kicking up the dust, one must assume that
the good Klopstock did not really have before his eyes such
pictures as he wrote, else he could not possibly have made such
mistakes.--_Conversations of Goethe_, November 9, 1824.

Of these lines of Montgomery,--

The soul aspiring pants its source to mount,
As streams meander level to their fount,--

Macaulay observes:--

We take this to be, on the whole, the worst similitude in the
world. In the first place, no stream meanders or can possibly
meander level with the fount. In the next place, if streams did
meander level with their founts, no two notions can be less
like each other than that of meandering level and mounting
upward.--Cited in Bartlett’s _Familiar Quotations_.

It would be easy and it would be amusing to go on with examples of mixed figures and figures which are ineffective, but the point hardly needs further illustration.

Pushing a figure too far is a fault less common in these days than it has been at some periods of our literary history when fashions in writing were more ornate than at present. If a writer realizes what a simile means, he is not likely to fall into this error. It is when he introduces a figure for the sake of the figure, and not for the purpose of strengthening or making more clear what he is saying, that this fault occurs.

These lines of Cowper may serve as an example:

Man is a harp, whose chords elude the sight,
Each yielding harmony disposed aright;
The screws reversed (a task which, if He please,
God in a moment executes with ease),
Ten thousand thousand strings at once go loose,
Lost, till He tune them, all their power and use.

If this stopped with the second line, it might do well enough; but when the attention is forced to the consideration of the mechanical details of the harp, and the image of ten thousand thousand strings and a corresponding number of screws, and the notion applied to a man bereft of his wits, the idea becomes absurd, and whatever value the figure might have is entirely lost.

A clear realization of what he is doing will also prevent the writer from mingling figure and fact. “He was the guardian genius of Ireland, and had served with eloquence and credit in legislative halls,” could hardly have been written by one who felt clearly the meaning and significance of the figure. To realize how a guardian genius would look in legislative halls would have brought him at once to his senses. It is always necessary to have sharply defined in the brain whatever one is saying, but this is especially true of any use of language which invites the reader to loose his grasp upon absolute, literal fact.

The difference between simile and metaphor is one which need not be pressed very sharply. It is to be observed that as writing becomes more excited or impassioned there is less need of insisting upon formalities; so that as the writer warms his readers, he may assume a likeness instead of explicitly stating it. At the beginning of a passage it may be better to say, “Napoleon swept like a tempest over Europe,” whereas later, the reader having become interested in the theme, it is fitting to write, “Napoleon, the tempest which was sweeping over Europe.” There is probably no better rule than for the writer to do that which at the moment seems to him most natural, and then in revision to see if it strikes him as it did when he wrote it.

Personification may be conveniently regarded as classed with simile and metaphor. It is somewhat out of fashion, but if it is used it is to be governed by the rules given above. One who realizes what he is saying in the phrase, “Hope told a flattering tale,”--who sees that he is representing Hope as a beautiful and seductive being,--is not likely to go on to add, “but this hope was founded upon a delusion,” because he cannot conceive a young nymph or goddess as being founded upon anything. He will naturally and without effort carry out the figure, and say, “but she beguiled us;” or, “but all her flatteries were delusions.” The truth is, that the mind will generally go in the right direction if it is given a fair chance. It is only when we hamper it with rules not understood, when we force it to go in paths which we suppose to be laid out by conventions, or when we endeavor to make it pace according to our vanity, that it goes astray. Be natural in the use of figures, and you will seldom be wrong.

VIII

MEANS AND EFFECTS CONTINUED

Few means of literary effect are more subtle than Variety. It must pervade all parts of a composition, yet it is to be perceived only by its effects. Its absence is at once noted, and at once destroys the beauty and attractiveness of any work; yet to define Variety is as difficult as to tell how it is to be secured. Stevenson gives a rule as wise as it is hard to follow: “The one rule is to be infinitely various.”

The need of variety in the use of words is evident. The fault of repetition is sufficiently obvious, yet it is very easily committed. The fact that a sentence has been written in a given form often makes that seem the only correct way of expression. No one but a thoroughly trained writer can be as sensitive to errors in his own work as to mistakes in the writings of others; and so it happens that unless one is very careful the same word may appear two or three times in a passage where synonyms would be better than the repetition. That richness in synonyms which is one of the finest characteristics of English does away with any necessary difficulty in attaining variety in diction. In writing, and yet more in revising, the value and force of synonymous terms cannot be too constantly kept in mind. A knowledge of these, with that cardinal virtue of writers, the dictionary-habit, should carry any student triumphantly past all dangers of monotony in words.

One caution should perhaps be added: Do not be afraid to repeat a word as often as is really necessary. I quoted in an earlier chapter a sentence from Lowell which illustrates what I mean:

The soil out of which such men as he are made is good to be born
on, good to live on, good to die for and be buried in.

Or notice the repetition of “man” and of “department” in this from Macaulay:--

A man possessed of splendid talents, which he often abused, and of
sound judgment, the admonitions of which he often neglected; a man
who succeeded only in an inferior department of his art, but who
in that department succeeded preëminently.--_On John Dryden._

Here the judicious repetition of the subject holds the whole closely together, and saves the attention of the reader from fatigue. It serves, also, to mark the distinction between the first half, which is a specification of the causes of failure, and the second half, which states the effects that followed from them. The recurrence of “department” adds to the emphasis in a way which may easily be appreciated by replacing it by a pronoun. Repetitions so cleverly used as this are of course not defects but beauties.

The variation of form is an art more cunning than that of the changing of the word. Look at this sentence from Stevenson, and notice how much is gained by the alteration of the construction:--

How often and willingly do I not look in fancy on Tummel, or
Manor, or the talking Ardle, or Dee swirling in its Lynn; on the
bright burn of Kinnaird, or the golden burn that pours and sulks
in the den behind Kingussie!--_Pastoral._

To put “talking” before its noun and “swirling” after the substantive it modifies, to see to it that no two phrases shall have the same form, may seem small matters, and yet it is by devices of this sort that the skillful artificer of words gives to his style finish and charm.

The ability to command a variety of forms gives to the writer the power of repetition without seeming to repeat. Often it happens that it is well to re-say a thing, either for the sake of putting it in a light somewhat different from that of its first presentation, or to enforce it more strongly. This is especially true, it may be, of writing which is expository or argumentative, but the need of repetition of ideas is common to composition of all sorts. To vary the cadence of the sentence so that the ear shall never be wearied by monotony, cunningly to mix long and short paragraphs so that no single form constantly repeated shall tire the attention, is indeed a difficult art to acquire. No rule can be given for variety; the very idea of rule for variation involves a contradiction of terms, since it is the essence of variation to be irregular. The student must train his ear and his mind by reading the best authors; but the most that instruction can do is to call attention to this matter, and thus to afford a clue to what may be the real if unsuspected cause of a writer’s dissatisfaction when his work appears vaguely dull and unattractive. Variety is closely connected with Elegance. The adaptation of the sentence structure to the thought, and yet more the subtler adaptation to the mood, are refinements of composition which it takes long to acquire; but with every advance toward a mastery of them the learner has come nearer to the secret of that consummate skill in fitting means to effects which is the soul of the highest style. Each must do it for himself; for the secret of variety cannot be told farther than it is revealed in the words of Stevenson, with which we began: “The one rule is to be infinitely various.”

Upon variety depends largely that delightful and elusive quality which we call Euphony. No writer or reader can be long insensible to that music of words which is as intangibly tangible in prose as in poetry,--different in the one from the other, but as real and truly a source of delight in speech as in song, in prose as in verse. It is true that what is written is not necessarily read aloud. It is written in silence, and untrained writers fail to realize that although it be read in silence, the eye is the ear of the mind, and all melody or lack of melody will be subtilely felt in the soundless perusal. All that has been said of variety applies as well to this quality; and, indeed, it is perhaps hardly necessary to give two names where the two things are so closely interwoven.

Intangible as this quality may seem, it is yet one of the most striking in literature. Take this sentence from Walt Whitman, and see if it is possible for any reader not to be offended by its close:--

Nor shades of Virgil, nor myriad memories, poems, old
associations, magnetize and hold on to her.

Or suppose one said:--

If for the city of Athens nature did much, it is not to be denied
that art did a great deal more.

The ear is dull which does not perceive the difference between this and the sentence as Newman wrote it:--

If nature did much for Athens, it is undeniable that art did much
more.

Examples might be multiplied indefinitely, but it is better that the student find them for himself. Sensitiveness to euphony and the practical acquirement of a euphonious style are greatly aided by the habit of reading aloud the works of men who are masters, and it is well to test in the same way whatever is written. The ear is more readily trained by the voice than by any other means. It is possible to suppose that what we have written must sound well as a matter of course; but if we read or hear it read aloud, and find that it does not please the ear, only one stupid with self-conceit will leave it unaltered. A melodious diction is apt to be made up more largely of short words than of long ones, and of words easily pronounced than of those trying to the tongue; yet it is no more possible to achieve a euphonious style simply by using words short and easily pronounced than it is to make a beautiful brook by digging a channel which shall be entirely straight and free from obstructions, or to build a beautiful temple by collecting exquisite marbles. Construction is more than material.

One of the means by which it was formerly the fashion to strive after pleasing sound in diction was the use of alliteration. This device is somewhat in disrepute in these days, because it has been so notoriously abused. The sensational novelist could no more do without alliteration than without the historical present tense. The patent medicines are alliteratively labeled; comic operas and pseudo-Queen Anne cottages at little watering-places have been baptized with titles with reduplicated initials, until the writer who indulges in alliteration feels something as does the professor who sees his title blazoned on the shingle of the barber and the boot-black.

Yet this pleasant device cannot be spared. There is in our blood some trace of the fondness for it which made it serve the old bards instead of rhyme. It must be employed more cunningly than of old, and as it were slipped into the literary web surreptitiously. Here are instances:--

A man is a bundle of _r_elations, a knot of _r_oots, whose
_f_lower and _f_ruitage is the world.--Emerson: _History_.

In making edu_c_ation not only _c_ommon to all, but in some sense
_c_ompulsory on all.--Lowell: _New England Two Centuries Ago_.

All the beautiful _s_entiments in the _w_orld _w_eigh less than a
_s_ingle lovely action.--_Id._: _Rousseau and the Sentimentalists_.

Here there is little more than the repetition of the initial of a prominent word, marked by the same place in successive cadences. Often alliteration in modern prose of the best sort is carried much farther. Here are a couple of examples from Stevenson:--

I know a child of Suffolk whose fancy still _l_ingers about the
_l_i_l_ied _l_ow_l_and waters of that shire.--_Pastoral._

A task in _r_ecitation that _r_eally merited _r_eward.--_The
Manse._

Of course I am speaking only of prose. The diction of poetry is governed by different laws, and the reduplication of sound is a recognized and not infrequent ornament of verse used to a degree which would not be tolerated in prose. In the latter it is important that alliteration shall appear to be rather the consequence of the subject than an extraneous ornament. Once a writer introduces into prose a word which is evidently or even apparently chosen for its initial, he has given the reader a suspicion of artificiality which is fatal to the best effect.

Alliteration is, however, more readily allowed in epigram and antithesis than in plain, straightforward passages. The writer is permitted some especial graces of ornament when he attempts either of these, as a child may without remark wear its best raiment to a party when its companions would jeer at such display at school. “Forms are the food of faith,” writes Newman. “All mankind love a lover,” Emerson says. These epigrams are openly alliterative. No less so is the well-known antithesis of Macaulay, “The Puritans hated bear-baiting, not because it gave pain to the bear, but because it gave pleasure to the spectator.”

The epigram has the great advantage of recalling the proverb; and proverbs will ever be dear to the heart of man as the purses in which have been preserved the homely wisdom of the world. It is perhaps in part because of its family likeness to the proverb that it seems not unfitting for the epigram to balance word against word in a way which would seem artificial in any other form of expression.

The mention of epigram and antithesis reminds us that it is well to speak briefly of both.

Antithesis is the setting formally against each other of contrasting thoughts. I might make an example if I wrote: Epigram is a sword with one edge; but antithesis is a blade with two. I should at the same time be expressing to some extent the characteristics of these verbal forms. Antithesis defines by differences; epigram emphasizes a single idea. One confesses its artificiality by its balanced structure; the other endeavors to hide it under an appearance of lucky spontaneity. Antithesis is obviously deliberate; epigram must have an air of quickness, as if it were the birth of the moment. The former belonged to the elaborate style of a more ceremonious age; the latter has been cultivated in the prose of our own time until it has almost become a vice.

The above paragraph, which is largely antithetical, shows the limitation of this form. It is not possible long to continue this sort of writing without wearying the reader with a sense of artificiality. Such pleasure as the present age is willing to take in undisguised effort in prose is largely confined to the epigram.

An epigram is a notion rounded like a snowball for throwing. Looked at in another way, it is a thought packed for quick transportation. It is wit or wisdom given wings; or, if it be neither, it is at least an idea with its loins girt for running. Sometimes it is a base or worthless reflection set in terse phrase, like a fly in amber; or a cruel insinuation wounding like a wasp with envenomed sting. At its best it is a jewel of price; at its worst it is a drop of subtle poison.

Here, somewhat at the risk of confusing by a variety of images, I have tried to write a short paragraph which is practically all in the form of epigrams. It is in turn evident that although less obviously artificial than antithesis, epigrams are apt to lack spontaneity, no matter how much they strive for it. It is difficult to incorporate them into ordinary prose so that they shall seem really to be an integral part of it. An epigram is apt to be like a shell, so complete and individual in itself that it is hard to make it appear to be a part of any other whole. Skillfully handled, the epigram gives crispness and vigor to a style, but by so much the more as it is effective if successful it is damaging if it fails. It is to be remembered, too, that the habit of striving for any especial verbal form is a dangerously fascinating one. It is easy to fall into the way of making phrases for their own sake, instead of for the purpose of expressing what one has to say. An epigram is valuable and commendable only in so far as it serves the purpose for which it is contrived. The Greeks used the word originally to signify a verse inscribed on a tomb, and not a few modern epigrams are the epitaphs of thoughts killed in making them.

We are accustomed to-day to employ the word for any concise and terse expression of thought, and to call that style epigrammatic which is distinguished by conciseness and by brief and pregnant sentences. Broadly speaking, so long as the writer keeps in mind that the epigram is to aid expression, and that intention is never to be sacrificed to form, the more of these qualities his style has the better. He must remember, moreover, that the ear must be relieved by sentences of varied length. The successful epigram is almost always brief, and it must contain an element of novelty. One of its chief claims to attention is that it puts its thought in a form which excites surprise. It is like the German bonbon, which parts with a startling snap and discloses a gift within. The more it has the air of being the result of an instantaneous, happy inspiration, the more effective is it. An epigram must seem at least to be like the poet, born and not made.

This matter of novelty concerns more than epigram. Words and phrases become worn as surely as coins which have long passed from hand to hand. Epithets which have been constantly repeated lose the force of their original intent and fail to produce their first effect. The masters of style do not hesitate now and then to coin new words with which to serve themselves in the attempt to produce pungent effects which old terms no longer yield. Carlyle is an extreme example of this, and a list of the extraordinary novelties which he boldly made for his own use would fill pages. He exposed himself to the danger of losing the impression which he produced as soon as the words invented lost their first novelty, and no doubt something of the diminution of the influence of Carlyle which we have lived to see is due to this very cause. The ordinary writer is not allowed thus to serve his need by invention. He must be content to take words already in use, and must display his ingenuity by contriving so to employ them that from old terms he brings freshness of effect.

The novelty which is within the reach of all is that of originality. It seems at first startling to speak of originality as within common reach when we take up every day books wherein the writers show so absolute a lack of all originality that they shake one’s very belief in original sin. Yet remember what Flaubert said to De Maupassant: “The smallest thing has in it something unknown. Discover it.... That is the way to become original.” Life can never appear the same to any two human beings, because no two look at it with the same eyes or with the same mind. The original writer is he who sets down his own thoughts, who shows to others what is exactly in his own brain and heart. It is not within the power of every author thus to create profoundly fresh and inspiring works; but it is within the reach of all to say something which shall be at once new and individual and vital.

What is called individuality is the result of this frank and sincere speaking of the thought which comes to the writer and as it comes to the writer. It is needful to be on one’s guard lest sometimes instead of being guided by sincerity and natural honesty one fall into the trick of using particular forms of diction or construction. We are all exposed to the danger of imitating ourselves. Having once written a thing which by its honesty and frankness was impressive, there is a temptation to go on repeating the same thing or to try to do something which shall seem like it. In this way arise what are known as mannerisms. The difference between individuality and mannerism is that between sincerity and egotism; between personality and affectation. Individuality in style is an honest embodying of that which makes the writer different from any other man alive; mannerism is the sham--if unconscious--effort to appear different. Be truthfully exact in saying nothing but what is really felt, and individuality is as sure as mannerism is impossible.

Read what Lowell says of Chaucer:--

Chaucer seems to me to have been one of the most purely original
of poets.... He is original not in the sense that he thinks and
says what nobody ever thought or said before, and what nobody
can ever think and say again, but because he is always natural;
because, if not absolutely new, he is always delightfully fresh;
because he sets before us the world as it honestly appeared to
Geoffrey Chaucer, and not a world as it seemed proper to certain
people that it ought to appear.

There you have the whole of it. He who is least concerned about being original, and most engrossed in expressing precisely the thought and the feeling which have come to him, is in the end the writer who is most vitally and perennially fresh. Think new thoughts always if you can; but above all do not put a thought upon paper unless you so honestly and sincerely think it that it does not occur to you to consider whether anybody else has or has not said this thing before.

IX

CLASSIFICATION

Thus far we have spoken of the general principles of composition, and of qualities which are common to all attempts to express thought by written language. There are so many ways, however, in which composition may be employed, that for further consideration it is convenient to divide it into classes. We have come to the place where it is well to serve ourselves with some division of the sorts of writing, just as we before found it well to serve ourselves by the separation of general principles.

Classification is necessary in any study, not only for convenience in handling, but for clearness of conception. If ideas are arranged systematically, they not only are remembered more easily, but their mutual relations are discovered, and their relative values more accurately estimated. It is of importance, however, to recognize that in all investigations classification is not an end, but a means. He who classifies clears the way for future work, either of his own or of others, but he does not necessarily reach anything permanent or effective in itself. The student of botany may analyze and tabulate all the plants in the land; but if he has not reached out toward general truths and fundamental principles, it cannot be said that he has learned much. He has amused himself, perhaps has had a good deal of healthful out-of-door life, and a certain amount of mental gymnastics,--but that is the whole of it. Classification, and especially classification which is not original, is not the attainment of knowledge in any high sense.

I pause to comment upon this at more length than the connection warrants, strictly speaking, because the subject is one of so great general importance. Everywhere in his studies the learner finds classification set up as a ladder by means of which he may climb to knowledge. Most students fall to counting the rungs of the ladder, to measuring the spaces between them, to informing themselves carefully who made it. Unless in the waste of time there is no harm in this, if, after all, the ladder be really used, and if the learner be clear-headed enough to realize that all this is of no more than relative value. Classification is the means by which the mind is able to master a subject, but it is not the subject itself. To classify originally it is necessary to understand the relations of things, and the investigators by whom classes are defined must of course be thoroughly well informed in regard to the facts upon which arrangement is based. The ordinary student is constantly in danger of accepting the formal schedule instead of the truths which it represents; of filling his mind with nomenclature instead of principles; of being, in a word, satisfied with system in place of knowledge.

All essential and ultimate knowledge is natural, and all classification is artificial. Classification is founded upon natural facts, but it is an enumeration rather than an elucidation. It arranges; it does not explain.

Understand that I do not undervalue classification. The student can no more advance without it than he could climb to a roof without a ladder. I merely wish to impress upon you the fact that in all work--and perhaps especially in scientific work--it is of the highest importance to keep steadily in mind that it is not the ladder but the ascent which is of consequence; that the aim is not the schedule but the secrets of wisdom to which it helps us.

Thus it is that it is not for any value in the distinction itself, but solely as an expedient for our convenience in acquiring knowledge which is of worth, that we divide the sorts of composition. We classify, as in microscopy it is necessary to make sections for ease of examination. Do not fail to classify; but do not fail also to remember that nomenclature is not knowledge, that classification is not wisdom.

* * * * *

It is hardly necessary to remark how varied are the effects which writers may endeavor to produce. One is intent simply upon giving a clear and prosaic account of some matter; making a straightforward appeal to the understanding, and not troubling himself to go beyond this. A second is bent upon conveying to his readers some emotion, overpowering or delicate, painful or joyous, as the case may be. A third aims only to amuse; a fourth is determined to convince, to persuade, or to overcome; and so on through the long list of objects which are conceivable as coming within the scope of the writer’s range of intention.

Obviously, the treatment must be varied as the effect sought alters, and we divide compositions into classes by their most strongly marked characteristics. Different authorities have varied the number of divisions, and I have not felt bound to follow any of them. It seems to me well to assume that the kinds of composition are Exposition, Argument, Description, and Narration; and to take up their examination in this order.

From the classification commonly received this differs in a change of order and in the omission of Persuasion. Some writers, indeed, include here both Criticism and Translation; but Criticism is really a species of exposition, while Translation is whatever sort of composition its original may happen to be. That Persuasion should so long have been retained in the list is curious, although not so strange as might appear from the name. Persuasion, in the strict sense of the term, is of course not a kind of composition, but a quality of style. An argument, an exposition, a narrative, must alike be persuasive to succeed in winning the reader. Indeed, persuasion is a quality essential to all art. In the sense of being that which leads others to submit their personality to the artist, it is necessary to painter, musician, sculptor, and architect, no less than to writer. As used to designate a department of composition, Persuasion has been that which addresses, which appeals to the passions directly.[3] The term is not a happy one, since it would seem that the vocative--the mood of address--might include denunciation, or invective, or praise, as well as persuasion. The obvious explanation of the use of such a division of composition seems to be that it was made to provide a place of dignity for oratory. In the days of our forefathers the art of eloquence held a high station, such as it is not likely to occupy soon again; and it was evidently felt that there should be a separate department for it in formal rhetoric. Persuasion as a division of composition seems to have been provided for oratory, much as a sinecure is established for a court favorite; but since platform eloquence has fallen somewhat into obscurity, it has been realized that Exposition and Argument cover the whole ground. If such a division were to exist still, it would be better to call it Oratory and be done with it; but if there were to be a fifth kind of composition, there is more ground for trespassing on the domain of Narrative and naming it Dramatization.

As a reason for departing from the time-honored custom of putting Description and Narrative before Exposition and Argument, I might perhaps content myself with saying that it is being found by instructors in whose judgment I have the highest confidence that the new order is the better. This is in part due to the fact that inexperienced writers naturally suppose that they can describe and narrate without having had especial training, and it is less difficult to detach them from bad habits of composition, if they begin with a sort of writing in which they have not contracted faults already. To put pupils in advanced composition first upon Description and Narration is apt to be to expose them to the danger of repeating whatever bad literary habits they may have, since it is in these forms of production that they are most likely to have contracted them. Another point of importance is that Description and Narration are so much more attractive and easily emotional than Exposition and Argument. I have already said that technique can be readily mastered only in an unemotional way. The great performers upon musical instruments have almost always been those who were trained technically while they were still so young or so undeveloped that the emotional capabilities of their nature were not matured. There is great danger in allowing the emotions to be aroused while training which is merely technical is going on. Awaken in the pupil all interest in technical perfection which is possible; to excite his emotional interest in subject or sentiment is dangerous, and obstructs his progress in the cultivation of skill in form and technique. Technical facility is gained by work not in itself inspiring, but done with the most patient exactness for the sake of the power it gives.

Assuming, then, that it is convenient to consider composition as being divided into the four sorts named, and that there are sufficient reasons for taking them in the order given, we find it necessary next to define. Making broad definitions, and leaving finer distinctions to be considered later, we may say:--

Exposition is a statement, an explanation, or a setting forth.

Argument is the endeavor to establish the truth or falsity of an idea or a proposition.

Description is the endeavor to present a picture.

Narration is a record of events.

If a traveler, for instance, should write of the Acropolis at Athens, he might treat the subject in any one of several ways. If he discuss its architectural character, its beauty, and the æsthetic feelings of delight which this awakens, if he explain its use, or make statements of any sort about it, he is making an Exposition; if he endeavor to establish the truth or untruth of especial views of its use, of theories of its age, or of any matters subject to controversy, he passes into Argument; if he by words strives to call up in the mind of the reader a picture of that glorious ruin, he is describing it; while, if he tell the story of the temple, he is evidently dealing in Narrative.

It is hardly necessary to say that these varieties of composition melt into one another. In a work of any extent, it is generally probable that all of them will be employed. As an engraver, cutting his block of box-wood, uses first one tool and then another, according to the line demanded by the picture, striving to bring out the effect which the artist desires, so the skilled writer takes up one variety of composition after another, employs now this and now that. It is the old question of adapting the method to the end sought, the effort to the effect desired. In almost any book there will be found Exposition, Argument, Description, and Narrative, as in a single rose are sepals, petals, stamens, and pistils. We study these separately, but always the art of writing is one as the rose is one.

[Footnote 3: Professor Hill’s definition of Persuasion seems to me to make it an argument which appeals to selfish prejudices or emotions.]

X

EXPOSITION

Doubtless you all remember the amazement of the “Bourgeois Gentilhomme” of Molière when he suddenly discovered that he had been speaking prose all his life without suspecting it. We may be in the same situation when it first becomes clear to us that without being aware of it we have been making expositions from the time we began first to speak. The statements, the explanations, the opinions which we give by hundreds every day are simply expositions in little. What we have to do now is merely to discover if possible what are the principles which will make the same sort of thing effective when it is carried further than in common speech, and is put in written instead of in spoken words.

To expound is to set forth the nature, the significance, the characteristics, and the bearing of an idea or a group of ideas. Exposition therefore differs from Description in that it deals directly with the meaning or intent of its subject instead of with its appearance. A good deal which we are accustomed inexactly to call description is really exposition. Suppose that your small boy wishes to know how an engine works, and should say: “Please describe the steam-engine to me.” If you insist upon taking his words literally--and are willing to run the risk of his indignation at being willfully misunderstood,--you will to the best of your ability picture to him this familiarly wonderful machine. If you explain it to him, you are not describing but expounding it; you are not making a Description but an Exposition, in so far as these words are applied in our present sense. The exact boundary lines of Exposition--or, for that matter, of any sort of composition--it is impossible to draw sharply. Not everything which claims to explain really makes clear, any more than all which wears the air of virtue shall escape scorching in “the everlasting bonfire.” One thing merges into another, and in the end all composition, as has been said and repeated already, is an indivisible whole.

The inexactness with which all terms of classification are used and must be used in literature is illustrated by the extension of the word “essay,” under which are grouped so many sorts of expositions. It has become the custom to apply this name to almost any brief monograph of leisurely or reflective character. The critical papers of Hazlitt, the historical orgies of Macaulay, the humorous confidences of Charles Lamb, and the argumentative tracts of Newman on theology or of Ruskin upon social questions, are all loosely classed together as essays. In contemporary writings, the suggestive mediæval studies of Vernon Lee, papers by Walter Pater from which the life has been exquisitely elaborated, the intimate revelations of nature by Richard Jefferies or John Burroughs, the delightful word-sonatas of Stevenson, and the criticisms of Leslie Stephen, fine and scholarly, are all given the same convenient name. The term “essay” is not unlike that useful contrivance known to travelers as a “hold-all,” into which may be huddled whatever there is not room for in more dignified receptacles. Fortunately the harm done is too small to matter. If a thing is good it is of no great consequence what we call it.

In an age like this, when the magazine flourishes and newspapers are thick strewn like sodden leaves in a November storm, the exposition is naturally one of the most common and one of the most practically useful of all forms of composition. The modern endeavor to make all men understand everything of course renders necessary an enormous amount of expository writing; so that the press turns out daily and hourly an innumerable number of small essays upon all imaginable topics. We live in an expository era. The scientific spirit demands that all knowledge shall be set forth, often to the discouragement of more imaginative forms of composition. This sort of work is certainly the one for which there is to-day the most constant and urgent call. The utilitarian would get along pretty much to his own satisfaction if no other form of writing than Exposition had been invented; and this is a utilitarian age.

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Of all the qualities which we have hitherto considered, the one most likely to tell in Exposition is Clearness. In practical work the essential thing here is to make accurately intelligible the meaning which the writer would convey. In all more delicate matters this is impossible without recourse to the higher arts of literary technique; but in general all grace of style, all persuasiveness of presentation, all elegance of proportion and of manner, are subordinated to this primary necessity of lucidity. If one is striving to produce permanent literature these must not be neglected; but as far as common, practical, workaday prose is concerned, everything else is considered as of less importance than the conveying to the reader with sharpness the exact significance of what the writer is endeavoring to phrase.

Two things may be briefly remarked in passing: First, that this characteristic need of clear-cut accuracy makes especially appropriate the taking up of Exposition at the start; and second, that this sort of composition is of great help in intellectual growth. It is not that the other forms of expression do not call for accuracy. There is as much need for exactness in the imparting of fine shades of emotion suggested by a description or by a narrative as in the statement of an opinion. It is more easy, however, for the student to grasp the more tangible matter than the more subtile. He more readily appreciates the process of direct expression than that of delicate implication. It is true that Exposition in its higher forms deals with thought and emotion; but even there it handles them rather in a direct than in an indirect manner, rather by statement than by suggestion.

It is not difficult to see how the practice of this sort of composition is an aid to intellectual progress. Indeed, education is after all largely the phrasing for ourselves a statement of the truths of life and of the world about us. This sort of writing forces the learner to think sharply and clearly, to realize his thoughts. Exposition leads the student really to think instead of contenting himself with that mental muddlement in which the mind goes around and around, playfully like a kitten chasing its tail or earnestly after the fashion of a squirrel in his wheel, but getting ahead in neither case.

The two qualities which are, after clearness, most valuable in this species of writing are unity of the whole work and progression. The nature of Unity has already been sufficiently commented upon, but it is worth while to speak of a mechanical device by which much can be done to secure it. This is the making of a plan of an exposition before writing it. I have seldom found a student who willingly wrote out a skeleton of an exercise, and authors are hardly less reluctant to bother to put upon paper the plan of an essay. I am aware from my own experience how many excuses for not doing this necessary piece of drudgery may be invented by the evasive mind. It is of course a bore, when the head is full of a theme, to be obliged to stop and in a cold-blooded manner construct the framework of the essay which we are eager to dash off at full speed. Yet in the end it is a saving of time. It is better to do this in the first place than to have to pull the work to pieces afterward. When the mind is alert and excited, make notes, phrase the vital portions of the essay, set down the significant thoughts which come to you; but before attempting to write the completed whole have all these notes, these images, these phrases, arranged with reference to a plan, a schedule of the entire composition. This may be slight, but it should be essentially complete in the sense that it covers the whole ground. I believe it to be practically impossible for any writer to secure unity in a work of any extent without making a preliminary plan of some kind; and only men of rare gifts and much experience can safely carry this in the head. It is certainly true that the inexperienced writer should not trust himself to attempt any composition more than a page or two in length without actually writing out a skeleton beforehand.

As a matter of practical work, a young writer who is attempting an exposition should begin by thinking out his subject and putting his thoughts on paper. He should strive to phrase them well when he makes his first memoranda, for thoughts are like metal, much more malleable when they are hot. Often an ugly phrase which could without much trouble have been improved when it was making becomes stubbornly intractable after it has been for a time on paper. It is convenient to have these notes on slips of paper, since it is thus easy to arrange and to rearrange them. It is also of importance to consider how a subject will appear to a reader whose views are opposed to those of the writer. Think up all possible objections that might be made to the ideas expressed. Turn the subject over, and examine the wrong side; this is the best way to judge of the strength and the smoothness of the seams by which the parts are joined to make a whole.

The next step is to arrange the thoughts noted down. Make a plan of the essay with reference to its logical continuity. Look at the framework as a single thing. Remember that it is upon the completeness and sufficiency of this that the finished work must depend for its unity and its effect as a whole. To this scheme fit your notes. Do not trouble as yet about ornament or finish unless pregnant illustration or happy phrase suggest itself unsought. You cannot afford to go seeking these graces until the more substantial portions of your work are practically complete. Write slowly or swiftly according to your temperament,--but whatever your temperament do not suppose that good work is to be done otherwise than systematically and thoroughly.

Once the form is complete, the more you finish and polish the better. It is true that it is possible to polish the life out of a composition; but this is a danger much farther along the road than I should presume to act as a guide. I do not suppose that any author liable to spoil his work from over-finish is likely to trouble himself about what I may say on the subject; and certainly this fault lies so far ahead of most of us that we need not from fear of it stay our hand.

When the essay is planned and written and polished, and if possible laid aside and taken out and polished over again,--why, then, I am tempted to say, the wisest rule is that given by Edward Lear for the making of “Crumbobblious Cutlets:” “Procure some strips of beef, and having cut them into the smallest possible slices, proceed to cut them still smaller,--eight or perhaps nine times.” When you have made the work as good as you can make it, proceed to make it better still,--eight or perhaps nine times!

It is not impossible that it may occur to you that this sounds a good deal like hard work. I said to you in the beginning that to succeed in writing is a laborious task. It is a task infinitely interesting, and it is this which makes it endurable. The fine arts are possible only because men do not spare labor even if what is done must be wrought in the sweat of the brow and with the blood of the heart; art lives because the artist works from love, and does not count the cost. Unless the worker is willing thus to labor at literature, he will do well to leave it alone. If his heart is not in it he will in the end but waste good paper and ink which might have served better workmen for better uses.

Keeping still to practical details, we may note that it is well to accustom the mind to measure compositions by the number of words. This is the professional method, and it is the only way of coming at a fairly accurate idea of the size of a work and the proportionate length of its parts. It is not difficult to get into the mind a standard in the number of words one usually writes on a page. Once this is done, the rest is easy. The page becomes a personal measure of extent, and by it one without difficulty estimates the bulk of the whole or any part of a manuscript. Whoever has dealings with periodicals or with publishers is sure to come to this question of the number of words sooner or later, and it is well to learn it early.

One of the cleverest of American playwrights told me that he had made a careful study of the dramas of the modern French authors to see how many words they use to produce an effect. So many words he found to be the average for a love scene, so many in this situation and so many in that. It was not that he endeavored to follow exactly these rules; but he was thus getting at the secrets of construction. This was a practical method of judging proportions. The incident is worth mention not only as an illustration of the way in which words are used as a measure in literature, but also as showing how tirelessly and with what minute care the professional worker is willing to labor.

One of the first practical uses to which the student is called to apply this measure of the number of words is that of estimating proportion. The space given to any division of a subject, the number of words in which it is embodied, largely determines its relation to the whole. It is somewhat difficult to illustrate this point, but by way of indicating the sort of analysis which it is well for the student now and then to make of essays which he finds especially effective, I must give an example. I have taken Macaulay’s essay of Machiavelli, and made a summary of it with a view of showing the proportionate length at which this clever author writes of the different points upon which he touches. In this paper he is setting forth his view of the character of that dazzlingly clever Italian whose family name has furnished the language with an epithet for whatever is most trickily cunning, while by an absurd paradox his Christian name is held to have given us an affectionate pseudonym for the devil,--“Old Nick.” The whole monograph is something in the nature of a special plea, and without great violation of propriety might be smuggled under Argument. It is an attempt to show that the characteristics in the writings of Machiavelli which have made his name a hissing and a byword belong rather to the time than to the man.

After a brief introduction follows a statement of the disrepute in which Machiavelli has been held. This is intentionally made strong to the verge of absurdity, and to it is added a brief acknowledgment that “The Prince,” Machiavelli’s famous and infamous book, is indeed shocking. This requires about three hundred and fifty words.

Assuming the attitude which he wishes the reader to take, that of a puzzled seeker for truth, Macaulay states several theories which might account for the moral obliquity of the Italian, yet points out that his personal career was elevated, patriotic, and just; and that there is in “The Prince” much good as well as much evil. He also calls attention to the fact that at the time the book was written it apparently shocked nobody. To this are given about eight hundred words.

This leads directly to the conclusion which is the key-note of the whole essay:--

It is, therefore, in the state of moral feeling among the Italians
of those times that we must seek for the real explanation of what
seems most mysterious in the life of this remarkable man.

This proposition being the one which it is the aim of the essay to establish, nearly seventy-five hundred words, almost half of the whole, are given to tracing the growth of the peculiar conditions of moral sentiment which obtained in Italy in the time when Machiavelli wrote. The subject is led on toward the next point in this way:--

Every age and every nation has certain characteristic vices....
Posterity, ... finding the delinquents too numerous to be all
punished, ... selects some of them at hazard to bear the whole
penalty.... In the present case the lot has fallen on Machiavelli;
a man whose public conduct was upright and honorable.