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 BOUGHT WITH THE INCOME OF THE 
 
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 THE GIFT OF 
 
 HENRY W. SAGE 
 
 1891 
 
Cornell University Library 
 
 arV13470 
 
 The method and practice of exposition 
 
 3 1924 031 228 277 
 
 olin,anx 
 
The original of tliis book is in 
 tine Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924031228277 
 
THE METHOD AND PRACTICE 
 OF EXPOSITION 
 
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 
 
 NBW YORK • BOSTON • CHICAGO • DALLAS 
 ATLANTA • SAN FRANCISCO 
 
 MACMILLAN & CO., Limited 
 
 LONDON • BOMBAY • CALCUTTA 
 MELBOURNE 
 
 THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, Ltd, 
 
 TORONTO 
 
THE METHOD AND PRACTICE 
 OF EXPOSITION 
 
 A TEXT-BOOK FOR ADVANCED STUDENTS 
 IN COLLEGES AND UNIVERSITIES 
 
 BY 
 
 THOMAS E. RANKIN 
 
 Professor of Rhetoric in the University 
 of Michigan 
 
 THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 
 1917 
 
Copyright, 1917, 
 By the MACMILLAN COMPANY 
 
 Set up and electrotyped. Published May, 19x7. 
 Reprinted August, 1917. 
 
PEEFAOE 
 
 Exposition is the one form of writing that men and 
 women who write at all in their every-day life, business, 
 profession, or scientific pursuit, are constantly employ- 
 ing. This book attempts to furnish the psychological 
 theory of exposition, its methods, and ways in which it 
 has found best expression, to those who are thoughtful 
 about their discourse, in science, history, literature, and 
 even business, though the emphasis is, very naturally, 
 placed more upon literary study and authorship than 
 upon any other sort. It has been written chiefly for 
 students who have had at least the study and practice 
 usually pursued during the first year of college. The 
 book, therefore, is not intended to take the place of but 
 to follow upon the study of such invaluable texts and 
 hand-books as Genung's Working Principles of Rhetoric, 
 Caims's Forms of Discourse, Scott and Denney's Paror 
 graph-Writing, Bates's Talks on Writing English, 
 Wendell's English Composition, Gardiner's The Forms 
 of Prose Literature, and Fulton's Expository Writing. 
 However, while the book is designed primarily for ad- 
 vanced college and university students, it is possible that 
 the intelligent and vigorous writer, teacher, critic, or an- 
 alytical reader who may not be in college classes, may 
 find its suggestions stimulating and directive. The au- 
 thor takes pleasure in acknowledging the generosity 
 which prompted Professor J. E. Brumm and Dr. H. S. 
 
PEEFACE 
 
 Mallory to take from their busy hours time to read the 
 " early manuscript " from which this book has grown. 
 His indebtedness, also, to the teaching of Professor F. 
 IN". Scott, in days of yore, is acknowledged with grati- 
 tude, — likewise the stimulus derived from many other 
 colleagues. 
 
 University of Michigan. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 OHAPTEB PAGE 
 
 I The Fdnciion of Exposition .... 1 
 
 II Dbfinitiost 31 
 
 III The Mind and the Subject 57 
 
 IV The Methods of Analysis 73 
 
 V Style in Exposition 113 
 
 VI Reporting and Interpreting .... 155 
 
 VII Criticism 182 
 
 VIII Additional Assignments; and Selections 
 
 FOR Analysis 205 
 
THE METHOD AND PRACTICE 
 OF EXPOSITION 
 
 CHAPTEE I 
 
 The Function of Exposition 
 
 I 
 
 THE PEELIMINAEIES 
 
 Two things are preliminary to undertaking the task 
 of writing: first, the writer must have the meaning of 
 his work thoroughly clear in his mind, and second, he 
 must have the ability to set forth that work in the words 
 and in the order best adapted to give to the reader the 
 impressions which he desires to give. 
 
 To have the meaning of one's work thoroughly defined 
 to one's self, or to understand what one is about to do, 
 is largely a matter of native endowment. Training 
 will never provide one with the faculty of insight ; that 
 faculty is inborn. Yet many people are bom with the 
 faculty of insight who are unwilling to permit them- 
 selves to employ it. This is particularly true in the 
 practical affairs of life; and writing is one of the most 
 practical of all affairs. The ideal with which every 
 writer should approach the subject-matter of his thought 
 
 is the ideal of the philosopher Spinoza, when he said, 
 
 1 
 
2 THE METHOD AND PRACTICE OF EXPOSITION 
 
 " When I have applied my mind to politics, so that I 
 might examine what belongs to politics with the same 
 precision of mind as we use for mathematics, I have 
 taken my best pains not to laugh at the actions of man- 
 kind, nor to groan over them, nor to be angry with them, 
 but to understand them." That is the first requisite to 
 exposition, to understand what one is thinking of; 
 without it a writer will never fulfil the function of an 
 expositor, for that function is to make others under- 
 stand. 
 
 A man who is gifted with the power of understand- 
 ing, however, may never make a good writer. Much 
 less will " temperament " alone make a good writer. A 
 good writer is a man gifted with executive ability ; and 
 executive ability in writing shows itself in craftsman- 
 ship. This craftsmanship works itself out through the 
 use of the best words in the best order, the best sen- 
 tences in the best order, and the most finely constructed 
 and arranged paragraphs. It is the result largely of 
 two things: good reading and careful practice. Yet 
 the reading which is intended merely to understand 
 what is read, or to enjoy, will go only a very little way 
 toward helping one to write well. One who reads with 
 the purpose of increasing his power as a writer reads 
 well only when he is diligently observing how thought 
 is developed and illustrated through the handling of 
 the details of diction and arrangement. And a writer 
 is practising carefully only when he begins his work 
 with an idea or a group of ideas worthy of development 
 and illustration, then carefully plans the scope, order, 
 and details of the development and illustration, and, 
 
THE FUNCTION OF EXPOSITION 6 
 
 finally, with mucli taking of pains, carries into effect his 
 plans of material and of procedure. " I must write 
 with pains, that he may read with ease." 
 
 It is idle to discuss at great length which of the two, 
 reading or practice, is the greater aid to success in 
 writing. Each is indispensable. Reading even merely 
 for general information, reading for amusement, for 
 moral inspiration and guidance, are all of direct value 
 to him who is seeking to write well. And yet one may 
 read for these purposes for many years and still be 
 greatly troubled when he attempts to inform, delight, 
 or morally energise others, unless he has, in a discrim- 
 inating manner, observed the ways in which these in- 
 fluences have been conveyed to him through what he has 
 been reading. But to observe the thinking and plan- 
 ning and representation of planned thinking through 
 words in an orderly structure, will never go far toward 
 making a writer unless there is practice upon his part. 
 No one at first trial at writing ever produced a highly 
 effective piece of work. Fine productions are not the 
 result of what is called " spontaneity." Science to-day 
 teaches that there is no such thing as spontaneity in liv- 
 ing beings. So-called spontaneity is but habit, or " sec- 
 ond-nature." Action and re-action are equal; there is 
 a demand for writing, — therefore, there is a need in 
 the mind of man to meet that demand. Need produces 
 habit, and habits create, — or train, rather, — an organ to 
 meet the need. But the need created by the demand is 
 not met, excepting under the most extraordinary condi- 
 tions, until after long and careful training, until after 
 diligent and painstaking practice. 
 
4: THE METHOD AND PEACTICE OF EXPOSITION 
 
 By dint of good reading and careful practice one 
 learns to understand what he is about. An intelligent 
 account of how good writing has been done and how it 
 should be done constitutes the theory of writing. From 
 the reading of well-written books, and from assiduous 
 practice in writing, one will, in even an unnoticed way 
 it may be, absorb much that will help to establish the 
 habit of writing well. Also an intelligent conception 
 and an intelligible account of the methods of finding 
 material and the methods of adapting form of expres- 
 sion to that material and to the circumstances of the 
 mind of readers, — in other words, a theory based upon 
 reading and practice, — is of considerable value in 
 guiding the writer into good ways and checking him 
 from bad ways of doing his work of composition. Such 
 an understanding of one's work is of even more help 
 during the revision of what one has already written than 
 during the process of composition. It is easy, however, 
 to over-estimate the practical value of knowledge of the 
 theory of written discourse. John Locke said, " Pray 
 remember that pupils are not to be taught by rules which 
 will always be a-slipping out of their memories. What 
 you think necessary for them to do, settle in them by an 
 indispensable practice as often as the occasion returns ; 
 and, if it be possible, make occasions. This will beget 
 habits in them which, being once established, operate of 
 themselves easily and naturally without the assistance 
 of memory." Still, some knowledge of theory is requi- 
 site to one who desires to become an accomplished 
 writer. In fact there can be little intelligent reading 
 without such knowledge in at least an incipient stage 
 
THE FUNCTION OF EXPOSITION 5 
 
 of mastery, and surely less of intelligent practice with- 
 out such knowledge. 
 
 The actual task of writing is to mould our thought 
 and feeling into shapeliness through the medium of lan- 
 guage. It is based upon mastery of method; and 
 method is mastered by careful study of what others have 
 succeeded in doing and by intelligent and frequent prac- 
 tice. 
 
 II 
 
 THE GOAL 
 
 The goal to be sought in expository writing is the 
 same goal that is sought in all scientific work, — truth. 
 Truth is the adequacy of a description of facts, or a 
 formula accurately describing the general features of a 
 set of facts. Truth is a consistently formulated idea. 
 Once consistently formulated, it holds good forever. 
 The goal in exposition, then, is the adequate formula- 
 tion of an idea, or of a group of ideas. The theory of 
 exposition is the explanation of the steps by means of 
 which this goal of adequate formulation of ideas is 
 reached. 
 
 Perhaps as good a definition of exposition as has 
 been framed is this : Exposition is the form of discourse 
 whose purpose is to make clear to the intellect an idea 
 or a related group of ideas. This is, at least, the scien- 
 tific aspect of exposition. And yet exposition is not a 
 science only; its purpose is not alone to be clear. Ex- 
 position is also an art. It is even a branch of ethics. 
 It is an art in so far as, in its formulation of truth, it 
 
b THE METHOD AND PEACTICE OF EXPOSITION 
 
 succeeds in giving pleasure. It is ethical in so far as, 
 along with conveying understanding and pleasure to the 
 mind, it aids in " the general advance of the human 
 spirit." It is an art in the sense in v^hich the Italians 
 use the term " art " when they associate it with de- 
 light. It is both artistic and ethical in the sense in 
 which the Greeks used the term " art " when they as- 
 sociated it with virtue. We demand of exposition that 
 which we demand of every science, that it shall be clear. 
 Exposition proves itself to be an art when it meets the 
 demand we make of every art, that it shall be interest- 
 ing. If it turns out to be permanently interesting, it 
 will also prove itself useful, and thus will become an 
 important phase of ethics. 
 
 An exposition will be scientific in a most commendable 
 way if, in addition to being clear, it is convincing, that 
 is, if it satisfies the mind of the reader, if it leaves no 
 doubt within his mind. It will be good art if, in addition 
 to being interesting, it is controlled or well-disciplined 
 in form. It is ethical in so far as its material has 
 a social effect, — in so far as its content is something 
 worth while which is being shared through the fact 
 of having been presented in writing. Clearness and 
 convincingness are its scientific qualities, interest and 
 disciplined form its artistic qualities, permanent social 
 value its ethical quality. 
 
 To be clear and to be interesting are the two prime 
 requisites of exposition. But the writing will never be 
 convincing nor will it ever be widely read unless it is 
 written by a trained and vigorously disciplined mind. 
 And nothing will so well train the mind as writing. 
 
THE FUNCTION OF EXPOSITION 7 
 
 III 
 
 STEPS TOWARD SUCCESS 
 
 How shall one go atout it to be so clear and perma- 
 nently interesting as to be convincing and to be widely 
 read? What shall he do to become a trained and 
 vigorous writer? Any effort in this direction, in the 
 outcome of which success may be hoped for, must be 
 preceded or accompanied by two things: first, con- 
 crete experience; and, second, method. 
 
 To be concrete in writing is to make " the pulse of 
 thought beat with the pulse of things." Concrete ex- 
 perience does not consist of observation alone. One can- 
 not be a mere looker-on in Vienna and acquire concrete 
 experience. Active connection with what is being 
 looked upon is necessary to the acquisition of concrete 
 experience. Concrete experience is both what befalls 
 a man and that which he actively engages in. It is 
 observation plus experiment. It is both seeing and 
 noting, and, in addition to seeing and noting, it is ac- 
 quiring knowledge by trial or proof. Concrete experi- 
 ence is built up by an accurate observation of facts and 
 of the conditions under which they occur, and by prac- 
 tising with those facts. Its acquisition is both a passive 
 and an active process. The gaining of it is the first 
 step toward success in writing. Concrete experience 
 of life and that alone will assure making what one 
 writes conform with facts. It alone will make sure that 
 the things written of will seem real, that the events 
 recorded will seem actual. 
 
8 THE METHOD AND PEACTICE OF EXPOSITION 
 
 The second step toward success in writing is mas- 
 tery of method. Method in exposition is of two general 
 types: (1) direct, and (2) indirect. 
 
 The direct method of exposition proceeds by means 
 of definition and logical analysis. In the employment 
 of this method, the writer keeps the attention of himself 
 and of his reader fixed directly and unvaryingly upon 
 that which is being explained. In his explanation, he 
 lays out, as it were upon a plane surface, the whole and 
 the parts of the situation or the process to be explained, 
 defining each part, and showing the relation of each 
 part to the other parts and to the whole, and stating 
 the function or the result of all as a whole. 
 
 In indirect exposition, on the contrary, the author is 
 analogical. He employs other things or events to ex- 
 plain the one thing which he desires to elucidate, ap- 
 pealing to the constructive power of the imagination of 
 the reader to furnish the inferences from one thing or 
 event to another, or, perhaps, even taking the trouble 
 to state the way in which the analogy holds good. He 
 tells a story or makes a description, it may be, and then, 
 explicitly or by implication, says, " Look on this event 
 or thing which I have set before you and then look 
 on that which is in need of being made clear, and see 
 now whether the latter appears to you in a clear light." 
 The author of indirect exposition thus draws upon fa- 
 miliar experience as a symbol, and expects the reader 
 to understand the new or unfamiliar experience through 
 the resemblances which it has to the familiar or old. 
 
 In both the direct and the indirect methods there 
 are employed classification, gradation, contrast, em- 
 
THE FUNCTION OF EXPOSITION » 
 
 phasis, definition of terms, and the showing of causal 
 relationships. All of these will he discussed later in 
 this hook. A harmonious and shapely structure, such 
 as a good piece of exposition is, cannot he created with- 
 out these minor methods or processes. 
 
 It is a common but erroneous opinion that the direct 
 method of definition, following the processes of defi- 
 nition and analysis (which will he discussed in full 
 in succeeding chapters) is more difficult than the 
 indirect method of analogy. The method made up of 
 definition and analysis seems more difficult than the 
 indirect method because, as a general thing, the indi- 
 rect method, consisting of telling a story or describing, 
 is more interesting to the average reader. But the 
 fact is that in the indirect method there is expended 
 much more mental energy upon the part of both the 
 writer and the reader. Before writing indirect expo- 
 sition, it is necessary for the author thoroughly to 
 define to himself and thoroughly to analyse the idea, 
 process, or situation, to be explained. If he does not 
 do so he will be unable to determine the proper material 
 for his analogies. When the explaining narrative or 
 description has been written, the writer may proceed to 
 make definitions and state inferences which the analogy 
 suggests, or he may, and often does, leave to the reader 
 the processes of defining and inferring. It is a com- 
 pliment to the intellectual powers of the reader to ex- 
 plain by story or by description, permitting him then 
 to see the point for himself. He is exhilarated by the 
 pleasure of perusing the story or description, and his 
 mind seems with more of ease to make the inferences 
 
10 THE METHOiD AND PEACTICE OF EXPOSITION 
 
 and defining statements. In reality, however, more of 
 mental energy is expended by the reader as well as by 
 the writer in this indirect method of exposition than m 
 the direct, and more mental processes are aroused and 
 active. 
 
 IV 
 
 KINDS OF EEADEES 
 
 Since to be clear and interesting and convincing im- 
 plies some one to be clear and interesting and convincing 
 to, it follows that exposition is a science and an art of 
 adaptation. It is the science and the art of adaptation, 
 by means of language, of the experience of the writer 
 to the experience of the reader. It is not an easy 
 matter to be clear and interesting and convincing. If 
 he who speaks, speaks twice, conveying meaning by tone 
 of voice and by gesture as well as by word, then he who 
 writes must write a various language, for, potentially, 
 his readers are numberless in their variety. 
 
 For a writer, then, after determining that he wishes 
 to impress others with an idea which has become im- 
 pressive to him, the first step is to make up his mind 
 concerning the nature and circumstances of those whom 
 he desires to impress. This must be done even before 
 he decides whether he shall employ the direct or the in- 
 direct method of exposition. He will fijid that readers 
 are readily classified into (1) those who are most 
 quickly and strongly impressed by direct and explicit 
 definition and logical analysis, and (2) those who are 
 most quickly and effectively impressed by exposition 
 
THE FUNCTION OF EXPOSITION 11 
 
 presented indirectly by means of symbols or analogies 
 of some sort. The second group of persons is of a more 
 imaginative type of mind than the first group. 
 
 THE INDIEECT METHOD OF BEACHING THE EEADEE 
 
 Since the larger part of our attention will be given 
 to the discussion of the methods of direct exposition, it 
 may be well at this point to explain somewhat fully the 
 methods of indirect exposition. Let us repeat that in 
 the employment of the indirect method the writer passes 
 through a two-fold process of thinking, first defining 
 and analysing his theme, or idea, for himself, and then, 
 second, inventing a narrative or description in such form 
 as to suggest the results of his definition and analysis. 
 Likewise, in reading such an exposition, the reader ex- 
 ercises a two-fold process, first mentally grasping the 
 story or the picture, and then inferring the definitions 
 and analyses, or, more often the case, as in a flash seeing 
 the meaning of what had not before been clear. The 
 reader who prefers to see the meaning of human experi- 
 ence through the coloured medium of narration or of 
 description, is not likely to admit that he has a less 
 subtle mind than his friend who claims to be more 
 scientific and therefore more strongly to be appealed to 
 by logical analysis and definition. Of course every sci- 
 entific demonstration is, when told, a story, just as, 
 when performed, it has been a moving picture. The 
 man who likes the story and the picture presented by the 
 
12 THE METHOD ASTD PEACTICE OF EXPOSITION 
 
 writer will say that he prefers to do his own thinking, 
 having an explanation only suggested to him rather than 
 laid out upon a plane surface with all of its parts 
 clearly and plainly in view. 
 
 Let us illustrate, in a summary way, the indirect 
 method of exposition. Suppose that a writer wishes 
 to make clear and interesting an idea of his to the effect 
 that there is a substantial difference between northerner 
 and southerner in the United States of America, that 
 the difference is one of temperament, — perhaps even of 
 character. The idea is by no means new, so that to make 
 its exposition interesting the writer will be forced to 
 employ rather new material, or at least material vsdth 
 an air of novelty about it. The writer is William Syd- 
 ney Porter. He lives in an age of big business, an age 
 in which northerner and southerner, Puritan and Cava- 
 lier, mingle, in such a city as New York, in all the 
 activities of life ; in an age, also, in which, and in busi- 
 ness matters most of all, young men have come promi- 
 nently to the fore. He will write a story of two young 
 business men, cousins, in that city. He will take their 
 connection with business and with social life and en- 
 mesh it with a charming but unscrupulous feminine per- 
 sonage, " young and petulantly, decidedly, freshly, con- 
 sciously, and intentionally pretty." Under such cir- 
 cumstances the temperament and the character of the 
 cousins from different latitudes stand revealed as beins 
 interestingly and sharply at variance. The story is en- 
 titled "Thimble, Thimble." It is a concrete symbol 
 of the idea of the author, though the reader is left to 
 make all definitions and inferences for himself. It is 
 
THE FUNCTION OF EXPOSITION 13 
 
 doubtful whether Sydney Porter would have agreed 
 with the statement of George Meredith that " Narra- 
 tive is nothing; it is the mere vehicle of philosophy; 
 the interest is in the idea which action serves to illus- 
 trate." Still, he makes it quite clear in this narrative 
 that he has a definite idea concerning northerner as 
 contrasted with southerner, and he sets forth that idea 
 in a very clear manner. Since he has been interesting 
 as well as clear and has organised his narrative expo- 
 sition into a harmonious structure, we say that his work 
 is artistic. His method has not been scientific; but, 
 taking for granted what we already know about north 
 and south in the United States, the result is practically 
 as convincing as if the method had been scientific, and 
 not merely imaginative. 
 
 Take a second example. Andrew Lang wishes to call 
 attention to his belief that much of the interpretation of 
 ancient monuments is done in an absurd fashion, and 
 with ridiculous results. He proceeds, therefore, to 
 write as if long hence in the future, and relates a dis- 
 covery made in southern England, of a stone on which 
 appears an inscription which looks much like this : — 
 
 90 
 
 m 
 
 N'ow, he says, it is well known that in the England of 
 the nineteenth century there lived a prominent states- 
 man who was named William Ewart Gladstone whose 
 services to the Empire earned for him the popular ap- 
 pellation " Grand Old Man." Well, here we are, — this 
 
14 THE METHOD AlTD PRACTICE OF EXPOSITION 
 
 stone is one of numerous monuments erected to dis- 
 play the affectionate regard in which this popular states- 
 man was held. Of course, that the stone was found 
 precisely half-way between London and Bristol is of no 
 consequence, even though the distance between the two 
 cities is one hundred eighty miles. 
 
 Again, take an example from one of the most inter- 
 esting of twentieth century writers, Mr. John Gals- 
 worthy. He desires to make it clear that panic is at 
 the back of all the violence that men are guilty of, and in 
 order to do so he tells the tale entitled, " The Black 
 Godmother," which is now included in the volume called 
 The Inn of Tranquillity. Mr, Galsworthy is committed 
 also to a certain theory concerning the punishment of 
 petty criminals, and in the same volume he sets forth 
 that theory in the sketch entitled, " The Grand Jury, — 
 In Two Panels and a Frame." He is greatly inter- 
 ested that the reading- and the theatre-going public may 
 have clear ideas concerning the results of the clash of 
 interests in the industrial life of England. Sharply 
 and vividly he pictures those results in his drama en- 
 titled Strife, so much so that every one is forced to see 
 the relation of these results to very definite causes. Ib- 
 sen, also, employs the drama known in English as The 
 Wild Duck in order to convey to others his idea that a 
 certain definite relation exists between a certain known 
 effect and a certain known cause. Shakespeare's casket 
 story in The Merchant of Venice is told, not for the 
 sake of entertainment alone, but also to make emphatic 
 the idea that men mistake in always associating happi- 
 ness with certain things of known value. 
 
THE FUNCTION OF EXPOSITION 15 
 
 The novel of purpose is so-called because of its ex- 
 pository effects. Thomas Hardy thinks the world may 
 be defined as a place in which men and women are 
 caught as in a trap, and that this trap works by chance. 
 His novel entitled Tess of the D'Urbervilles was written 
 to illustrate such a definition. Thackeray thought it 
 worth while to weigh the social life of his day to see 
 if that life be found wanting, and his scales were the 
 novel of Vanity Fair. Even the biographic sketch is 
 used for the sake of exposition of ideas. Mr. William 
 Allen White appears to consider Grover Cleveland to 
 have been the most unique figure in American politics. 
 He has written a biographic sketch of Cleveland from 
 birth until the day when popular revolt sent Cleveland 
 into the White House as the nation's chief executive. 
 But in relating the incidents of the man's life, the 
 stress is placed all along upon what Cleveland was 
 rather than upon the things he chanced or planned to do ; 
 hence the sketch is expository. John Euskin thought it 
 well to make it understood in his time that great art 
 cannot be produced among surroundings that are not 
 beautiful. He accordingly described the environment 
 of an artist at Eochedale in nineteenth century indus- 
 trial England and then that of the artists in thirteenth 
 century Venice. 
 
 All the writings we have just outlined, — short-story, 
 essay, drama, novel, biography, — are narrative and pic- 
 torial in their methods. Yet they all serve to illustrate 
 ideas and to make them clear, interesting, and convinc- 
 ing, and they have, then, accomplished the purposes of 
 good exposition. A writer who can achieve his pur- 
 
16 THE METHOD AND PEACTICE OF EXPOSITION 
 
 poses better by narrative and descriptive means than 
 he can by definition and logical analysis should for him- 
 self consider the former the better means. 
 
 Herbert Spencer in his Philosophy of Style main- 
 tains that the sole source of force in writing rests in 
 the ability to economise the attention of the reader. He 
 thinks the written word should be as transparent as pos- 
 sible in transmitting its meaning to the reader. " A 
 reader or listener has at each moment but a limited 
 amount of mental power available. To recognise and 
 interpret the symbols presented to him requires a part of 
 this power ; to arrange and combine the images suggested 
 requires a further part; and only that part which re- 
 mains can be used for realising the thought conveyed. 
 Hence, the more time and attention it takes to receive 
 and understand each sentence, the less time and atten- 
 tion can be given to the contained idea; and the less 
 vividly will that idea be conveyed." Now, it might be 
 inferred that if, in addition to one's realising the 
 thought from each sentence read, he must also carry the 
 trend of the story or the description read, there must 
 therefore be a double task to perform in reaching the 
 ultimate meaning. And this is really the case ; though, 
 as we have said, the two-fold exertion of energy is un- 
 apparent to many a reader, because he is being enter- 
 tained while story or picture is being presented. 
 
 Mastery of method is the pathway to success. " Big 
 business " has taught mankind that much, at all events. 
 And it is not the student with " literary aspirations " 
 alone who needs training in method. The student of 
 history or of science who proclaims that he pays little 
 
THE FUNCTION OF EXPOSITION l7 
 
 heed to how he writes, that he is interested in only what 
 he has to say, forgets the reason for the success of Gib- 
 bon and Parkman and Motley and J. R. Green and Sir 
 Charles Lyell and Thomas Henry Huxley and Charles 
 Darwin. There is little danger, in these direct, hurry- 
 ing, straightforward days, that the student will fall into 
 the error of being " all for form," however much he may 
 give his days and nights to, as Virgil put it, " licking 
 the cub into shape." 
 
 What is the best method by means of which to accom- 
 plish the purpose of a good exposition ? That depends 
 chiefly upon the type of mind of the reader to be 
 reached, and only a little less upon the type of mind 
 of the vn-iter himself. Any method that will best suc- 
 ceed in creating the state of mind desired in the reader 
 is the best method to use in any case. That may not 
 be the best of ethics in every walk of life, but it is the 
 best ethics in the science and art of vrriting. But the 
 method must be mastered. It is too often true that the 
 inexperienced writer thinks the mastery of the incisive 
 phrase is the whole of the art of writing. However 
 vastly important it is at times that one should make his 
 phrases winged shafts that will set the brains of men 
 aflame, they are never likely to do that if they are not 
 let fly from a well-shaped and well-strung bow. 
 
 Method is learned and put into operation by reading 
 and analysing what one reads, and by practice. At the 
 outset, more reading and analysis than practice is to be 
 preferred. And one must read and analyse that which 
 appeals to him as good, though it happens occasionally 
 that what one has not cared much for becomes most in- 
 
18 THE METHOD AND PEACTICE OF EXPOSITION 
 
 teresting to him during the process of analysing it, just 
 as much as it has sometimes happened that too close 
 analysis of what one likes has spoiled the work for him 
 who analyses. It is, as a rule, of little or no value for 
 a student to analyse what is wholly uninteresting to 
 him. In an essay entitled " Is It Possible to Tell a 
 Good Book from a Bad One ? ", Augustine Birrell once 
 said, " To admire by tradition is a poor thing. Far 
 better really to admire Miss Gabblegoose's novels than 
 to pretend to admire Miss Austen's." And Thoreau 
 remarked, " If the writers of the brazen age are most 
 suggestive to thee, confine thyself to them and leave those 
 of the Augustan age to dust and the bookworm." This 
 is as true of history and science as of fiction. It is just 
 as well to let alone that which every one admires but no 
 one examines unless he has to. But it remains to add 
 that if the student finds no pleasure and no profit in 
 reading any of the works which the taste of generations 
 has found beautiful, and the judgment of generations 
 has pronounced good, then there is little hope of his 
 becoming a good writer. 
 
 VI 
 
 PANOEAMAS OF EXPEEIENCE 
 
 The fundamental material of exposition is ideas. The 
 fundamental function of exposition, as we have been 
 saying, is the making cle.ar of ideas to the intellect, in 
 order that they may be interesting and convincing, and, 
 sometimes, moving. But what do we mean by " ideas " ? 
 
THE FUNCTION OF EXPOSITION 19 
 
 We mean truths, those things which constitute the con- 
 formity of descriptions of facts with the facts them- 
 selves. 
 
 A truth, we think, is an idea which holds good for 
 everybody, — whether everybody likes it or not. Abso- 
 lute truth, like a natural law, is a constant relation 
 between two definite, immutable terms. But as a prac- 
 tical matter, truth never seems to us quite so fixed as 
 that. Truth is rarely universal with us, for each of us 
 judges his world of experience, makes up his own ideas, 
 in accordance with his own equipment. F. H. Bradley 
 says that his dog's system of logic, if he has one, runs, 
 " What exists smells, what does not smell is nothing." 
 It is the tendency of all of us, too, to come to this sort 
 of conclusion, and frequently we do so through no less 
 abbreviated processes of reasoning. The dog judges the 
 world as it comes to him through his equipment; his 
 equipment is dominated by one phase of it, his highly 
 sensitive organ of smell. The chief difference, in this 
 connection, between us and the dog, is that our equip- 
 ment is dominated by things more powerful than sensa- 
 tion and the faculty of immediate reaction to sensation. 
 
 Bernard Bosanquet, in his Essentials of Logic, likens 
 the equipment of each of us to a circular panorama. 
 " Each one of us, we must think, is shut up alone inside 
 such a panorama, which is movable and flexible, and 
 follows him wherever he goes. . . . The individual can- 
 not get outside this encircling scenery, and no one else 
 can get inside it." Every one's panorama differs, he 
 says, from that of every one else ; and the only reason 
 why we can make our ideas clear to others is that the 
 
20 THE METHOD AND PRACTICE OF EXPOSITION 
 
 panoramas of all of us correspond through the common 
 nature of our knowledge. We may take a step back of 
 Bosanquet's " common knowledge," however, and say 
 that all these panoramas correspond because of what 
 seems to be the common nature of our intelligence, and 
 because of the intelligibility of the world which we ex- 
 perience. 
 
 No doubt, too, our panoramas correspond also because 
 of the common primordial source from which we all 
 sprang ; and yet each individual as he now comes into ex- 
 istence as an individual has a different starting-point 
 from the starting-points of all others in experience. 
 Hence the panoramas correspond, and no more. They 
 are not identical. Furthermore, not only does each have 
 a different starting point, but, to reach any common 
 goal of experience, each individual travels a different 
 road from the road travelled by every other individuaL 
 Let us suppose that the following circles represent, if not 
 the experience, at least the viewpoints of three persons, 
 and that the letter x represents a fact of the world in the 
 process of being " experienced " by each of the three 
 persons. 
 
THE FUNCTION OF EXPOSITION 
 
 21 
 
 It is readily seen that the experience of each person 
 differs from that of both the others, because the view- 
 point of each varies from that of each of the others. 
 For example, vsrhile the actual temperature on the morn- 
 ing of rebruary 12 may vary slightly in the same city 
 block, yet it hardly varies so much as the various resi- 
 dents of that block report; but we do not question the 
 experience of the reporters, for we know that their equip- 
 ment differs as to sensitiveness to cold, and even as to 
 thermometers which are theirs to read. Starting-points 
 and view-points differ, and even if one person may suc- 
 ceed in getting upon approximately the same road in 
 life as that travelled by another, yet after he has ar- 
 rived there his experience will differ from that of his 
 fellow-traveller, because he is still affected by his start- 
 ing-point and by the experience acquired before arriving 
 upon that same road. 
 
 In the above figure the bit of experience x will soon 
 turn out to be z for one and y for the other traveller, 
 however much, at the moment of contemporaneous con- 
 tact with it, X may have seemed alike to both, for the 
 trend of each person's previous experience continues to 
 drive him upon a path varying in its orbit from the path 
 of the other. 
 
22 THE METHOD ATTD PEACTICE OF EXPOSITION 
 
 The medium in which the world of fact exists for us 
 is knowledge; but it is the world's intelligibility which 
 hoJds the world of experience together for us. Knowl- 
 edge is but the world of fact in mental form. Our 
 common knowledge comes to us because of the common 
 nature of the intelligence of all of us, and because of the 
 intelligibility of the world in which we and our pano- 
 ramas of experience live. It is because of this fact that 
 our panoramas are not identical, but in correspondence. 
 
 This knowledge of ours we state in the form of affir- 
 mations, sometimes positive, sometimes negative. The 
 question we are now raising is, How are we to get these 
 affirmations accepted by others? The question will be 
 discussed more fully in the chapter upon " The Mind 
 and The Subject " ; but a point or two may be made 
 concerning it here. 
 
 We shall never get our affirmations accepted by others 
 if we do not at the outset recognise that they cannot be 
 acceptable so long as they are inconsistent with the ideas 
 of others. People are at times " forced to conclusions " 
 which they have been most unwilling to accept ; but it is 
 obvious that these conclusions are finally accepted only 
 because they are found to be in harmony with some 
 other conclusions at which arrival had previously been 
 made. Logicians say that conclusions to which we are 
 " forced," whether we are willing about it or not, are 
 "necessary judgments." Such judgments, or affirma- 
 tions, are " necessary " because they have a share in a 
 universal system of ideas all of which must and do co- 
 here or hang together because of the correspondence of 
 these ideas with the world of reality about and within us. 
 
THE FUNCTION OF EXPOSITION 23 
 
 Of course before we are likely to be successful in 
 getting other people to accept our affirmations, positive or 
 negative, we must find these affirmations consistent with 
 the truths already accepted by ourselves, — else their 
 insincerity is almost certain to appear, because of the 
 tone with which they will affect what we affirm. Then, 
 as we have said above, our affirmations must be consistent 
 with the truths known by our auditors or readers. It 
 never does to say, with an air of finality, "Well, that is 
 what I think." The fact is that the very tone of that 
 remark is often and nearly always an acknowledgment 
 of defeat. Mr. Trillo in Peacock's Crotchet Castle, 
 affirmed that 
 
 After careful meditation, 
 
 And profound deliberation. 
 On the various petty projects which have just been shown, 
 
 Not a scheme in agitation 
 
 For the world's ameloriation, 
 Has a grain of common sense in it, except my own. 
 
 But he was immediately met with, from Several Voices, 
 
 " We are not disposed to join in any such chorus." 
 
 Not even " This is what I am compelled to think " 
 settles the matter, unless we can show that we are thus 
 compelled by the power of the truth of the world which 
 contains not only our circles of experience but the circles 
 of experience of others as well. When we desire to be 
 heard and heeded, we cannot go beyond our own experi- 
 ence, neither can we stop short of the experience of 
 others. In order, then, to secure the acceptance of an 
 affirmation, we must adapt the statement of it to, first, 
 
24 THE METHOD AND PEACTICE OF EXPOSITION 
 
 our own experience, and, second, the experience of those 
 appealed to. Speech-craft is the art of adaptation by 
 means of language, — adaptation being understood to 
 mean an adequate appeal to experience. 
 
 The test of truth is consistency with experience. The 
 test of the validity of a discovery is its consistency with 
 experience. Most of the " discoveries " hailed as new 
 truths are not new, not entirely new. It is doubtful if 
 any of them are new. Even though the " discovery " 
 may be new to the individual, it is usually something 
 old to the human race, or, if it is new to the race, it is 
 old in nature, — or at the most, merely a new com- 
 pounding of truths old in nature. " It is notably fre- 
 quent that one has no sooner aimounced a ' new ' truth 
 than a careful reading of history discovers it already 
 lurking somewhere. He has brought it into a new con- 
 nection, given it a new basis, and it is new only in that 
 sense. Once it was only a guess ; he has made it an as- 
 surance." For example, the early Greeks held that all the 
 heavenly bodies which they could see were spherical, not 
 flat. But they held this view on purely a priori groimds. 
 These bodies, they reasoned, are heavenly bodies and 
 therefore perfect in figure ; but the most perfect figure is 
 the sphere ; therefore these bodies are spherical. " It is 
 an interesting instance of a true conclusion based on 
 false premises. As an established assurance, the spher- 
 icity of the heavenly bodies was, therefore, a new truth 
 to the Copernicans, though as a guess based on mistaken 
 premises it was very old." 
 
 With us as vtdth the early Greeks the vision of the 
 imaginatifln precedes the scientific collection of data. 
 
THE FUNCTION OF EXPOSITION 25 
 
 Indeed, it may be truly said that the work of the imag- 
 ination has preceded every important discovery. Of 
 course the imagination must have something to work 
 upon; therefore, some experience precedes its activity. 
 But we usually, if not quite always, do much deductive 
 thinking before we permit ourselves to carry inductive 
 thinking very far, for the mind is always conscious of 
 the fact that all induction is more or less artificial. The 
 farther we advance in experience and in inductive think- 
 ing, the more deduction affords us starting-points for 
 new induction. The great and modest thinker cares 
 very little for the glitter of that which is new ; he takes 
 the greater satisfaction in making consistent with previ- 
 ous experience that which before has only been supposed 
 to be truth. The good thinker knows that the world of 
 knowledge is a continuous thing. Perhaps Sidney 
 Lanier, in the following, is playing with a word ; but he 
 also emphasises the fact that the continuity of the world 
 of knowledge cannot be broken : 
 
 I awoke, and there my Gossip, Midnight, stood 
 Past by my head, and there the Balsams sat 
 Bound about, and we talked together. 
 And "Here is some news," quoth Midnight. "What 
 is this word 'news' whereof we hear?" begged the 
 Balsams : " What mean you by news ? what thing is there 
 which is not very old ? Two neighbours in a cabin talking 
 yesterday I heard giving and taking news; and one, for 
 news, saith William is dead ; and 'tother for news gave that 
 a child is born at Anne's house. But what manner of 
 people be these that call birth and death new ? Birth and 
 death were before aught else that we know was." ^ 
 
 1 From Poem Outlines, published by Charles 'Scribner's Sons. 
 
26 THE METHOD AND PEACTICE OF ESPOSITION 
 
 The function of exposition is, primarily, to make 
 clear, or to convey truth; and to make clear we must 
 adapt our thought to the thought of others. This adap- 
 tation of thought to thought, this application of science 
 and art of speech-craft, is the most delicate and subtle 
 task which the human mind is called upon to achieve. 
 The task is best performed by means of the use of the 
 system of communication which we call language, a sys- 
 tem which we have, by signalling, as it were, to each 
 other from our separate scenic circles or panoramas, 
 been able to agree upon as symbolising the thought of 
 each and all of us. 
 
 Since to convey truth is the function of exposition, 
 it follows that the exposition of most value is that which 
 conveys truths of the greatest value. But what are 
 truths of the greatest value ? Those truths which con- 
 tain in themselves the most of history (though not his- 
 tory in the most common sense of the word) are the most 
 valuable. Those truths are the most historic, in the 
 sense in which we are using the word here, which suggest 
 or reveal most of the past and suggest most of the future 
 of the object or idea to which they appertain. And 
 where do we find the most valuable truths? In the 
 pages of literature, in the main. But what is literature ? 
 We cannot be sure that any writing is literature imtil 
 we can apply to it the tri-dimensional test of length and 
 breadth and depth, or, to put it more simply, the test 
 of time and space and power. That which is so effect- 
 ively written that it appeals to readers for a long time, 
 and to many of them, and moves them strongly, is litera- 
 ture. This is not generally the case in either science or 
 
THE FUNCTION OP EXPOSITION 27 
 
 history. Science is reduction ; its ideal is a mathemati- 
 cal formula; and mathematical formulas do not appeal 
 very widely nor move very powerfully, however per- 
 manent they may appear in their application. History 
 is, largely, a transcript of fact ; its ideal may almost be 
 said to be mathematical, also. Yet when science and 
 history are so effectively presented that they appeal per- 
 manently to many people, and the appeal is one that 
 moves powerfully, then science and history become liter- 
 ature, — witness Darwin and Huxley, Gibbon and Mot- 
 ley. In the main, then, with but few exceptions, the 
 most valuable truths have been best and most lastingly 
 conveyed to men, not through the medium of technical 
 historical and scientific writings, but through those writ- 
 ings which are universally accepted as a part of litera- 
 ture. And why? The answer lies in some powerful 
 sentences written by John Galsworthy : 
 
 Art is the one form of human energy in the whole world 
 which really works for union and destroys the barriers 
 between man and man. It is the continual, unconscious 
 replacement, however fleeting, of oneself by another; the 
 real cement of human life; the everlasting refreshment 
 and renewal. For what is grievous, dompting, grim, about 
 our lives, is that we are shut up within ourselves, witli an 
 itch to get outside ourselves. And to be stolen away from 
 ourselves by art is a momentary relaxation from that itch- 
 ing, a minute's profound and, as it were, secret, enfran- 
 chisement. The active amusements and relaxations of life 
 can only rest certain ones of our faculties by indulging 
 others; the whole self is never rested save through that 
 unconsciousness of self which comes through rapt con- 
 templation of nature or of art. 
 
28 THE METHOD AND PEACTICE OF EXPOSITION 
 
 That is Galsworthy's interpretation of the way to 
 enlarge our panoramas of experience, his view of the 
 movement towards enfranchisement of the human spirit. 
 We instantly recognise its truth ; yet his statement does 
 not contain the whole truth. While rapt contemplation 
 of nature and of art do enfranchise the human spirit, 
 the general advance of that spirit is due also to social 
 service. The greatest truths are those which both 
 " rest " us and aid in the growth of socially helpful 
 activity. The best expositions, therefore, are those 
 which most effectively present to us truths with the two- 
 fold power of affording a refuge and an inspiration. 
 History, science, philosophy, even journalism, popular 
 and technical, should be both a sanctuary and a forum. 
 
 VII 
 
 SOME USEFUL APHOEISMS 
 
 Thinking with pen in hand, if it does no other good, 
 keeps the mind from staggering about. 
 
 Goethe. 
 
 One who has a tolerably clear head and a decent con- 
 science and who is willing to give himself the necessarv 
 trouble, may obtain clearness in exposition. 
 
 Huxley. 
 
 Style will find readers and shape convictions, while 
 mere truth gathers dust on the shelf. 
 
 Lowell. 
 Style is the incarnation of thought. 
 
 WOKDSWOETH. 
 
THE FUNCTION OP EXPOSITION 29 
 
 He who would write anything worthy to be called 
 style must first grow thoughts which are worth com- 
 municating, and then he must deliver them in his own 
 natural language. 
 
 Eaele. 
 
 A sentence should read as if its author, had he held a 
 plough instead of a pen, could have drawn a furrow 
 deep and straight to the end. 
 
 Thoeeau. 
 
 Beautiful words are the light of thought. 
 
 LONGINUS. 
 
 Adequation to truth ; that is beauty. Ceoce. 
 
 Verbosity is the deadliest and most degrading of 
 literary sins. 
 
 Huxley. 
 
 If there is a moral in the subject it will appear, and 
 the writer has nothing to consider but the effective and 
 artistic treatment of his subject ; if he has as high a soul 
 as Sophocles, his influence will always be moral, let him 
 do whatever he will. 
 
 Goethe. 
 
 I keep six honest serving-men, 
 
 (They taught me all I knew) : — 
 Their names are What and Why and When 
 
 And How and Where and Who. 
 
 Kipling. 
 
 Gently make haste; of labour not afraid. 
 A hundred times consider what you've said. 
 Polish, repolish, every colour lay. 
 
30 THE METHOD AND PEACTICE OF EXPOSITION 
 
 And sometimes add, but oftener take away. 
 
 Deyden. 
 
 Men's thoughts and opinions are in great degree vas- 
 sals of him who invents a new phrase or re-applies an 
 old epithet. 
 
 Keats* 
 
 The three objects of intellect: the true, the beautiful, 
 and the beneficial. 
 
 The three foundations of wisdom: youth, to acquire 
 learning; memory, to retain learning; and genius, to 
 illustrate learning. 
 
 Triads of Wisdom. 
 
 The three requisites of poetical genius : an eye, that 
 can see nature ; a heart, that can feel nature ; and a reso- 
 lution, that dares follow nature. 
 
 The three dignities of poetry: the union of the true 
 and the wonderful ; the union of the beautiful and wise ; 
 and the union of art and nature. 
 
 Teiads of Poetet. 
 
 That which distinguishes the educated man from him 
 who is not educated is that the former uses words ac- 
 curately. 
 
 The fundamental law of writing is that the words 
 employed shall be such words as will convey to the reader 
 the meaning that is in the mind of the writer. 
 
 The most concise style is that which most rapidly 
 transmits the sense intended. 
 
 Assignments and selections for analysis will be found at the 
 ends of succeeding chapters; also, Chapter VIII is given up en- 
 tirely to assignments and selections. 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 Definition 
 I 
 
 WHAT IT IS 
 
 The honest writer desires to show, with the greatest 
 possible degree of accuracy, the meaning of the subject 
 under consideration. He is usually more fully assured 
 of gaining accuracy by the direct than by the indirect 
 method of exposition, because definition and logical 
 analysis are certain to convey an accuracy in detail 
 which the indirect method by means of narration and 
 description might fail to convey, if the reader, however 
 discerning in other ways, is lacking in imagination. A 
 general interpretation or view might turn out to be 
 inaccurate in detail, and hence be subject to discredit. 
 The writer who is chiefly anxious for accuracy may be 
 willing to sacrifice the force of the indirect method for 
 the logic of the direct. It is, of course, true that logic 
 is often more forceful than analogy. Perhaps it should 
 always be more so, but this is not the case, because many 
 readers are more appealed to through perception than 
 through logic. 
 
 The means by which the logical or direct method 
 
 proceeds are definition and analysis. Definition and 
 
 analysis are inseparable, definition depending upon 
 
 31 
 
32 THE METHOD AND PBACTICE OF EXPOSITION 
 
 previous or accompanying analysis and analysis pre- 
 supposing some definition of terms. While an exposi- 
 tion usually begins with definition, yet no definition is 
 ever possible without some previous analysis, though 
 the analysis is not always present and explicitly stated. 
 Although we are not always conscious of it, yet we are 
 constantly attempting to make a system of our experi- 
 ence and to represent that process of system-making by 
 means of language. We are constantly finding that this 
 and that and still other things in our world of experience 
 are closely allied with each other, and that they are all 
 the time becoming allied with things hitherto new to us. 
 This alliance is, to use the language of international 
 politics, both oifensive and defensive. Now, we find 
 that we aid the rapidity and clearness of our systematis- 
 ing of experience by setting about each of these alliances 
 limits that are as definite as possible. A statement of 
 these limits we call definition. Definition is the first 
 orderly step in the systematising of the complex of our 
 experience. It may be termed the intensive aspect of 
 exposition, while analysis or division, may be termed 
 the extensive aspect of exposition. 
 
 II 
 
 ITS PtTEPOSE AND KINDS 
 
 Definition is the most difficult part of any science. 
 The function of definition is to tell the whole truth 
 within the narrowest possible limits consistent with 
 bringing about the impression of the whole truth 
 
DEFINITION 33 
 
 upon the mind of the reader. Sometimes the imme- 
 diate purpose of a definition is to make it possible 
 to identify an object or one of a class of objects named 
 by the term defiined. For example, a periscope may 
 be defined as " an instrument consisting of a revolving 
 prism capable of reflecting down a vertical tube the rays 
 from any part of the horizon." Then sometimes the 
 purpose of a definition is to lead us to use an idea alv^ays 
 with precisely the same definite connotation. An ex- 
 ample, and a very rigid one, would be the definition of 
 a natural law as " a constant relation between two defi- 
 nite, immutable terms." ' Again, a definition may lead 
 us far afield from ordinary things and ideas, into the 
 realm of the imagination, whose boundaries are set, per- 
 haps, only by Chaos and Old Night; as when Milton 
 attempts to present a defining or limiting conception of a 
 Satanic personage. Scientific analysis can hardly fol- 
 low upon such defining, though logical description may. 
 More often than by such imaginative defining as that of 
 Milton the average reader is inspired by the careful and 
 acute analysis of some master of the concrete way of 
 saying things, such as Thomas Henry Huxley. In an 
 address before a Working Men's College, Huxley said. 
 
 That man, I think, has had a liberal education who has 
 been so trained in youth that his body is the ready servant 
 of his will and does with ease and pleasure all the work 
 that, as a mechanism, it is capable of; whose intellect is a 
 clear, cold, logic engine, with all its parts of equal strength, 
 and in smooth working order; ready, like a steam engine, 
 to be turned to any kind of work, and spin the gossamers as 
 well as forge the anchors of the mind ; whose mind is stored 
 with a knowledge of the great and fundamental truths of 
 
34 THE METHOD AND PEACTICE OF EXPOSITION 
 
 ISTature and of the laws of her operations; one who, no 
 stunted ascetic, is full of life and fire but whose passions 
 are trained to come to heel by a vigorous wdl, the servant 
 of a tender conscience; who has learned to love all beauty, 
 whether of i^ature or of Art, to hate all vileness, and to 
 respect others as himself. 
 
 This passage may be called logical description, for it 
 shows comprehensively what are the parts of the thing 
 defined, and results in a definite concept of what that 
 thing is. It makes a list of the essential marks of the 
 one thing, liberal education, revealing the extent to 
 which the aggregation of qualities may be carried and 
 making no distinction between the genus and the differ- 
 entia. But since the term logical is generally applied 
 to definitions which do consist of two parts, genus and 
 differentia, not related in the one individual as they are 
 related in Huxley's definition, it would be better to call 
 his an analytical definition than to call it logical de- 
 scription. 
 
 There are three general classes of definitions, — (1) 
 the logical, (2) the analytical and (3) the construc- 
 tional, or synthetic. 
 
 A logical definition always has two parts to its predi- 
 cate, the two differing in kind from one another, one 
 part naming the higher class or genus to which the indi- 
 vidual or species which is being defined belongs, the 
 other naming the specific difference which sets apart 
 the given individual or species from others of the same 
 genus. Tor example. " Taxes are portions of private 
 property which a government takes for its public pur- 
 poses." In this definition " portions of private prop- 
 
DEFINITION 35 
 
 erty " declares the genus, and " which a government 
 takes for its public purposes " declares the differentia. 
 An analytical definition, as we said above in relation 
 to the definition from Huxley, attempts to state all the 
 essential marks which belong to the thing defined, not 
 distinguishing between them in any definite way. For 
 example, though in a serio-comic way, and by the device 
 of rhetorical contrast, Bernard Shaw defines his con- 
 temporaries by making an extensive list of the things 
 which characterise them, as follows : 
 
 They are not beautiful; they are only decorated. They 
 are not clean; they are only shaved and starched. They 
 are not dignified ; they are only fashionably dressed. They 
 are not educated: they are only coll ege pas smen. They 
 are not religious : they are only pe^^j^ters. They are 
 not moral: they are only conventional. . . . They are not 
 prosperous: they are only rich. They are not loyal: they 
 are only servile; not dutiful, only sheepish; not public- 
 spirited, only patriotic; not courageous, only quarrelsome; 
 not determined, only obstinate; not masterful, only domi- 
 neering; not self-controlled, only obtuse; not self-respect- 
 ing, only vain ; not kind, only sentimental ; not social, only 
 gregarious; not considerate, only polite; not intelligent, 
 only opinionated; not progressive, only factious; not im- 
 aginative, only superstitious ; not Just, only vindictive ; not 
 generous, only propitiatory; not disciplined, only cowed; 
 and not truthful at all. 
 
 A constructional or synthetic definition neither ex- 
 presses the relation of genus and differentia nor does it 
 give a merely aggregated list of qualities or parts of the 
 thing defined; but it defines the term by showing how 
 it is built up or constructed, how it or its meaning came 
 
36 THE METHOD AND PRACTICE OF EXPOSITION 
 
 to be, how the concept of the thing defined came into 
 existence out of other concepts already known or now 
 better known. For example, the term Culture has been 
 thus defined : " But what do we mean by this fine word 
 Culture, so much in vogue at present? What the 
 Greeks naturally expressed by their iratStta, the Romans 
 by their Jiumanitas, we less happily try to express by 
 the more artificial word Culture. The use of it in its 
 present sense is, as far as I know, recent in our lan- 
 guage, forced upon us, I suppose, by the German talk 
 about ' Bildung.' And the shifts we have been put to, 
 to render that German word, seem to show that the 
 thing with us is something of an exotic, rather than 
 native to the soil. When applied to the human being, 
 it means, I suppose, the ' educing or drawing forth of 
 all that is potentially in a man,' the training all the 
 energies and capacities of his being to the highest pitch, 
 and directing them to their true ends." 
 
 Ill 
 
 DIVISION AND ILLUSTRATION OF THE KINDS OF 
 DEFINITION 
 
 Each of the kinds of definition, logical, analytical, 
 and constructional, may be divided into lesser kinds. 
 These lesser kinds are of two sorts, and each of these 
 two may. be subdivided into two classes. The first of 
 the groups into which logical, and analytical, and syn- 
 thetic definitions may be divided is based upon the 
 number of concepts or things designated by the terms 
 
DEFINITION 37 
 
 defined. Such definitions are either Singular or Uni- 
 versal. The second of the groups is based upon the 
 adequacy of the definition, that is to say, upon whether 
 the subject and the predicate of the sentence making the 
 definition are precisely equal to each other, or, to put 
 it mechanically, whether subject and predicate may 
 interchange position in the sentence without altering 
 the meaning of the sentence. Such definitions are either 
 perfect (complete) or imperfect (incomplete). 
 
 A definition is singular when it refers to only one 
 thing or, we may say, when a demonstrative may be em- 
 ployed to modify the word naming the thing defined 
 (using the term " thing " to mean either word or objec- 
 tive reality named by word). Such definitions are usu- 
 ally descriptive, as " This family council is an electrical 
 storm." Yet the definition is not pictorial alone, it is 
 interpretative also; a metaphor is always meant to be 
 an interpretation. The following lines, though, per- 
 haps, intended to describe a condition of the spirit, might 
 well serve for a setting of limits about the general con- 
 dition of advanced age, — 
 
 That time of year thou mayst in me behold 
 When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang 
 Upon those boughs which shake against the cold, 
 Bare ruin'd choirs, where late the sweet birds sang. 
 
 It is not possible to confine the terms description and 
 definition to mutually exclusive uses. Human thought 
 is too live and resilient to be restricted within such 
 narrow lines. These terms, therefore, have, when dis- 
 tinguished, a more or less artificial application. But 
 it is comforting to remember that it is not alone in 
 
38 THE METHOD AITD PEACTICE OF EXPOSITION 
 
 logic and rhetoric tliat names are artificially applied. 
 Artificial naming and loose classification occur in the 
 biological sciences, in spite of the constant application 
 of genus and differentia in logical definitions, and they 
 occur even in the mathematical sciences, too. It is 
 highly suggestive and interesting to know that the in- 
 ventor of the term " gas " when pressed to explain why 
 he had chosen that name, confessed that he had had but 
 vaguely in mind the word " chaos " ! 
 
 Naming and classifying depend often upon the pur- 
 pose and upon the point of view, fully as much as they 
 depend upon the nature of the things named and classi- 
 fied. It would hardly be common-sensible to deny any 
 one the right to use the name descriptive, or definitive, 
 or descriptive-definitive, for the following, — 
 
 The glories of our blood and state 
 Are shadows, not substantial things. 
 
 Shirley. 
 God is the perfect poet 
 Who in his person acts his own creations. 
 
 Browning. 
 
 A universal definition is one that applies to a whole 
 group or class. Universal definitions are apt to be 
 rather inaccurate. When Matthew Arnold says, 
 
 A wanderer is man from his birth, 
 
 he utters a statement which is rather descriptive than 
 strictly defining. If it is considered as a definition, of 
 course it is a universal one. It sets the limits or places 
 the boundaries about a term which is used as the name 
 of a group of beings, each of which beings has a great 
 
DEFINITION 39 
 
 deal in common with all the rest within the group; ao 
 much in common and yet all so much unlike all in other 
 groups of beings that we say they all belong to the same 
 class, — man. The definition is very much lacking in 
 completeness, for man is many other things than a 
 wanderer from his birth. 
 
 " Rust is a form of the process called oxidation, — its 
 presentation is assimilated to a general process, which 
 is of the same kind as occurs when a candle bums, an 
 explosion occurs, or in the physiological function of 
 respiration." This is a definition which is immensely 
 rich and suggestive, but possibly too universal for the 
 unscientific-minded reader, at least. Like all construc- 
 tional definitions, it is not for the hurried reader or the 
 uninstructed one. Perhaps a better definition of rust 
 for such persons would be one in the singular form, 
 such as, " This red, or orange yellow, coating which is 
 formed on the surface of iron when exposed to air or 
 moisture, is rust." 
 
 " A state is the many rising to the completer life of 
 one," is a universal definition, — and it is an excellent 
 one. It is excellent, not so much in that it approxi- 
 mates stating what many states are, or have been, but 
 in that it states what they all ought to be. It is clear, 
 it is interesting, it is highly ethical. Such class terms 
 as " state " readily admit of the universal form of defi- 
 nition. In this instance the definition sets forth the 
 class or type, in both senses of the term " type," — as 
 something representative of a class and as something 
 representing the ideal toward which all in the class 
 tend to rise. 
 
40 THE METHOD AND PEACTICE OP EXPOSITION 
 
 From the definitions which have been given, it should 
 not be inferred that universal definitions are those of 
 abstract terms alone. An actually existing individual 
 may be taken as representative of its class, and one may, 
 by writing of that individual, explain the class as a 
 whole. In the instance given below, Ruskin used an 
 individual thing to make clear the nature and functions 
 of many of the same kind or type. He walked into his 
 lecture room at Oxford University, held up a small piece 
 of china, and said, 
 
 " I have here in my hand one of the simplest possible 
 examples of the union of the graphic and constructive 
 powers . . . one of my breakfast plates. Since all the 
 finely architectural arts . . . began in the shaping of the 
 cup and platter, we will begin, ourselves, with the platter. 
 
 " Why has it been made round ? For two structural 
 reasons: first, that the greatest holding surface may be 
 gathered into the smallest space; and secondly, that in 
 being pushed past other things on the table, it may come 
 in least contact with them. 
 
 " Next, why has it a rim ? For two other structural 
 reasons : first, that it is convenient to put salt or mustard 
 upon; but secondly and chiefly, that the plate may be 
 easily laid hold of. The rim is the simplest form of con- 
 tinuous handle. 
 
 "Further, to keep it from soiling the cloth, it wiU be 
 wise to put this ridge beneath, round the bottom; for as 
 the rim is the simplest form of continuous handle, so this 
 is the simplest form of continuous leg. . . . 
 
 " Thus far our art has been strictly utilitarian, having 
 respect to conditions of collision, of carriage, and of sup- 
 port. But now, on the surface of our piece of pottery, here 
 are various bands and spots of colour which are presumably 
 set there to make it pleasanter to the eye. Six of the spots 
 
DEFINITION 41 
 
 seen closely, you discover are intended to represent flow- 
 ers. These then have as distinctly a graphic purpose as 
 the other properties of the plate have an architectural one, 
 and the first critical question we have to ask of them, is 
 whether they are like roses or not, etc., etc., etc." 
 
 In addition to being classified as singular and uni- 
 versal, definitions may be classified as perfect and im- 
 perfect definitions. As we have said above, the division 
 into singular and universal is based upon the number of 
 things or units designated by the term defined. Now, 
 the same definition, whether singular or universal, may 
 be considered as perfect or imperfect, the test being 
 whether or not the two general parts of the definition 
 may be interchanged with no change of meaning. A 
 perfect definition is one the subject of which and that 
 which is said of the subject are interchangeable in posi- 
 tion in the defining sentence without alteration of the 
 meaning of the sentence. For example, a circle, 
 whether we define it as a perfectly rounded figure or as 
 a " plane figure bounded by a curved line every point of 
 which is equally distant from the centre of the figure," 
 provides a definition in which the subject and the predi- 
 cate are interchangeable without affecting the meaning. 
 " A plane figure bounded by a curved line every point 
 of which is equally distant from the centre of the figure 
 is a circle," means precisely the same as does " A circle 
 is a plane figure bounded by, etc." Not that one form 
 of statement is as adequate as the other, so far as appre- 
 hension by the mind is concerned ; for there is no doubt 
 that the average mind grasps much more readily the 
 first form of statement. The natural order of appre- 
 
42 THE METHOD AND PEACTICE OF EXPOSITION 
 
 bending thoughts is to us the same as that of communi- 
 cating thought, namely, " subject " first and " predi- 
 cate " second. 
 
 An imperfect definition is one in which the subject 
 and that which is predicated of the subject are not pre- 
 cisely equal to the same thing and, on that account, equal 
 to each other. In an imperfect definition we cannot 
 interchange the positions of subject and predicate in the 
 defining sentence without at least shifting the point of 
 view to such an extent that the suggestions of the sense 
 may be altered. Obviously Sir T. Herbert's statement 
 that the Dodo is " A Bird which for shape and rareness 
 might be call'd a Phoenix (wer 't in Arabia) " is an 
 imperfect definition. A definition committed to mem- 
 ory by many thousands to the effect that " God is a 
 spirit, infinite, eternal, and unchangeable in his being, 
 wisdom, power, holiness, justice, goodness, and truth," 
 is an imperfect definition, for as soon as the term 
 " God " is placed in the predicate the definition is seen 
 to be inadequate, for subject and predicate are not 
 exactly equal. The definition is but an approximate 
 one, as was the definition of his contemporaries already 
 quoted from Bernard Shaw. 
 
 Besides considering a definition perfect or complete 
 when the words that form its subject and the words that 
 form its predicate may be interchanged without change 
 of meaning, we may consider a definition as perfect or 
 complete when anything added to the predicate adds 
 nothing to the essential meaning of the statement. Ad- 
 ditions may add to the ease and fulness of apprehension 
 of the meaning by one who hears or reads the sentence ; 
 
DEFlITITIOlSr 43 
 
 but no additions or qualifications can add to the meaning 
 itself. An imperfect or incomplete definition, however, 
 contains a predicate which requires qualification of some 
 sort in order that the meaning may be fully stated. 
 " Words are wild and weak," is not a perfect or com- 
 plete definition, because there is no distinctive pointing 
 out that, or how, words as wild and weak things differ 
 from other things that are wild and weak. Fewer prac- 
 tices in human speech are more common than attempts 
 to give all-inclusive and conclusive limits to a concept 
 by statements of partial aspects of the thing defined, one 
 after another, the writer hoping by summation of them 
 all to approximate completeness of definition. Practi- 
 cally all definitions outside the mathematical sciences 
 content themselves with but partial approximation, and 
 some do even in those sciences. All human experience 
 is limited, even in applied mechanics ; hence the results 
 are only approximations. 
 
 Definitions that are perfect or complete are not often 
 very useful except in certain scientific pursuits, and even 
 in science they often restrict the outlook of the scientist. 
 The Concise Oxford Dictionary defines architecture as 
 the " science of building." Euskin defines it as " the 
 art which so disposes and adorns the edifices raised by 
 man for whatever uses, that the sight of them contributes 
 to his mental health, power, and pleasure." The open- 
 ing sentence in the Introduction to Hamlin's History of 
 Architecture is " A History of Architecture is a record 
 of man's efforts to build beautifully," from which we 
 may infer a definition of architecture to be " the result 
 of man's efforts to build beautifully." No one of these 
 
44 THE METHOD AND PEACTICE OF EXPOSITION 
 
 definitions is complete, yet each is excellent for its pur- 
 pose. Each is determined hy the view-point of the 
 writer and hy the prohable nature and needs of those 
 for whom each definition is penned. 
 
 Which shall we say is the better definition of Nature, 
 that in the dictionary just mentioned, or that contained 
 in the inscription upon the Egyptian temple of Isis? 
 The first is " physical power causing phenomena of the 
 material world, — these phenomena as a whole"; the 
 second definition is contained in the affirmation, " I am 
 all that is, and that was, and that shall be, and no mortal 
 hath lifted my veil." Which of the two is the more 
 simple, the more subtle, the more sublime in its truth ? 
 And, again, of what does truth, after all, consist ? Of 
 what does truth, the goal of all exposition, consist ? It 
 consists of a certain relation of concepts to each other, — 
 not of relations of things, but of concepts, to each other. 
 
 Truth is within ourselves; it takes no rise 
 
 From outward things . . . and to know 
 
 Eather consists in opening out a way 
 
 Whence the imprisoned splendour may escape. 
 
 Than in effecting entry for a light 
 
 Supposed to be without. Watch narrowly 
 
 The demonstration of a truth, its birth, 
 
 And you trace back the effluence to its spring 
 
 And source within us; where broods radiance vast, 
 
 To be elicited ray by ray, as chance 
 
 Shall favour : chance — for hitherto your sage, 
 
 Even as he knows not how those beams are born, 
 
 As little knows he what unlocks their fount: 
 
 And men have oft' grown old among their books 
 
 To die case-hardened in their ignorance, 
 
 Whose careless youth had promised what long years 
 
DEFINITION 45 
 
 Of unremitted labour ne'er performed: 
 While, contrary, it has chanced, some idle day, 
 To autumn loiterers just as fancy-free 
 As the midges in the sun, gives birth at last 
 To truth — produced mysteriously as cape 
 Of cloud grown out of the invisible air. 
 Hence may not truth be lodged alike in all. 
 The lovrest as the highest? some slight film 
 The interposing bar which binds the soul 
 And makes the idiot, just as makes the sage 
 Some film removed, the happy outlet whence 
 Truth issues proudly. 
 
 Such analysis as this by Browning is clear, interest- 
 ing, and of high social value, to one who thinks. It 
 also emphasises the statement frequently made even by 
 scientists themselves, that many times what are noised 
 abroad as great discoveries are made by sheer accident. 
 
 An interesting definition by the approximation 
 method occurs in Alfred Austin's Lucifer. Abdiel de- 
 fines a philosopher, then in a summary way turns the 
 accumulated statements into a definition of philosophy. 
 
 ABDIEL 
 
 The purple of the mountain robes his mind; 
 He's a philosopher. 
 
 EVE 
 
 And what is that? 
 
 ABDIEL 
 
 A houseless stranger in a well-roofed world, 
 A whimsical refuser of man's needs, 
 A system-seeker in a round of chaos, 
 A palimpsest of wisdom, — so wise 
 
46 THE METHOD AND PEACTICE OF EXPOSITION 
 
 That all our wants are folly, all our passions 
 Mere matter for conclusions. To despise 
 Wliat others cherish, — ^ that's philosophy. 
 
 JSTearly all definitions, let us repeat, are imperfect, 
 for the predicate in nearly all of them is more or less 
 deficient. It should be remembered, also, that im- 
 perfect and singular definitions should not be confused. 
 A singular definition is one that has as its subject an 
 individual of some sort, -whether the predicate be com- 
 plete or partial. Of course, in ultimate reality there 
 are no such things as classes as opposed positively to 
 individuals. Every separate thing is unique and cannot 
 be placed in precisely the same category with any other 
 thing whatever. There are no such things as classes; 
 and yet we have come to believe that to think is to asso- 
 ciate things, and therefore in our thinking a rough sort 
 of classification is necessary to us. 
 
 The obvious reason for the incompleteness of the 
 definitions of many terms is that the mind has not yet 
 compassed the limits of the things defined. There are 
 many things the differentia of which we do not know in 
 their entirety. Who would undertake to define the 
 term "time" in all the fulness of its essential differ- 
 ences from other things, even from other things in the 
 class of Kantian " categories " ? "We have an abundant 
 number of definitions of time, but the nature and con- 
 tent of these definitions are determined rather by the 
 purposes of the writers than by the essential character 
 of the thing under process of definition. I take up 
 three books. One is the first volume of Edward Caird's 
 
DEFINITION 47 
 
 The Critical Philosophy of Kant, one is The Concise 
 Oxford Dictionary, the third is a volume of selected 
 poems. In the first book I read, from page 264, that 
 time is an a priori form of perception; in the second 
 book that time is continued existence ; and in the third, 
 that 
 
 Even such is time, that takes on trust 
 Our youth, our joys, our all we have, 
 And pays us back with age and dust; 
 Who, in the dark and silent grave. 
 When we have wandered all our ways, 
 Shuts up the story of our days. 
 
 Sir Walter Ealeigh. 
 
 The view-points of the writers have made these defini- 
 tions differ as they do. 
 
 More often than for any other reason, definitions are 
 imperfect simply because they fail to state the differ- 
 entia that might easily be discovered and stated. A 
 good logical definition is commonly said to be one that 
 (1) states the genus or class to which that belongs which 
 is named by the term being defined, and (2) states the 
 differentia, or the way or ways in which the thing 
 named differs from other things of the same genus or 
 class : as, " A square is a plane figure having four equal 
 sides and four right angles " ; or, " Deduction is a 
 method of thinking in which a general or inclusive fact, 
 or principle or conclusion, is stated first, followed by 
 particular arguments, details, or facts by which it is 
 established or explained." But when Mr. Chesterton 
 remarks that the definition of a law is " something that 
 can be broken," he is not only speaking ambiguously 
 
48 THE METHOD AND PEACTICE OF EXPOSITIOIT 
 
 but he also fails to show how law differs from other 
 things of its genus. 
 
 IV 
 
 THE DIEECT AND INDIRECT METHODS OF EXPOSITION 
 IN DEFINITION 
 
 The popular notion of a definition is that it is as 
 concise and direct as the explanation of a word in an 
 abridged dictionary. But if to define means to point 
 out the limits which are set about what is being defined, 
 then a definition may be something quite lengthy and, 
 it may be, very indirect and, perhaps, even inconclu- 
 sive. Furthermore, that which is to be defined is often 
 something more far-reaching than a single clause can 
 name. The content of what is to have limits set about 
 it, or of what is to indicate the limits that are already 
 set about it, is too rich and too full of suggestion to be 
 encompassed by naming with one clause. Such things 
 require a good deal of either analysis or analogical 
 symbolising to make clear in the mind of the reader, or 
 even of the writer, precisely what boundaries are about 
 them. 
 
 John Ruskin, for example, when, in Unto This Last, 
 he wishes to define the true functions of the merchant in 
 society, finds it necessary to begin to set the boundaries 
 about those functions by a rather long process of analy- 
 sis, much of it being exclusion, — thus : 
 
 If all the efficient members of the so-called liberal pro- 
 fessions are stiU, somehow, in public estimate of honour 
 
DEFINITION 49 
 
 preferred before the head of a commercial firm, the reason 
 must lie deeper than in the measurement of their several 
 powers of mind. 
 
 And the essential reason for such preference will be 
 found to lie in the fact that the merchant is presumed 
 always to act selfishly. His work may be very necessary to 
 the community; but the motive of it is understood to be 
 wholly personal. The merchant's first object in all his 
 dealings must be (the public believe) to get as much for 
 himself, and leave as little to his neighbour (or customer) 
 as possible. Enforcing this upon him, by political statute, 
 as the necessary principle of his action; recommending it 
 to him on all occasions, and themselves reciprocally adopt- 
 ing it; proclaiming vociferously, for the law of the uni- 
 verse, that a buyer's function is to cheapen, and the seller's 
 to cheat, — the public, nevertheless, involuntarily con- 
 demn the man of commerce for his compliance with their 
 own statement, and stamp him forever as belonging to an 
 inferior grade of human personality. 
 
 This they will find, eventually, they must give up doing. 
 They must not cease to condemn selfishness; but they will 
 have to discover a kind of commerce which is not exclu- 
 sively selfish. Or, rather, they will have to discover that 
 there never was, or can be, any other kind of commerce; 
 that this which they have called commerce was not com- 
 merce at all, but cozening; and that a true merchant 
 differs as much from a merchant according to laws of 
 modern political economy as the hero of the " Excursion " 
 from Autolycus. They will find that commerce is an 
 occupation which gentlemen will every day see more need 
 to engage in rather than in the business of talking to 
 men, or slaying them: that, in true commerce, as in true 
 preaching, or true fighting, it is necessary to admit the 
 idea of occasional voluntary loss: — that sixpences have 
 to be lost, as well as lives, under a sense of duty; that the 
 market may have its martyrdoms as well as the public; and 
 trade its heroisms, as well as war. 
 
50 THE METHOD AND PEACTICE OF EXPOSITION 
 
 May have — in the final issue, must have — and only 
 has not had yet, because men of heroic temper have al- 
 ways been misguided in their youth into other fields, not 
 recognising vchat is in our days, perhaps, the most impor- 
 tant of all fields; so that, while many a zealous person 
 loses his life in trying to teach the form of a gospel, very 
 few will lose a hundred pounds in showing the practice 
 of one. 
 
 The fact is, the people never have had clearly explained 
 to them the true functions of a merchant with respect to 
 other people. I should like the reader to be very clear 
 about this. 
 
 Five great intellectual professions, relating to daily ne- 
 cessities of life, have hitherto existed — three exist neces- 
 sarily, in every civilised nation : 
 
 The Soldier's profession is to defend it. 
 
 The Pastor's, to teach it. 
 
 The Physician's, to keep it in health. 
 
 The Lawyer's, to enforce justice in it. 
 
 The Merchant's, to provide for it. 
 
 And the duty of all these men is, on due occasion, to die 
 for it. 
 
 " On due occasion," namely : 
 
 The Soldier, rather than leave his post in battle. 
 
 The Physician, rather than leave his post in plague. 
 
 The Pastor, rather than teach Falsehood. 
 
 The Lavpyer rather than countenance Injustice. 
 
 The Merchant — What is his " due occasion " of death ? 
 
 It is the main question for the merchant, as for all of 
 us, For, truly, the man who does not know when to die, 
 does not know how to live. 
 
 The same author in his lecture on " Traffic " in The 
 Crown of Wild Olive, wishes to define a certain ideal of 
 human life. He is descriptive in Ms method, as fol- 
 lows : 
 
DEFINITION 51 
 
 Your ideal of human life, then, is, I think, that it 
 should be passed in a pleasant undulating world, with iron 
 and coal everywhere underneath it. On each pleasant 
 bank of this world is to be a beautiful mansion, with two 
 wings; and stables, and coach-houses; a moderately sized 
 park; a large garden and hot-houses; and pleasant car- 
 riage drives through the shrubberies. In this mansion are 
 to live the favoured votaries of the Goddess of Getting-on : 
 the English gentleman, with his gracious wife, and his 
 beautiful family; he always to have the boudoir and the 
 jewels for the wife, and the beautiful ball dresses for 
 the daughters, and hunters for the sons, and a shooting in 
 the Highlands for himself. At the bottom of the bank, is 
 to be the mill; not less than a quarter of a mile long, with 
 one steam engine at each end, and two in the middle, and 
 a chimney three hundred feet high. In this mill are to 
 be in constant employment from eight hundred to a thou- 
 sand workers, who never drink, never strike, always go 
 to church on Sunday, and always express themselves in 
 respectful language. 
 
 Definitions are often reached by telling what things 
 do as well as by explicitly stating what their essential 
 nature is. Kuskin, again, by an expository narrative 
 makes clear to what lengths the daily delight of the land- 
 scape sketcher extends itself. In Praeterita he writes, — 
 
 You put your lunch in your pocket, and set out, any 
 fine morning, sure that, unless by a mischance which 
 needn't be calculated on, the forenoon, and the evening 
 too, would be fine. You chose two subjects handily near 
 each other, one for a. m., the other for p. m. ; you sat 
 down on the grass where you liked, worked for two or 
 three hours serenely, with the blue shining through the 
 stems of the trees like painted glass, and not a leaf stir- 
 ring; the grass-hoppers singing; flies sometimes a little 
 
52 THE METHOD AND PEACTICE OF EXPOSITION 
 
 troublesome, — ants, also, it might be. Then you ate your 
 lunch — lounged a little after it — perhaps fell asleep in 
 the shade, woke in a dream of -whatever you liked best to 
 dream of — set to work on the afternoon sketch — did as 
 much as you could before the glow of sunset began to make 
 everything beautiful beyond painting; you meditated a 
 while over that impossible, put up your paints and book, 
 and walked home, proud of your day's work, and peace- 
 ful for its future, to supper. This is neither fancy — nor 
 exaggeration. I have myself spent thousands of days thus 
 in my forty years of happy work between 1830 and 1870. 
 
 SUMMAET 
 
 There are three general classes of definitions, — (1) 
 the logical, (2) the analytical, and (3) the construc- 
 tional or synthetic. 
 
 A logical definition has two parts to its predicate, 
 the one part stating the genus of what is defined, the 
 other stating the differentia. 
 
 An Analytical definition attempts to state all the 
 essential marks belonging to what is defined, not dis- 
 tinguishing between the marks in any way. 
 
 A Constructional or synthetic defijiition may both 
 state the genus and differentia and give an aggregated 
 list of the qualities or parts of what is defined, but it 
 chiefly shows how what is defined is built up, how it 
 came to be or how its meaning came to be, — in other 
 words, how the concept of that which is defined came 
 into existence from other concepts already known. 
 
 Any one of these three kinds of definitions may be 
 
DEFINITION 53 
 
 (a) singular or (b) universal, and it may be (a) per- 
 fect or (b) imperfect. 
 
 A definition is Singular when it refers to only one 
 thing, or when a demonstrative may be employed to 
 modify the word naming the thing defined. 
 
 A definition is Universal when it applies to a whole 
 group or class of things. It is much more likely to be 
 inaccurate than is a singular definition. 
 
 A definition is Perfect when in the sentence compos- 
 ing the definition the subject and predicate can be inter- 
 changed without altering the meaning of the sentence. 
 For practical purposes, however, a definition may be 
 considered perfect when anything added to the predicate 
 adds nothing to the essential meaning of the statement. 
 In a world of ideal knowledge, a perfect definition would 
 be one which would be so stated that the thought of it 
 would conform precisely to the object of its thought. 
 
 A definition is Imperfect when the interchange of 
 position of subject and predicate alters the meaning of 
 the statement, or, when additions to the predicate would 
 not merely aid in the apprehension of the meaning but 
 would add to the meaning itself. 
 
 VI 
 
 DEFINITIONS FOE CLASSIFICATION 
 
 1. Favourite, — A mean wretch whose whole business 
 is by any means to please. 
 
 Samuel Johnson. 
 
 2. A classic is properly a book which maintains itself 
 by virtue of that happy coalescence of matter and style. 
 
54 THE METHOD AITD PEACTICE OF EXPOSITION 
 
 that innate and exquisite sympathy between the thought 
 that gives life and the form that consents to every mood 
 of grace and dignity, which can be simple without being 
 vulgar, elevated without being distant, and which is 
 something neither ancient nor modern, always new, and 
 incapable of growing old. 
 
 James Eussell Lowell. 
 
 3. A book is written, not to multiply the voice merely, 
 not to carry it merely, but to perpetuate it. The author 
 has something to say which he perceives to be true and 
 useful, or helpfully beautiful. So far as he knows, no 
 one has yet said it ; so far as he knows, no one else can 
 say it. He is bound to say it, clearly and melodiously 
 if he may; clearly, at all events. In the sum of his 
 life he finds this to be the thing, or group of things, 
 manifest to him ; — this, the piece of true knowledge, 
 or sight, which his share of sunshine and earth has per- 
 mitted him ta seize. He would fain set it down for 
 ever ; engrave it on rock, if he could ; saying, " This is 
 the best of me ; for the rest, I ate, and drank, and slept, 
 loved, and hated, like another; my life was as vapour, 
 and is not ; but this I saw and knew : this, if anything 
 of mine, is worth your memory." That is his " writ- 
 ing " ; it is, in his small human way, and with whatever 
 degree of true inspiration is in him, his inscription, or 
 scripture. That is a " Book." 
 
 John Kuskin. 
 
 4. For fashion in letter-writing, it consists of four 
 things which are qualities of your style, Brevity, Per- 
 spicuity, Vigour, Discretion. Ben Jonson. 
 
DEFINITION 55 
 
 5. What is your life ? It is even as vapour that ap- 
 peareth for a little time, and then vanisheth av^ay. 
 
 Bible. 
 
 6. The Unknowable is not a term of negation em- 
 ployed only to express our ignorance ; but it means that 
 Infinite Reality, that Inscrutable Cause, of which the 
 universe is but a manifestation, and which has an ever 
 present disclosure in human consciousness. 
 
 Heebeet Spencee. 
 
 7. Literature is the autobiography of mankind. 
 
 James Ettssell Lowell. 
 
 8. Cirroteuthidae, — A family of octopod cephalo- 
 pods, represented by the genus Cirroteuthis, with a 
 rather long body, provided with short lateral fins (one 
 on each side) supported by internal cartilage, and arms 
 united nearly to the tip by a broad umbrellar web. 
 
 Centuet Dictionaet. 
 
 9. What, then, constitutes a ISTation . . . ? The 
 elements that go to constitute a Nation are many, and 
 all must be present to form nationality. These ele- 
 ments are: an unchallenged possession of the country 
 from which a people derive their national name ; a com- 
 mon attachment to the political and social system that 
 they have created or that has descended to them; a be- 
 lief in their own strength and invincibility; a common 
 language — one language that is the universal means of 
 communication between the people no matter how 
 widely they are separated, which is alone officially recog- 
 nised in courts and legislatures; a spirit that animates 
 
56 THE METHOD AND PEACTICE OF EXPOSITIOIT 
 
 men to strive for the advancement and higher develop- 
 ment of themselves and their country and to see in such 
 development their owa advantage; a universality of 
 religion that makes religion a matter of conscience be- 
 tween man and man and not under control of the state ; a 
 literature that is truly national, — i.e., that is based on 
 heroic achievement or a struggle in defence of an ideal, 
 or to V7iden an idealistic conception ; a dominant virility 
 that enables people by imposing their own civilisation 
 to absorb and assimilate into themselves aborigines and 
 aliens so that they become a part of, and do not remain 
 apart from, the dominant race ; uniform — it might 
 almost be termed a stereotyped — code of morals and 
 manners ; so that in language as in thought, men find the 
 same forms of expression, and expression finds the same 
 form of action. 
 
 A. Maueice Low. 
 
 10. All style is gesture, the gesture of the miad and 
 of the soul. 
 
 Walter Raleigh. 
 
 11. Colour is a spirit upon things, by which they 
 become expressive to the spirit. 
 
 Walter Patee. 
 
 12. The sovereign poem is a painting of the universe. 
 
 Muzio. 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 The Mind and the Subject 
 
 I 
 
 DISTINGUISHING AND OEGANISING 
 
 We have said that we cause other persons to have 
 approximately the same ideas as we have, signalling to 
 them within their panoramas of experience by means 
 of the symbols which, taken together, we call language. 
 But, we are forced to ask, how do we manage to get our 
 ideas accurately symbolised by means of language ? We 
 do not get them symbolised with perfect accuracy. But 
 we may come very near doing so. The process by which 
 we do so is two-fold. It is a process, first, of distin- 
 guishing, and, second, of organising. 
 
 The power to distinguish is that which sets apart the 
 thinking person from him who does not think. William 
 James has said that the first sensation of the child is a 
 sensation of the universe. Of course the universe in 
 that sensation includes the child itself. After this first 
 sensation comes the distinguishing of the world as some- 
 thing that is not the child's self. The universe, at first 
 " one big, blooming, buzzing confusion," an " undiffer- 
 entiated sensory continuum," at a very early stage has 
 that much of its content distinguished. With the child, 
 
 57 
 
58 THE METHOD AND PEACTICE OF EXPOSITION 
 
 as later with the man, there must be less of falsity in his 
 interpretation of his experience than he can express in 
 any way. In fact, throughout the whole of our lives, 
 we instinctively accord much more importance to ex- 
 perience than to expression as something truthful, 
 simply because it is through accurate interpretation of 
 experience to ourselves rather than to others that we are 
 enabled to obey the primal law of self-preservation. 
 Occasions upon which we find it necessary to employ 
 the means of conveying to others the knowledge which 
 we have acquired are less frequent than the occasions 
 upon which we find it necessary to react to our more 
 self-centred experiences. 
 
 The chief difficulty in the way of organising our 
 ideas in such manner that we may accurately express 
 them for the impression of others, lies in the fact that 
 an idea has, because of the complex growth of our sys- 
 tem of communication, now come to possess at least two 
 aspects. An idea is both (1) a state of mind and (2) 
 a reference to a particular objective experience. If it is 
 considered as a state of mind, then we understand that 
 the idea is largely an individual matter. But if it is a 
 reference to a particular objective experience, then we 
 understand that the idea has a fairly definite meaning 
 which has been accorded to it by convention, through 
 the code of signals, — language. .The power of this code 
 of signals is more far-reaching than we are usually in- 
 clined to think. For example, I may have a state of 
 mind which, if expressed to myself in words, might be 
 in the form of a metaphor, such as " Shakespeare was a 
 man who knew what to leave on the type-writer ribbon." 
 
THE MIND AND THE SUBJECT 59 
 
 Now as a reference to a particular experience intended 
 to be conveyed to others, this form of affirmation would 
 never do; for convention would be sure to set some 
 banal critic, even in this enlightened day, into an uproar 
 against anachronisms, with all sorts of foolish evidence 
 about goose-quills and ink-stands and dates of inven- 
 tions. 
 
 Suppose we have the impulse to convey to others and 
 impress them with what we think an important " state 
 of mind " which we have found to have been enlarging 
 itself in our experience. Perhaps it is a conviction of 
 the superiority of the plays of Shakespeare in certain 
 definite respects over those of the present time, — say, 
 in speed of movement and in arrangement the plays of 
 Shakespeare appear to us to have been produced by one 
 worthy to be called the master of all those who write. 
 The problem would be how best to translate this state 
 of mind into particular references, how best to use the 
 code of signals we call language; how, delicately and 
 yet energetically, by means of that code, to adjust our 
 experience to the experience of others. We have had all 
 sorts of experiences with plays, both Elizabethan and 
 modem. We possess numerous standards of literary 
 and stage criticism, many and varied appreciations of 
 life, all sorts of knowledge of audiences, and the like. 
 How shall all this experience be made into so harmoni- 
 ous and symmetrical a message that it may readily be 
 understood by others? How shall it be so finely ad- 
 justed to the convictions of another that he may give 
 it a reasoned consideration? How shall it be so ener- 
 getically propelled that it may pierce deep into the 
 
60 THE METHOD AND PEACTICE OF EXPOSITION 
 
 consciousness of the reader and, because of the fine ad- 
 justment to his convictions, find permanent lodgment 
 there ? 
 
 Bernard Bosanquet suggests a figure which may aid 
 us in understanding this process of so handling our 
 world experience that its separated yet related parts 
 become fused into one synthetic whole. Suppose we 
 take many pieces of lead and melt them down in a 
 ladle. " At first the pieces lie all about, rigid and out 
 of contact ; but as they begin to be fused, a fluid system 
 is formed in which they give up their rigidity and inde- 
 pendence and enter into the closest possible contact, so 
 that their movements and position determine each 
 other." Such is the case in the matter of all these bits 
 of detached experience gained in connection with 
 Shakespearean and other plays. They are bits, rigid 
 and imrelated excepting in so far as we recognise that 
 they have all come from observation of some system of 
 things which we call our experience of life. Now, just 
 what shall be the process by means of which we may 
 get these bits of experience to give up their rigidity and 
 become fused in to a definite system of relations, a sys- 
 tem in which " their movements and position determine 
 each other " ? I have quoted this clause again in order 
 that the word " determine " may have emphasis. These 
 bits of experience do determine each other, because ex- 
 perience, and language, too, — are vital things ; they 
 have life, and, as Plato teaches in the Phcedrus, they 
 function in an organic system. 
 
 Well, the fact is that we do not know exactly how 
 this fusion is accomplished. After all that psychologi- 
 
THE MIITD AND THE SUBJECT 61 
 
 cal study has discovered no more can be said than that, 
 if the mind attends closely enough (how close " closely 
 enough " is, though, we do not know), to the subject of 
 its thought, somehow the parts of the subject begin to 
 assume their seemingly true place and power in the 
 body of discourse which we call the " treatment " of the 
 subject. The mind is a sort of ladle into which experi- 
 ence has come, bit by bit ; and it is the shaping power of 
 the imagination that is the fire which causes these bits to 
 fuse into one picture or one logical structure. Eemem- 
 ber that it is erroneous to think that the imagination is 
 in its working pictorial only. Occasionally it does flash 
 forth with a light more than that of the common day, 
 in such a formula, for example, as in the lines in which 
 we are told that the daffodil comes before the swallow 
 dares and " takes the winds of March with beauty." 
 But most of us have to abjure such 
 
 "dear wit, and gay rhetoric, 
 That hath so well been taught her dazzling fence"; 
 
 for our imaginations, as a rule, are adapted to setting 
 forth truth in none but " reason's garb," — that is to 
 say, in a structure that is logical in relation to fact as 
 well as in relation to form. 
 
 II 
 
 REQUISITES TO DISTINGUISHING AND OEGANISING 
 
 In order to distinguish elements of experience from 
 each other and in order to organise effectively those ele- 
 
62 THE METHOD AND PEACTICE OF EXPOSITION 
 
 ments when distinguished, it is necessary that a writer 
 have (1) power of concentration, (2) imagination, (3) 
 sympathy with other minds and (4) willingness to take 
 trouble in adapting the work of his mind to the needs 
 and desires of other minds. 
 
 The first of these requisites, the power of concentror 
 Hon: — This power of concentration is of little worth 
 unless there is an adequate and worth-while stimulus 
 from experience to call it into action. Many young 
 writers are too readily discouraged because of the wool- 
 gathering which they find their minds prone to do in- 
 stead of sticking to the subject in hand. The reason for 
 such scattering of attention is generally due to the fact 
 that the writer has not had sufficient experience to enrich 
 the subject in hand, and thus his mind wanders to other 
 subjects and to experiences unrelated to the subject he 
 wishes to write upon. An inexperienced writer is usu- 
 ally one who is not merely inexperienced in the craft of 
 composition, but is inexperienced in life as well. When 
 abundant experience fills the life, there is not often 
 much difficulty in concentrating upon one subject. 
 
 First comes the stimulus from experience, and then 
 comes that attitude of tense expectancy which may best 
 be termed concentration. Many have maintained with 
 Plato (in his dialogue entitled Ion) that the stimulus 
 to concentration upon a subject in any art comes by 
 inspiration. But what inspiration is, beyond being a 
 highly vitalised inward impulse to the act of expression, 
 no one knows. Mr. Alfred Sutro, the play-wright, 
 thinks the impulse to play-making, at least, is not a 
 matter of inspiration. He says, " In play-making there 
 
THE MIND AND THE SUBJECT 63 
 
 is no such thing as inspiration^ A successful play is a 
 question merely of industry and knowledge; Any un- 
 derlying idea it may contain is the result of subconscious 
 forces, of all the things you have observed, and taken in, 
 and digested. It is the utmost blossom of constant 
 endeavour. Every play-wright walks about for weeks, 
 concentrating upon an idea before he gets one. Then 
 suddenly one comes, the direct result of combinations of 
 past experiences. People call that inspiration. It is 
 not." 
 
 Of course, we do not know whether it is or not. Mr. 
 Sutro has not defined inspiration for us. He seems 
 to be quarrelling a little with names ; furthermore, " con- 
 centrating upon an idea before he gets one " isn't the 
 clearest language in all the world, nor, whatever the 
 language may be taken to mean, is it easy to see how such 
 concentrating upon an uncaptured thing can be done. 
 Doubtless, however, " concentration " does designate 
 better than " inspiration " the condition of mind which 
 sets us upon the track of an idea worth the imagination 
 expending its energy upon. Mr. Sutro evidently is at- 
 tempting to describe that attitude of tense expectancy 
 and desire, that attitude of anxious " keyed-up-ness " 
 which we feel when we are searching for a cue ; an atti- 
 tude that ends in the flashing into the mind of an idea, 
 as we call it, meaning by " an idea " a definite state of 
 mind which can be put into a formula. 
 
 Having, by concentration, achieved the capture of an 
 idea, the mind proceeds, now through its imaginative 
 function, to concentrate itself upon the captured idea or 
 subject. We now " attend to the subject," and a tense 
 
64 THE METHOD AND PKACTICE OF EXPOSITION 
 
 attention results in the subject separating itself before 
 the concentrated gaze of the mind into its constituent 
 parts. The subject came as an idea, by the falling to- 
 gether of the ends of many experiences ; it now separates 
 itself into its elements, so that we may select from those 
 elements the ones that are best adapted to our purpose 
 of conveying information or interpretation to others. 
 Samuel Butler in The Way of All Flesh suggests the 
 beginnings of the task of writing as follows : 
 
 He did not understand that if he waited and listened 
 and observed, another idea of some kind would probably 
 occur to him some day, and that the development of this 
 would in its turn suggest still further ones. He did not 
 yet know that the very worst way of getting hold of ideas 
 is to go hunting expressly after them. The way to get 
 them is to study sometliing of which one is fond, and to 
 note down whatever crosses one's mind in reference to it, 
 either during study or relaxation, in a little note-book kept 
 always in the waistcoat pocket. He has come to know all 
 about this now, but it took him a long time to find it out, 
 for this is not the kind of thing that is taught at schools 
 and universities. 
 
 Nor yet did he know that ideas, no less than the liv- 
 ing beings in whose minds they arise, must be begotten by 
 parents not very unlike themselves, the most original still 
 differing but slightly from tlie parents that have given rise 
 to them. Life is like a fungus, everything must grow out 
 of the subject and there must be nothing new. Nor, again, 
 did he see how hard it is to say where one idea ends and 
 another begins, nor yet how closely this is paralleled in 
 the difficulty of saying where a life begins or ends, or an 
 action, or indeed anything, there being a unity in spite of 
 infinite multitude, and an infinite multitude in spite of 
 unity. He thought that ideas came into clever people's 
 
THE MIND AND THE SUBJECT 65 
 
 heads by a kind of spontaneous germination, without par- 
 entage in the thoughts of others or the course of observa- 
 tion; for as yet he believed in genius; of which he well 
 knew he had none, if it was the frenzied thing he thought 
 it was. 
 
 In these- days vrhen the writer is successful only when 
 he engages himself in getting hold of the reader's atten- 
 tion, and absorbing that attention in a pleasing manner, 
 it is necessary that the writer be a man of imagination. 
 The imaginative elements of language are needed to-day 
 to free the mind from the purely mechanical grooves and 
 dogmas of science as much as they were ever before 
 needed to free the mind from mediaeval superstition. 
 The high worth of imaginative presentation is forcefully 
 recognised by some writers of other things than mere 
 literature. A passage from James Anthony Froude's 
 CcBsar is in point — " Irrespective of the direct teach- 
 ing which we may gather from them, particular epochs 
 in history have the charm for us which dramas have — 
 periods when the great actors on the stage of life stand 
 before us with the distinctness with which they appear 
 in the creations of the poet." The historian makes it 
 very evident that the ideal for the recorder of the facts 
 of human history is to make those facts stand out as 
 distinctly as the poet makes his fictions appear. 
 
 But the imagination, as we understand it to-day, is 
 not only the picture-making, not only the metaphor- 
 making power of the mind ; it is also the structure-mak- 
 ing, the building or constructing power of the mind. Of 
 course, to make a picture in words is a constructive act ; 
 it is an act of building. But we mean here that not 
 
66 THE METHOD AND PEACTICE OF EXPOSITION 
 
 only does the work of the imagination consist in conceiv- 
 ing of an analogy, a picture, which will convey the idea 
 in mind, but that this work consists also in putting into 
 form that picture ; that it consists in logically composing 
 the discourse needed to convey the picture and the 
 idea. The imagination is not merely a power that hap- 
 pily furnishes the mind with a sudden pictorial view 
 of an idea or a situation, but it is also a power that 
 labours in furnishing the detail for the adequate, con- 
 crete embodying of that pictorial view. 
 
 The imagination it is that works inductively and de- 
 ductively as well as by sudden flashes of something we 
 call inspiration. In induction the imagination, or 
 structure-making power of the mind, carefully selects 
 each fitting fact of experience, rejecting all those that 
 do not fit into the structure best adapted to the purpose 
 in hand, and fittingly combines all the selected elements 
 into a harmonious, duly proportioned whole which is to 
 convey the one general idea or state of mind which the 
 writer wishes to convey. Of course, the general idea 
 will not find lodgment in the mind of the reader to whom 
 it is transmitted unless that idea is in agreement with 
 the ideas already resident there. 
 
 " There is only one law and only one God 
 For all things under the sun — 
 The sea and the sand, and the wind-blown soul. 
 
 And the God and the law are one. 
 Whatever the law and the God be named 
 
 By beings like you and me, 
 They speak supreme in that cosmic voice 
 Which men call Harmony." ^ 
 1 The Voice, by Albert Bigelow Paine, In Harper's Magazine. 
 
THE MIND AND THE SUBJECT 67 
 
 In deductive reasoning, the structure-making power of 
 the mind begins with the consequence, and works back- 
 wards to its, detailed causes; or, to put it another way, 
 it begins with the general idea and attempts to enlarge 
 that idea by including within it certain selected elements 
 of experience. 
 
 In these processes of induction and deduction, we do 
 not definitely Icnow the exact action of the mind. All 
 we know with much of assurance is, that in both of 
 these processes, the structure-making power of the mind, 
 by means of a concentration which we can feel to be 
 going on, has taken the individual units of experience 
 and has placed them in certain positions in relation to 
 each other, so that at the end of the process the arrange- 
 ment of what is expressed appears to correspond to what 
 we call reality ; and the positions of these units are not 
 interchangeable with any others, — except, occasionally, 
 in the case of a so-called perfect definition. Yet, since 
 so little is known of these processes, the writer's chief 
 concern should be to watch eagerly for the hours when 
 this selecting and arranging power which we term the 
 imagination will do its best work ; and he should assidu- 
 ously cultivate every opportunity which that power 
 seems to demand. 
 
 The activities of the imagination, the picture-conceiv- 
 ing and structure-making power of the mind, when con- 
 centrated upon the subject show themselves in dividing 
 and subdividing the subject into its elements, arranging 
 those elements and making clear each and all of them by 
 appropriate analogies, examples, illustrations, and ap- 
 plications. It is, however, the power of concentration 
 
68 THE METHOD AND PEACTICE OF EXPOSITION 
 
 upon experience which is the fundameiatal requisite. 
 This is the power which causes a definite idea to emerge 
 in relation to some general subject about which, before 
 concentration becomes active, we have been only vaguely 
 uneasy; and it is the power which, through the func- 
 tioning of the imagination, centres itself upon that idea 
 so that the idea or subject expands in the mind into a 
 structural whole with many functional parts, — a struc- 
 tural whole with unity of purpose, unity of form, unity 
 of substance.-' 
 
 Only a little less fundamental than this power of con- 
 centration are these two things: (1) sympathy with 
 other minds, and (2) willingness to tahe the trouble to 
 adapt our experience to other minds, — even those that 
 are unsympathetic. To have sympathy, to take trouble, 
 are the requisites to clearness and interest in writing 
 about a subject which we have mastered. 
 
 We may formulate the whole matter thus: Energy 
 of conception and delicacy in handling the conception; 
 these comprise the whole scope of successful thinking 
 and of successful writing. Or, it may be put another 
 way : Experience, with careful and discriminating ob- 
 servation, with concentrated thinking, then definition, 
 analysis, analogies, illustrations, applications ; these are 
 the elements of a fruitful mental life, and they are the 
 elements of expository writing. 
 
 In analysing thus far the active relation of the mind 
 to the subject, we have not excluded emotion. Sym- 
 pathy with other minds is quite largely an emotional 
 
 1 See page 78 for explanation of these three expressions of 
 unity. 
 
THE MIND AND THE STJBJECT 69 
 
 state. The act of tense expectancy which precedes the 
 capture of the definite subject, will, in certain tempera- 
 ments, arouse the deepest emotions. A discriminating 
 observation, also, often, in finding outlet, is accom- 
 panied by strongly emotional states. The use of anal- 
 ogies and illustrations are not unseldom made more 
 effective by the influences of emotion in their treatment. 
 Writing that is intended to affect the emotional animal 
 man, must be permeated with feeling as well as with 
 intellectual concepts. 
 
 Yet a man may think and feel profoundly and not 
 write clearly and impressively. Thought, feeling, and 
 image are the three things which the shaping power of 
 the imagination needs in order to precipitate an im- 
 perishable crystal. The picturing word, then, is as es- 
 sential to producing literature as are feeling and 
 thought. And fine and meaningful generalisations must 
 not be considered to be alone the content of good exposi- 
 tion. While it is true that in exposition, as a science, 
 the prime object is to reach generalisations, and to reach 
 them clearly, yet the ability to particularise finely on 
 the way to a generalisation is as important as the ability 
 to make the generalisation itself. The ability to con- 
 ceive, and aptly use, analogies, examples, illustrations, — ' 
 the ability to state well the detail leading up to a general- 
 isation, is an ability much to be desired. 
 
 We hear and read a great deal about realism in litera- 
 ture, particularly in fiction, whether prose or poetry. 
 It is demanded of writers of to-day that they shall write 
 so that even Active things shall seem real. Active events 
 seem actual. There should be very much more of de- 
 
70 THE METHOD AND PEACTICE OF EXPOSITION 
 
 mand than there is, that in historical and scientific and 
 philosophic writing, there ought to he greater realistic 
 relating of events and describing of things, much more of 
 accuracy in citing the facts both of human life and of 
 the universe objective to man. We should hear more 
 of realism and actualism in history, in science, in meta- 
 physics and ethics. Kealistic treatment, whether of 
 actual truth or in fiction, is dependent upon the richness 
 of the writer's experience and the sincerity of his treat- 
 ment. The effective handling of a subject is a personal 
 matter. Plato in the Gorgias very pointedly ridiculed 
 the sort of rhetoric that could be analysed in the same 
 fashion as could the fine art of cookery or the art of 
 empirical medicine. But there is a sense in which the 
 highest achievements of literature, fictive or not, are 
 due in large measure to precisely the same sort of thing 
 as are due the greatest triumphs of the " fairy in the 
 kitchen." The secret of the matter, Mr. Henry Arthur 
 Jones reveals in his lecture upon " Delineation of Char- 
 acter in Drama," a secret that is applicable to any sort 
 of writing : — 
 
 Broadly, there are two different ways of painting char- 
 acter in drama, as there are two different ways of painting 
 a portrait — the one is minute, realistic, individual, and 
 aims at scientific exactness ; the other is large, imaginative, 
 inexact ; the one is done by the methods of the photographer, 
 the other is done by the methods of the oil painter; the 
 one is done chiefly from painstaking observation and 
 cataloguing; the other, so far as one can describe the 
 process, is imagined from memory. Of course all great 
 permanent characters are done by a combination of these 
 two methods, but the delineator will lean to one or to the 
 
THE MIND AND THE SUBJECT Yl 
 
 other of them according to his temperament, training, and 
 aspirations. If you ask me what is the secret of success- 
 ful character painting in drama, I am unable to tell you. 
 I suppose it is something akin to the secret of successful 
 cooking. All cooks use much the same ingredients, but 
 they turn out very different dinners. All dramatists deal 
 with the same raw materials of human nature, but they 
 turn out very different human characters. The result in 
 each case depends much upon the training, skill, knowledge, 
 and inspiration of the cook or the dramatist. 
 
 But it depends more largely upon a personal touch, a per- 
 sonal knack. 
 
 It is the personal view of the artist, his individual way 
 of looking at character, that gives its rarest value to a 
 human portrait. 
 
 It is the personal view and the application of personal 
 force that makes a writer's production seem realistic, 
 that is to say, seem sincere, in any field. Realism in a 
 written product is simply the making of the things, 
 whether human beings of ,the author's creation, as in 
 drama, or whatever they may be either in fiction or in 
 writing that is not fiction, act as freely or be as truly 
 in the mind of the reader as they or things like them 
 act and exist in a natural manner in the objective world. 
 
 Ill 
 
 BRIEF STUDIES IN THE EELATION OP MIND TO 
 SUBJECT 
 
 1. Study Thomas Hardy, the novelist. Then see how 
 far you can explain his craftsmanship in fiction-writing 
 
72 THE METHOD AND PEACTICE OF EXPOSITION 
 
 by the training which preceded his becoming an author 
 of fiction. 
 
 2. Account for the kinds of subject-matter chosen by 
 Edgar Allan Poe and by Guy de Maupassant, from a 
 study you make of the temperament of the two writers. 
 
 3. Contrast both the subject-matter and the style of 
 Maurice Hewlett and Eudyard Kipling. Make a care- 
 ful study of the relation of the material and the style to 
 the purpose of each of these authors. 
 
 4. Account for the differences in the writing of Wil- 
 liam James and of Immanuel Kant. 
 
 5. Analyse the effect of readers upon Herbert Spen- 
 cer, upon John Fiske, upon Sir Isaac Newton, upon 
 Thomas Henry Huxley. 
 
 6. Compare the attitude of mind to subject in the 
 case of the biography of Washington written by Jared 
 Sparks and one written by a twentieth century biog- 
 rapher. 
 
 7. Study the Othello of Shakespeare and the Luria of 
 Browning. Why do they differ as plays ? 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 The Methods of Analysis 
 
 I 
 
 COMPOSITIOIT A SIMPLIFYING OF EXPERIENCE 
 
 Analysis assumes something (1) to be traced to its 
 sources, (2) to be related to its kind, (3) to be divided 
 into its parts, (4) to be assigned its values, and (5) 
 to have at least suggested of it what is to be its future 
 importance. 
 
 There is not a great deal of order in actual life ; at 
 least there is not a great deal that is clearly seen to be 
 order, for, although causality rules all life, yet cause 
 and effect are so vast in the complexity of their working 
 that they do not make of life a pattern easily discernible 
 to the human mind. Since, then, in actual life there is 
 not much of clearly perceptible arrangement, and since 
 no writing is good which is not well arranged, good 
 writing, therefore, is an orderly simplifying of ex- 
 perience. 
 
 An exposition, like a description, is not unlike a pic- 
 ture. One of the reasons for the appeal of a picture 
 being greater than the appeal of a real landscape is that 
 the picture is simplified by having been condensed, and 
 thus the mind becomes acquainted with the entire pur- 
 
 73 
 
74 THE METHOD AKD PEACTICE OF EXPOSITIOIT 
 
 pose of the picture at once, while the landscape itself 
 is so extended that the individual objects within it fix 
 the attention first, and only synthesis by the mind can 
 make the unity of the landscape appear. The exposi- 
 tion, like the picture, is the stronger in appeal when it is 
 condensed. The real-estate salesman understands this 
 very well indeed, and by photographic condensation he 
 makes more interesting, spirited, and vitalised his ex- 
 planation of the value of his property. 
 
 So the technical art of writing is the making of an 
 orderly arrangement of experience. Aristotle names 
 two laws of composition: (1) size and (2) arrange- 
 ment, Now the size, that is, the length, of a composi- 
 tion is determined by two things: (a) the nature of 
 the subject of the composition, and (b) the suggestions 
 of attendant circumstances. It is obvious that the na- 
 ture of the subject of militarism in the twentieth cen- 
 tury will require a longer treatment than would be re- 
 quired by such a subject as the uses of a cherry pit. 
 The chief attendant circumstances regulating the length 
 of a composition are, first, the writer's skill, and second, 
 the reader's power of taking suggestion in so far as that 
 power of the reader is known to the writer. 
 
 The unpractised writer should always and vividly 
 bear in mind that it is only the superlative artist who 
 can give himself up to the play of fancy in preference to 
 fixing his attention rigidly upon the subject and to 
 being anxious for the adaptation of his expression of the 
 subject itself to the needs of the reader. One like 
 Shakespeare may follow wilful fancy; and so may 
 Dante, — but even Dante, as he himself says, may follow 
 
THE METHODS OF ANALYSIS 75 
 
 his fancy only after Virgil, his guide and master, has, 
 on the Mount of Purgatory, said to him, — 
 
 I, Virgil, with sTcill and art 
 Thus far have drawn thee. Now thy pleasure take 
 For guide. Thou hast o'ercome the steeper way, 
 O'ercome now the straighter : Thou mayest seat thee down 
 Or wander where thou wilt. Expect no more 
 Sanction of warning voice or sign from me. 
 
 Such liberty, however, comes only after long discipline ; 
 it comes only after technique has become what we call 
 second-nature or habit. 
 
 The arrangement of a composition, also, is determined 
 by the nature of the subject of the composition and by 
 the suggestion of circumstances. The chief circum- 
 stance governing arrangement is that idiosyncrasy of 
 the human mind vehich makes it possible to be best im- 
 pressed by a climactic order. Climactic order is not a 
 mere matter of artifice. It is a characteristic of nature. 
 
 II 
 
 THE EELATIOIT OF DEFINITION TO ANALYSIS 
 
 The chief processes of exposition are, as we have said, 
 Definition and Analysis. Sometimes an exposition may 
 end as soon as a good definition is reached. This is true 
 of imaginative writing as well as of scientific writing. In 
 fact, most of the things that can be said of the one kind 
 of writing may be said of the other as well. It can be 
 easily demonstrated from the history of science that the 
 most vigorous and important scientific writing, the writ- 
 
76 THE METHOD AND PRACTICE OF EXPOSITION 
 
 ing by means of which the greatest generalisations of 
 science have been set forth, is most highly imaginative. 
 Even the so-called practical work of the world is, in its 
 most important aspects, the result of highly imaginative 
 conceptions. The conception of a trans-continental rail- 
 way or of an Isthmian canal or of a world-merger of oil 
 interests, for example, — these are imaginative concep- 
 tions of a high order ; they are poetic in the truest sense 
 of the term, the sense which suggests creation, that 
 which is done by the making or moulding power of the 
 mind. 
 
 Poetry is a thing of God; 
 
 He made his prophets poets, and the more 
 
 We feel of poesy do we become 
 
 Like God in love and power — undermakers. 
 
 Perhaps, however, the importance of the practical imag- 
 inative conceptions is greater than the importance of 
 the conceptions of the poet. At least the conceptions 
 of the practical business man find actual realisation in 
 concrete life. They are worked out. They do not stop 
 at being mere conceptions. 
 
 It is not always true that an exposition may be com- 
 plete enough for practical purposes when a good defini- 
 tion has been reached. It may be that to the trained 
 mind, the mind with a fine critical discernment, the 
 definition " Poetry is the dreams of them that are 
 awake " is sufficient exposition. At least it is likely to 
 furnish food for a vigorous mind's thought. But some 
 definitions need some of their own terms defined; and 
 others need the point of view of their writers explained. 
 
THE METHODS OF ANALYSIS Y7 
 
 Such a definition as " Poetry is the language of a state 
 of crisis " is itself in need of elucidation ; the definition 
 is not of sufficient scope, to many minds, because an 
 exposition of the term " crisis " is needed. The defini- 
 tion that " Poetry is love talking musically " is, to any 
 analytic mind, obviously reached by a process of exclud- 
 ing large fields of verse ; and, therefore, while no specific 
 term in the definition may need explication, yet the 
 writer's point of view does need explication. So also 
 does the writer's point of view need elucidation in a 
 statement such as that of Maeterlinck, — " Man is a God 
 who is afraid." 
 
 The thing named by the term to be defined frequently 
 admits of so much division into parts or kinds that it is 
 not possible to approach compassing a clear exposition 
 in a definition only. Therefore, if a writer expects to 
 rely upon definition only, and not proceed to further 
 analysis, he needs to answer for himself the question, 
 " What is it that we are to define ? " We say that expo- 
 sition is explanation directed to the understanding ; that 
 it is that form of discourse whose purpose it is to make 
 something clear to the understanding. But what is that 
 " something " ? We have already pointed out that it is 
 an idea. It can not be anything else, for the under- 
 standing does not apprehend anything else but ideas. 
 When the dictionaries are said to define words, that ia 
 not a strictly true saying; the dictionaries define ideas 
 which words symbolise. " Machine " as a mere word 
 can mean nothing. " Growth," mere growth, can mean 
 nothing. But " machine " as something adapted to a 
 purpose, — say, the purpose of cutting and binding and 
 
78 THE METHOD AND PRACTICE OF EXPOSITION 
 
 threshing grain ; or " growth " as change of cellular tis- 
 sues, increase of such tissues, movement of cells, and 
 the like, — these things we are prepared to apprehend 
 and understand, because there is something vital, some- 
 thing dynamic, in machine and growth when thought of 
 in such a manner ; for the mind is a vital thing and com- 
 prehends vital things. In the mere word or term, such 
 as " machine," there is not thought, there is only the 
 symbol of a latent thought. The thought becomes ex- 
 plicit only in the phrasing which shows machine to be 
 doing something or to be adapted to the doing of some- 
 thing. Mere words do not explain, only phrases ex- 
 plain ; only they make clear to the intellect. 
 
 An idea is a unit of thought. The symbol of an idea 
 is the unit of speech ; but the symbol of thought is the 
 unit which we call an affirmation. In all exposition we 
 begin with this unit of thought, — namely, an idea to be 
 made clear. Then, when the exposition is completed, a 
 unit is the total result; it is then an idea made clear. 
 Any discourse will have unity if all that is in the dis- 
 course is written concerning the idea to be expounded; 
 that is to say, it will then have unity of substance. If 
 there is in the writing an order of arrangement due to 
 proper gradation of proportion, if there is a thorough 
 harmony of all the parts, then there will be unity of 
 form. If, finally, the discourse, as a whole, has one 
 dominant effect upon the reader, then there will be imity 
 of function. 
 
 Definitions which undertake to explain terms that are 
 difficult are especially in need of analysis. For exam- 
 ple, if we read that " The technical art of poetry is to 
 
THE METHODS OP ANALYSIS 79 
 
 make patterns out of life," we feel at once that this 
 statement is rich with suggestion ; but we feel, too, that 
 every phrase in it is so vague that analysis is positively 
 demanded. To make clear such statements as this one, 
 it is necessary to cite real examples ; to repeat, perhaps, 
 in approximate terms; to give further definition; to 
 analyse the leading terms carefully. 
 
 Ill 
 
 ANALYSIS A MATTER OP DIVISION AND OEDEE 
 
 As a general rule, the first thing done in exposition 
 is to state the leading idea in the form of a definition. 
 Then, if the definition does not seem convincing, we 
 proceed to analysis. 
 
 In the analysis of a subject, the details of the compo- 
 sition and the order of these details are determined 
 primarily by the subject. Of course, the peculiar cir- 
 cumstances of some unusual condition of mind in the 
 reader whom the writer assumes, may require ordering 
 of the writing in such way as the subject itself might 
 not naturally suggest. 
 
 The relation to each other of the subject and the dis- 
 course concerning the subject is not a mechanical rela- 
 tion. It is rather like, at least, a biological relation. 
 The composition grows from the idea as a plant from a 
 seed. Of course, also, the idea has first come from 
 experience as a seed from a plant. An idea is ex- 
 plained fully only when its origin^ its present hearing. 
 
80 THE METHOD AND PEACTICE OF EXPOSITION 
 
 and its possible future development, are made clear to 
 the intellect of the reader. 
 
 Let us take an example. Suppose we should desire to 
 explain the place which oratory has attained among the 
 arts. 
 
 Well, whence comes our seed-idea that oratory has a 
 place among the arts ? We must first he sure that ora- 
 tory is one of the arts. We might assume, simply as- 
 sume, that it is, and then go on from this assumption as 
 if it were the seed from which our plant shall grow. 
 But, unless we know the origin of the idea that oratory 
 has a place among the arts, the whole matter of its place 
 will not he clear, to some readers. 
 
 Hence, we first inquire at the source from which all 
 the arts have arisen, — man's instinctive powers. But 
 we face assumptions even here, unless we are willing to 
 go into very exhaustive anthropological research. But, 
 since that research has already heen pretty well done, 
 we should remain satisfied with proceeding from the 
 conclusions already reached by anthropologists — never 
 forgetting, however, that even the anthropologist him- 
 self has proceeded upon assumptions. The man who 
 asks for reasoning based upon no assumptions whatever, 
 asks an impossible thing. All reasoning, even that from 
 the most rigid observation and experience, is based upon 
 no less than two assumptions, back of which no one can 
 go. These two assumptions are, first, that the world 
 observed is an intelligible world, and, second, that the 
 mind observing it is capable of interpreting that in- 
 telligible world. These two assumptions, likewise, are 
 worthless unless we make a third correlative assumption, 
 
THE METHODS OF ANALYSIS 81 
 
 namely, that our sensory organs report to the mind, in 
 an accurate fashion, their experience of the world. In 
 other words, all reasoning is based upon a general as- 
 sumption that the world and the individual are akin. 
 The man, philosopher or any one else, who talks of re- 
 jecting all assumptions, all pre^conceptions, — or what- 
 ever it is he likes to call them, — does not talk sanely. 
 All reasoning is based upon some measure of faith. 
 Faith and reason are not opposed. Reasoning itself is 
 an act of faith. " It is an act of faith to assert that our 
 thoughts have any relation to reality at all." We can- 
 not prove that they have any relation to reality. We 
 take it on faith, we take it for granted that they have 
 such a relation. 
 
 Well, in the matter of the place of oratory among the 
 arts, we assume that the anthropologist is correct in re- 
 porting to us that the arts result from the merging of 
 certain primitive, free, spontaneous physical activities 
 with certain more or less conscious imitative activities, 
 and, in some cases, as in architecture, that they merge 
 with certain activities whose motive is not mere imita- 
 tion, but utility. These spontaneous physical activities, 
 the anthropologist reports, are at first wholly unre- 
 strained ; such activities as the movements of the limbs 
 or of the vocal organs. But soon these activities begin 
 to be slightly restrained by some relatively conscious 
 principle of order, such as harmony, resulting in meas- 
 ure, rhythm, proportion, composition, etc. These now 
 harmonious activities become imitative of other activi- 
 ties seen and heard; and dance, or song, or measured 
 speech results. Lyric song, and dramatic performances. 
 
82 THE METHOD AND PEACTICE OF EXPOSITION 
 
 also painting of the body and other forms of decoration, 
 occur ; convenient places are erected in which to perform 
 these now increasingly artistic activities. From the 
 emotional gestures, from imitative and otherwise ex- 
 pressive sounds, there results, when under the control of 
 the principles of order and utility, the oratory of the 
 pulpit, of the platform, and of the stage. 
 
 In its origin, then, oratory may be traced to the same 
 sources as the other arts ; and in its early development, 
 as well as in its ultimate source, oratory is controlled by 
 the same principles and motives as are all the other arts 
 in their early development. 
 
 But to discover the exact status or place of oratory 
 among the arts, we should have to place an estimate upon 
 the relative values of the physical, mental, and imita- 
 tive instincts, the utilitarian motives, and all the rest, 
 and find out which of these is or are more or less posi- 
 tively the source of and influencing power in oratory. 
 We should have also to trace the history of the arts, in 
 order to see the separation of oratory from the other arts. 
 We should have to make, too, a tentative estimate of the 
 probable future values of each of the arts, including 
 oratory, because the present status of anything is 
 judged partly by its future possibilities; and we could 
 not tell the future possibilities of oratory in its place 
 among the arts without knowing something of their 
 future possibilities also. Definitions would be emerg- 
 ing at every step ; definitions of oratorv', of art, of imi- 
 tation, of instinct, of utility, of value, and of many other 
 things. 
 
 Furthermore, we should constantly be dividing our 
 
THE METHODS OP ANALYSIS 83 
 
 subject according now to one and then to another prin- 
 ciple of division, as occasion would demand. For ex- 
 ample, we should divide art into the various arts, classi- 
 fying them and placing them in a scale of values. We 
 should divide oratory, according to the time principle, 
 into primitive, ancient, mediseval, modern; according 
 to the principle of purpose, into judicial, pulpit, occa- 
 sional, etc. We might even divide oratory according to 
 a geographical principle; or a racial principle. There 
 would be oriental, and occidental oratory. There would 
 be Greek, Roman, German, French, British, American, 
 perhaps. We might have cross divisions, such as a divi- 
 sion of each of the racial expressions of oratory on the 
 basis of kind of purpose, of degree of intelligence, of 
 emotion, of artificiality — all of which things may be 
 displayed in speech-making. All of these divisions, and 
 possibly many more, would have direct bearing upon the 
 relation of this art to all other arts, because each art 
 has its varying expressions in each one of the fields of 
 division which we have suggested. All the arts have 
 developed in epochs, all vary with geographical distri- 
 bution of peoples, all have their racial expressions, all 
 are at times controlled by definite purposes, all are in- 
 tellectual and emotional; and, too frequently, all are 
 injured by mere artistry and artificiality. 
 
 Behold, now, what a great plant our seed has grown 
 to be ! The fruit of it all will be a conclusion as to the 
 precise place occupied at the present time, or, perhaps, 
 to be occupied, among the arts, by the art of oratory. 
 
 The utimate purpose of analysis is to cause us to un- 
 derstand the whole which is taken apart. Analysis 
 
84 THE METHOD AND PRACTICE OF EXPOSITION 
 
 starts with something synthetic and ends with a better 
 understanding of the synthesis. The difference between 
 analysis and synthesis is easily seen by taking a simple 
 instance in the medium of language itself. An in- 
 flected language has terms which when their meanings 
 appear in another and analytical language are broken 
 into many parts. The Latin language is an inflected 
 language, and the Latin term fuissem in English, an 
 analytical tongue, is " I should have been," which is 
 simply an analysis of the synthesis fuissem. Each of 
 tlie different notions taken out by analysis from the con- 
 glomerate Latin whole is expressed in English by a 
 different term. 
 
 The distinction often made between the division and 
 the partition of a subject is a forced distinction, and 
 need not specially concern a writer or student. The one 
 term, division, is sufficient for every purpose to which 
 either of the two terms is ever put. We may divide the 
 larger subject of which our chosen subject is a part; as 
 an example, we may desire to write of militarism in 
 America, and may first take ocasion to divide militarism 
 itself into German, British, Russian, Erench, and Amer- 
 ican. Then we may divide American militarism into 
 its temporal parts, — eighteenth, nineteenth, and twenti- 
 eth century militarism in America, it may be. To call 
 the first dividing " partition " and the second one " di- 
 vision " is pedantic, nothing more. 
 
 The principle of division we shall now discuss at 
 length, illustrating it somewhat copiously. The student 
 should carefully apply the methods to the selections in 
 Chapter VIII. 
 
THE METHODS OF AIJAL.YSIS 85 
 
 IV 
 
 DIVISION IW EXPOSITOET WEITING 
 
 A scientific division is one in which whole and parts 
 can be seen to be equal and interchangeable. But such 
 exhaustiveness of division is unnecessary in most writ- 
 ing. To divide always with scientific minuteness would 
 often be equivalent to questioning the reader's intelli- 
 gence. For instance, if one were to write of the po- 
 litical geography of the United States, he would be 
 expected to undertake to make completely exhaustive 
 divisions of at least certain aspects of the subject. 
 Such an aspect would be the consideration of the terri- 
 tory for the administration of government; it would 
 have to be divided into state, county, township, city, 
 ward, into judicial circuits, jtidicial districts, and so on. 
 But if one were to write of the relation which geography 
 bore to politics during the decade 1900-1909, an ex- 
 haustive statement of all phases of relationship would 
 not be required; townships, for example, throughout 
 the length and breadth of the land, as townships had 
 little influence upon political affairs of a nation-wide 
 character during those few years of our history. 
 
 The length to which division will be carried depends 
 partly upon the possibilities of the subject, but even 
 more upon the circumstances attendant upon the time of 
 writing ; such circumstances as the point of view chosen 
 by the writer, and the infonnation of the readers ad- 
 dressed. Obviously, though, a scientific process, such as 
 the preparation of some delicate or dangerous chemical 
 
86 THE METHOD AND PEACTICE OF EXPOSITION 
 
 experiment or surgical operation, especially when writ- 
 ten up for purposes of instruction, must be analysed 
 until tbe various steps are presented in all their com- 
 pleteness; the division in such a case must be exhaust- 
 ive, or the purpose of the exposition may be completely 
 defeated. Death might follow an attempt to repeat the 
 experiment or the operation by one who had not had 
 fully presented to him every step of the process. 
 
 There are a few general subjects which, for full treat- 
 ment, do not require much more space and time and in- 
 formation than are possible to the average writer. 
 Hence the necessity for narrowing the subject to an 
 available theme. The writer must learn that the same 
 problems which face investigation itself face also the re- 
 porting of investigation, no matter what the subject may 
 be, whether it is the condition of the soil or humanity's 
 thought upon the problem of immortality. The his- 
 tories of science and of literature are a revelation of the 
 ever-growing recognition that one individual should take 
 only a relatively small segment of the whole subject de- 
 manding treatment, if he would handle it well. For 
 example, Lowell was interested in the general subject of 
 Credulity. He began an essay thus : 
 
 Credulity, as a mental and moral phenomenon, mani- 
 fests itself in widely different ways, according as it chances 
 to be the daughter of fancy or of terror. The one lies 
 warm about the heart as Folklore, fills moonlit dells with 
 dancing fairies, sets out a meal for the Brownie, hears 
 the tinkle of airy bridle-bells as Tamlane rides away with 
 the Queen of Dreams, changes Pluto and Proserpine into 
 Oberon and Titania, and makes friends with unseen pow- 
 ers as Good Folk; the other is a bird of night, whose 
 
THE METHODS OF ANALYSIS 87 
 
 shadow sends a chill among the roots of the hair; it sucks 
 with the vampire, gorges with the ghoul, is choked by the 
 night-hag, pines away under the witch's charm, and com- 
 mits uncleanness with the embodied Principle of Evil, 
 giving up the fair realm of innocent belief to a murky 
 throng from the slums and stews of the debauched brain. 
 Both have vanished from among educated men, and such 
 superstition as comes to the surface nowadays is the harm- 
 less Jacobitism of sentiment, pleasing itself with a fic- 
 tion all the more because there is no exacting reality be- 
 hind it to impose a duty or demand a sacrifice. And as 
 Jacobitism survived the Stuarts, so this has outlived the 
 dynasty to which it professes an after-dinner allegiance. 
 It nails a horseshoe over the door, but keeps a rattle by its 
 bedside to summon a more substantial watchman; it hangs 
 a crape on the beehive to get a taste of ideal sweetness, but 
 obeys the teaching of the latest bee-book for material and 
 marketable honey. This is the assthetic variety of the 
 malady, or rather, perhaps, it is only the old complaint 
 robbed of all its pain, and lapped in waking dreams by the 
 narcotism of an age of science. To the world at large it is 
 not undelightful to see the poetical instincts of friends and 
 neighbours finding some other vent than that of verse. 
 But there has been a superstition of very difEerent fibre, of 
 more intense and practical validity, the deformed child of 
 faith, peopling the midnight of the mind with fearful 
 shapes and phrenetic suggestions, a monstrous brood of its 
 own begetting, and making even good men ferocious in 
 imagined self-defence. 
 
 It is apparent that the subject of ceedttlity is get- 
 ting quite large m the author's view, so that after a few 
 more pages of analysis of the general subject, Lowell 
 turns his attention back to " the deformed child of 
 faith," and then gives seventy pages to the development 
 of the sub-subject of " Witcberaft " and, as it happens, 
 
88 THE METHOD AND PEACTICE OF EXPOSITIOM' 
 
 Witchcraft turns out at last to be the title of the Es- 
 say. 
 
 Professor Kuno Francke follows the same method in 
 an article in the Atlantic Monthly for March, 1907. 
 He divides the history of a nation into two main parts, 
 " civilisation " and " culture," proceeding then to define 
 " national civilisation " and " national culture." Ifext 
 he shows the relationship, in a few specific ways, of 
 civilisation and culture to one another. The Study of 
 National Culture soon emerges as the real suhject of his 
 article. 
 
 Occasionally a writer becomes impressed at the 
 close of his work, more perhaps than at the beginning, 
 with the relation of his subject to some larger, more 
 inclusive subject, and so at the end of his article he pre- 
 sents the process of division. Walter Pater's Essay on 
 Style closes in this manner, — " Given the conditions I 
 have tried to explain as constituting good art ; — then, 
 if it be devoted further to the increase of men's happi- 
 ness, to the redemption of the oppressed, or the enlarge- 
 ment of our sympathies with each other, or to such pre- 
 sentment of old or new truth about ourselves and our 
 relation to the world as may ennoble and fortify UB in 
 our sojourn here, or, immediately, as with Dante, to the 
 glory of God, it will be also great art ; if, over and above 
 those qualities I summed up as mind and soul — that 
 colour and mystic perfume, and that reasonable struc- 
 ture — it has something of the soul of humanity in it, 
 and finds its logical, its architectural place in the great 
 structure of human life." The author has been con- 
 cerned ia his essay with the subject of good art, but at 
 
THE METHODS OF ANALYSIS 89 
 
 the end he opens up for a momentary gaze the larger, 
 inclusive field of great art. 
 
 Doubtless the most full and detailed in his divisions 
 of all vpriters whom we call " literary " rather than 
 merely scientific, is Kuskin, whom Mazzini, the great 
 Italian patriot, characterised as " the most analytic 
 mind in Europe." To illustrate from one of his com- 
 pletely detailed analyses would occupy too much space. 
 A brief passage from his lecture on Work, in which 
 division is carried but a little way, will illustrate the 
 simplicity of his method, if not its fulness. After 
 dividing men into the idle and the industrious, with the 
 expectation of writing concerning the industrious only 
 (the same soi't of method illustrated above from Lowell 
 and Kuno Francke), he goes farther and forecasts the 
 plan of his lecture by subdividing the industrious. He 
 
 " These separations we will study, and the laws of 
 them, among energetic men only, who, whether they 
 work or whether they play, put their strength into the 
 work, and their strength into the game ; being in the full 
 sense of the word ' industrious,' one way or another — 
 with a purpose or without. And these distinctions are 
 mainly four : — 
 
 " I. Between those who work and those who play. 
 
 " II. Between those who produce the means of life 
 and those who consume them. 
 
 " III. Between those who work with the head, and 
 those who work with the hand. 
 
 " IV. Between those who work wisely, and those who 
 work foolishly. 
 
90 THE METHOD AND PRACTICE OF EXPOSITIOK 
 
 " For easier memory, let us say we are going to op- 
 pose, in our examination : — 
 
 " I. Work to play. 
 
 " II. Production to consumption. 
 
 " III. Head to hand ; and 
 
 " IV. Sense to nonsense." 
 
 Ruskin is so impressed with the value of division, 
 that when, later, he has completed the treatment of 
 one head of discourse, he explicitly indicates to the 
 reader that he is now to pass to another. One sentence 
 will suffice to illustrate such transitional indication: 
 " I pass now to our third condition of separation, be- 
 tween the men who work with the hand and those who 
 work with the head." 
 
 It is rarely necessary to furnish the reader with an 
 outline apart from the text. Yet no test is so effective 
 as that of an expository outline, for indicating or for 
 determining the unity and coherent structure of a piece 
 of discourse. A good illustration of the furnishing of 
 an outline as the text proceeds is to be found in Chap- 
 ter XII of Masson's Life of De Quincey, in the " Eng- 
 lish Men of Letters " series. That chapter will reward 
 careful study by the student anxious to master a clear 
 analytical method. 
 
 The simplest and best method of notation in making 
 an expository outline is the following, varied to meet 
 the needs of compression or expansion. 
 
 A writer will rarely find it needful to carry subdivi- 
 sions beyond five or six points. If he carries it to evcE 
 that length he is likely to be refining his thought too far. 
 
THE METHODS OF ANALYSIS 91 
 
 I. V. 
 
 II. A. 
 A. B. 
 
 III. C. 
 
 A. D. 
 
 B. 1. 
 1. 2. 
 
 IV. 3. 
 
 A. a. 
 
 B. b. 
 
 C. c. 
 
 1. (1). 
 
 2. p). 
 
 a. (a). 
 
 (b). 
 etc., etc., etc. 
 
 If it becomes necessary to go farther, x, y, and 
 other simple symbols may be employed. One should 
 not attempt to reproduce in the outline every small 
 point in the body of the discourse, unless he is sure 
 the reader would be likely to be misled by any omis- 
 sions. Professor Thomdike finds fifteen ideas in four 
 sentences from Hawthorne. If one attempted with 
 such meaty discourse as that, to state each point or idea 
 in all that is outlined, the outline would be merely a 
 reproduction or a paraphrase of that which is being 
 outlined. 
 
 An example of outlining which, while it by no means 
 covers all the points involved, is sufficient to suggest 
 quite fully and accurately the content of that which is 
 analysed, and one which contains, also, such vital ma- 
 terial that it should induce any reader of culture to be 
 
92 THE METHOD AND PEACTICE OF EXPOSITIOBT 
 
 eager to read the epoch-making book which supplies the 
 material for the outline, is the following analysis of 
 Chapter V of a translation of The Introduction to 
 Hegel's Philosophy of Fine Art. It should be noted 
 that the thought to be made clear in this chapter is that 
 the arts are differentiated from each other by the char- 
 acter of the relationship which each art shows to exist 
 between (1) the absolute Idea, or thought, and (2) the 
 concrete sensuous media employed to represent thought 
 to consciousness. 
 
 Here is the outline of the chapter mentioned : ^ 
 
 I. General conditions of artistic presentation. 
 
 A. The content (idea to be presented). 
 
 1. Must be worthy. 
 
 a. Must submit to plasticity. 
 
 b. Must be appropriate to the form chosen. 
 
 2. Must not be a mere abstraction of the under- 
 
 standing. 
 
 B. The sensuous form for embodiment of the idea 
 
 must be 
 1. Concrete. 
 
 3. Unified. 
 
 II. The beautiful in art is attained when there is present 
 and active 
 
 A. The truly concrete idea. 
 
 B. A plastic mould completely adequate to the idea. 
 
 1 It should be said here that an expository outline differs from 
 an argumentative brief in that the argumentative brief is in the 
 form of sentences throughout, each sentence standing in a for or 
 because relation to the statement that it is intended to follow as 
 its proof, whereas in the expository outline no such order or rela- 
 tionship need be employed; the two differ also in that the argu- 
 mentative outline or brief follows the exact order of the argument 
 briefed, while in exposition the order of the outline docs not of 
 necessity follow with such exactness the order of the material 
 outlined, — though it usually does so. 
 
THE METHODS OF Al^ALYSIS 93 
 
 C. Individual skilfulness in the adaptation of the out- 
 ward shape and the idea to each other. 
 
 III. The particular modes of art. 
 
 A. Symbolic. 
 
 B. Classical. 
 
 C. Eomantic. 
 
 IV. The several arts. 
 
 A. Architecture 
 
 B. Sculpture. 
 
 C. Eomantic arts, comprising, 
 
 1. Painting. 
 
 2. Music. 
 
 3. Poetry, 
 v. Conclusion. 
 
 A. The particular arts constitute a totality, made up of 
 
 1. The external art of architecture. 
 
 2. The objective art of sculpture. 
 
 3. The subjective arts of painting, music, and 
 
 poetry. 
 
 4. Of these, poetry is conformable to the symbolic, 
 
 the classical, and the romantic types of 
 the beautiful ; though it is chiefly romantic, 
 because of the fuller presence of the artis- 
 tic imagination in romantic art. 
 
 B. The spirit of beauty awakening to self-knowledge 
 
 is the architect and builder of this totality. 
 
 C. The evolution of the ages is necessary to complete 
 
 the full self-unfolding of the Idea of 
 beauty. 
 
 It is sometimes desirable in an outline or plan to shov? 
 a quite formal relation of part to part in the composition 
 analysed. Occasionally we hear some censure or ridi- 
 cule of the old formal divisions into Introduction, De- 
 velopment, and Conclusion, We are told that we should 
 
94 THE METHOD AND PEACTICE OF EXPOSITION 
 
 "begin at the beginning" and even begin in medias 
 res, and that when we are through we should stop ; that, 
 in other words, such things as introductions and conclu- 
 sions are superfluous. This is all clever enough; and 
 not seldom needful to say as a corrective of the habit of 
 writing too extended an introduction, such an intro- 
 duction as is evidently only sparring for an opening, and 
 as a corrective of the habit of writing a conclusion which 
 is artificial and quite obviously " tacked on " because 
 the writer does not know how to quit. But an adroit be- 
 ginning and a convincing end are much to be desired. 
 Webster's Reply to Eayne may have had no formal in- 
 troduction in itself; but it needed none, for Hayne's 
 own speech had introduced Webster's reply before Web- 
 ster rose to his feet. As to conclusions, the average 
 reader resents being abruptly dismissed; he prefers at 
 least a concluding sentence which, like a pat on the 
 back, will make him feel that now the writer and he 
 have come to a definite understanding. 
 
 While outlining of prose is calmly accepted as helpful 
 to the understanding of it, it is a curious fact that many 
 readers suppose that poetry cannot or does not con- 
 tain any such quality as logical excellence. No doubt 
 it is this supposition that makes most attempts to ex- 
 hibit plan in poetry such dismal failures as they are. 
 The person who attempts the outline usually has fear 
 rather than enthusiasm for his task. But in poetry 
 which touches prosaic subjects, or abstruse matter, or 
 which treats such a complex as contemporary life, some 
 definite method, some logical procedure, is indispensable 
 for clearness' sake. And to be able to follow the plan 
 
THE METHODS OF ANALYSIS 95 
 
 of the logical development is not infrequently that which 
 alone can make the poem as a whole either clear or at- 
 tractive. Walter Pater in the essay on Style says, 
 " To find in the poem, amid the flowers, the allusions, 
 the mixed perspectives, of ' Lycidas,' for instance, the 
 thought, the logical steuctuee — how wholesome ! 
 how delightful! as to identify in prose what we call 
 poetry, the imaginative power, — not treating it as out 
 of place and a kind of vagrant intruder, but by way 
 of an estimate of its rights, that is, of its achieved 
 powers, there." 
 
 A lover of Milton ^ appreciatively writes, " Milton's 
 two poems ' L'Allegro ' and ' II Penseroso ' lend them- 
 selves to a peculiarly interesting analysis. 'So better 
 evidence could be produced of the care a great artist 
 gives to this feature of his work. The fact of two 
 structures just alike emphasises the point. With a 
 powerful imagination so teeming with poetical ideas 
 that his words are pictures in themselves, with a rich 
 musical ear which teaches melody and movement to his 
 numbers, he saw fit to shape as vehicles for his thought a 
 carefully articulated plan with subdivisions in one place 
 five degrees deep. Here are two Introductions. The 
 first ten lines introduce an apostrophe. This, in itself, 
 is a complete whole of three parts and a theme. The 
 co-ordinate ideas in the skeleton almost force them- 
 selves into parallel phrases. In these poems, also, is 
 illustration of the fact that analysis aids in understand- 
 ing and enjoyment ; for a highly cultivated mind is re- 
 quired to appreciate them without it, and only a dull and 
 insensible one fails to enjoy them with it." 
 1 Harriet Noble. 
 
96 THE METHOD AND PEACTICE OF EXPOSITION 
 
 The statement that only a dull and insensible mind 
 fails to enjoy these poems without analysis may meet 
 with objections; but it is less exaggerated, some will 
 think, than the statement that a highly cultivated mind 
 is required to appreciate them without conscious analy- 
 sis. 
 
 Below is a plan of " L' Allegro. " It will be under- 
 stood that the word " Subject " in connection with the 
 Development refers to the underlying idea, the thought, 
 which vitalises and gives interest to the composition. 
 
 Lines 
 
 1-10.. I. INTEODUCTION. Dismissal of Melan- 
 choly. 
 11-150.. II. DEVELOPMENT. Subject: An apos- 
 trophe to Mirth. 
 
 11- 24 A. Invocation to Mirth. 
 
 25-150 B. Recommendations of Mirth. 
 
 25-40 1. Companions of Mirth: Jest, 
 
 Jollity, and others including 
 Liberty and Me. 
 
 41-150 2. Delights Mirth may afford. 
 
 41-116.... a. Rural. 
 
 41-68.. (1) Morning. 
 
 (a) From the uindow: 
 lark, cock, chase. 
 
 (b) From the lawn: 
 sunrise ; plough- 
 man, milkmaid, 
 mower, shepherd. 
 
 69- 90.. (2) Mid-day. 
 
 (a) Landscape: lawns, 
 fallows, mountains, 
 meadows, brooks, 
 castles, cottages. 
 
THE METHODS OP ANALYSIS 97 
 
 Lines 91-116.. (3) Evening. 
 
 (a) Out-of-doors: the 
 hamlet dance. 
 
 (b) In-doors: ale; tales 
 of fairy and goblin. 
 
 117-134.... b. Civic. 
 
 (1) Pageants; tilts, wed- 
 dings, other functions. 
 
 (2) Drama: Jonson's and 
 Shakespeare's comedies. 
 
 135-150 .... c. Constant Music : Lydian airs. 
 
 151-153. .III. COKCLUSION. A Condition, and a Ee- 
 solve. 
 
 Such an outline is an exposition of the poem; such 
 an analysis is not an analysis of only the form of the 
 composition, it is an analysis of its substance as well. 
 It is of great value to a reader. If one has read the 
 " L' Allegro " in an absentminded fashion, perhaps only 
 ■wishing that he might appreciate the little masterpiece, 
 since he has heard that others delight in it; if he has 
 made his own mind hazy in the reading because of 
 having approached the poem with the notion that it was 
 something profound, perhaps even metaphysical; if 
 little or nothing but an occasional pictorial phrase has 
 attracted and held his attention, — let him outline the 
 poem in such manner as above, and he will find the 
 poem simplicity itself, he will read it another time 
 with more strongly arrested attention, sharper interest, 
 and a keener intelligence. 
 
 Ee-telling in paraphrase form the story of a piece of 
 prose fiction is but a faint exposition of it; the para- 
 phrase may, in fact, obscure the original. But analys- 
 
98 THE METHOD AND PKACTICE OF EXPOSITION 
 
 ing the course of the movement of its plot and tracing 
 the relationships of its sub-plots to each other and to the 
 main plot, are distinctly expository in their effect. A 
 graph of the story of May Sinclair's The Divine Fire, 
 for example, will make the course of the plot much 
 more clear than will a casual reading alone. A 
 " Character Scheme," by means of drawings, of George 
 Eliot's Romola would furnish an exposition of the main 
 currents that carry along the events and the careful 
 development of human relationships in that remarkable 
 book. Such forms of analysis of the book a student is 
 reading, will afford most fascinating exercise and pro- 
 vide excellent disciplinary training for his own creative 
 writing. 
 
 Enough has been said to emphasise sufficiently the 
 value of an expository plan both in the composition and 
 in the study of literature. And we need not apologise 
 for the attention we are here giving to form. The his- 
 torian and the scientist who so often remark that they 
 are all for substance are, as a rule, the most careful, — 
 especially the scientist, — and the most exacting of all 
 men in requiring and living up to the demands of spe- 
 cific form. Would it be going too far if we should cite 
 a geographer to illustrate the vitality of form? This 
 geographer says, " The water in waves only rises and 
 falls, like waves in a swinging rope, but the wave- 
 forms travel forward." Well, of course, forms do not 
 travel. Then, as for imagination, the scientific geog- 
 rapher gives way at every turn to the use of even fanci- 
 ful imagery. He says, " The earth has no head, nor 
 peg, but it spins like a top. . . . We may think of a 
 
THE METHODS OF ANALYSIS 99 
 
 line in the earth like the axis of the top. It is called 
 the axis of the earth." What more fanciful than that 
 in any metaphysical romance or in most romantic meta- 
 physics! How can one think of a line in the earth 
 like the axis of a top ? What is the axis of a top, any- 
 way ? Then, too, many a Philistine who has ridiculed 
 Milton for making the Attendant Spirit in Comus say 
 " I was all ear," has with all the kow-towing in the 
 world read Huxley's description of the intellect as " a 
 clear, cold, logic engine, with all its parts of equal 
 strength, and in smooth working order." The scientist 
 surely is not less fanciful than the poet, for the mind is 
 neither clear, cold, nor logical, nor is it an engine. 
 
 Furthermore, we need make no apology for giving 
 space to prose fiction and to verse, for in them resides 
 the permanent literature of the world. " The siege of 
 Troy will be remembered when those of Vicksburg and, 
 Paris are forgotten," for it is the poets who 
 
 . . . cover us with counsel to defend us 
 From storms without; they polish us within 
 With learning, knowledge, and disciplines ; 
 All that is nought and vicious they sweep from us 
 Like dust and cobwebs ; our rooms concealed • 
 Hang with the costliest hangings 'bout the walls. 
 Emblems and beauteous symbols pictured round. 
 
 Thomas Hetwood. 
 
 What the precise order of the material employed in 
 the development of the ideas of the exposition shall be, 
 is best determined by the demand for clearness as the 
 writer proceeds with his analysis. The principle of 
 order will be more fully discussed in a succeeding chap- 
 
100 THE METHOD AND PEACTICE OF EXPOSITION 
 
 ter, as one of the elements of style in exposition. 
 Suffice it to say here that what will, at any stage or place 
 in the progress of the discussion best aid in the final 
 thorough-going clearness of the subject discussed, is 
 that which should be employed at that stage. This 
 must be determined by the writer himself. The suc- 
 cess of all literature depends upon the impression made 
 upon the reader; yet since it is seldom possible to con- 
 sult with the reader before or during the process of 
 writing, the writer must, by his own dramatic sense, 
 which is the sense that enables him to put himself in 
 another's place, decide what order will make the desired 
 impression. It is easy to see the ruinous effect of bad 
 order in single sentence. A newspaper reporter writes 
 that " The Kev. C. S. Blank will give the last of his 
 series of talks on American Life as seen by the novelists 
 at the Congregational Church, — the book for review is 
 The Jungle." A student writes of Poe that " His 
 figure acquires outline and edge from its contrast with 
 the prevailing Philistine screen which he kept behind." 
 The first sentence may easily be taken to mean any one 
 of three things, and as for the second, while we no 
 longer object to a writer using a preposition to end a 
 sentence with, yet we do wonder whether Poe was be- 
 hind the screen or the screen behind him. The disas- 
 trous effect of wrong order is not so quickly discernible 
 in a lengthy composition ; but that fact merely makes 
 its ruinous effect all the more subtly worse. Bad order 
 comes from bad thinking. " Language most shows the 
 man," says Ben Jonson. " Speak, that I may see 
 thee. It springs out of the most retired and inmost 
 
THE METHODS OF ANALYSIS 101 
 
 parts of us, and is the image of the parent of it, the 
 mind. No glass renders a man's form or likeness as 
 true as his speech. Nay, it is likened to a man ; and as 
 we consider feature and composition in a man, so words 
 in language; in the greatness, aptness, sound structure, 
 and harmony of it." 
 
 y 
 
 THE THKEE KINDS OF SUMMAEY 
 
 The work of a summary is synthetic. Outlines are 
 rarely provided with the briefer forms of exposition, 
 such as articles, essays, etc., but summaries are often 
 supplied. The outline is indispensable, almost, to the 
 writer himself, and the summary is as indispensable, 
 if not more so, to the reader. An outline helps to con- 
 struct, or synthesise, by analysing; the summary is an- 
 alytical, too, though, being brief, appears to be di- 
 rectly synthetic. 
 
 Summaries are of three kinds: (1) the anticipatory 
 summary, or pre-view; (2) the transitional summary; 
 and (3) the concluding summary, or re-view. 
 
 !More commonly than not to-day, the introduction to 
 an exposition consists of an anticipatory summary of 
 what is to follow in the development or discussion of 
 the theme. But such a formal method as the using of 
 an anticipatory summary in introducing a piece of dis- 
 course must be handled carefully. Quintilian, in his 
 Institutes of Oratory, remarks that a faulty proem may 
 have the effect of a scarred face as an introduction ; and 
 
102 THE METHOD AND PEACTICE OF EXPOSITION 
 
 that that man will certainly be reckoned a very bad 
 helmsman who lets his ship strike in going out of the 
 harbour. A practised speaker was once asked by a 
 solicitous younger one what he should do to attract the 
 attention of his audience at the outset. " Give 'em 
 something to attend to," was the brusque reply. And 
 the reply was correct. But an introduction must do 
 something else besides attracting attention; it must tell 
 truth. Like a title, an introduction is a sort of adver- 
 tisement. If the advertisement is unattractive, the 
 reader can hardly be expected to go on to give his at- 
 tention to that to which the introduction has been at- 
 tempting to direct his further attention and interest 
 And the introduction, especially if it is in the form of 
 an anticipatory summary, must also tell the truth, as 
 well as attract the attention, for if it does not tell the 
 truth, the writer will come to grief long before the end 
 of his discourse is reached by the reader. 
 
 An anticipatory summary may be very effective and 
 yet be very informal. It is safer, however, to be formal. 
 The following four summaries occur in introductions, 
 and no doubt are equally effective to the readers for 
 whom each is intended. 
 
 The first summary is from Huxley. In one of his 
 lectures, after stating his title as " The Relation of 
 Physiological Science to Other Branches of Knowl- 
 edge," and after a few words of personal explanation, 
 he proceeds to say, — 
 
 " Regarding Physiological Science, then, in its wid- 
 est sense, as the equivalent of Biology, the Science of 
 Individual Life, we have to consider in succession : 
 
THE METHODS OF ANALYSIS 103 
 
 " 1. Its position and scope as a branch of knowledge. 
 
 " 2. Its value as a means of discipline. 
 
 " 3. Its worth as practical information. 
 
 " 4. At what period ilj may best be made a branch of 
 education." 
 
 A second summary is from Stopford Brooke's Eng- 
 lish Literature^ — the opening paragraph of Chapter 
 VIII — 
 
 " The Elements and Forms of the New Poetry." — 
 The poetry we are now to study may be divided into 
 two periods. The first dates from about the middle of 
 Pope's Life, and closes with the publication of Cowper's 
 Task, 1785 ; the second begins with the ' Task ' and 
 closes in 1832. The influence of the poetry of the past 
 lasted; new elements were added to poetry, and new 
 forms of it took shape. There was a change also in the 
 style and in the subject of poetry. Under these heads 
 I shall bring together the various poetical works of this 
 period." 
 
 A third anticipatory summary is from W. D. Eich- 
 ardson, who opens his article on " The Chemist in the 
 Industries " in volume 27 of Science as follows, — 
 
 " As I see it, the chemist may be useful in the manu- 
 facturing industries in four different ways : 
 
 " 1. In the buying and selling of materials according 
 to analysis. 
 
 " 2. In the chemical control of manufacturing opera- 
 tions by analysing raw, intermediate, and final products. 
 
 " 3. In a consulting capacity, interpreting chemical 
 processes, terms, and operations to the administrative 
 heads of the business. 
 
104 THE MiTTHOD AND PEACTICE OF EXPOSITION 
 
 " 4. In the improvement of plant and processes, in- 
 eluding the working up of by-products, cheapening of 
 operations, and turning of low-grade products into high- 
 grade ones. 
 
 " I shall take up these four different lines of work, 
 one after another, somewhat in detail. 
 
 " First — The buying and selling of materials ac- 
 cording to analysis . . . etc., etc., etc." 
 
 Mr. Richardson's introduction is a most excellent 
 example of an introduction devoted exclusively to an 
 anticipatory summary, and it will be observed that he 
 has no hesitation whatever about repeating his ma- 
 terial, for the sake of an unmistakable clearness. 
 
 The informal summary mentioned above is the open- 
 ing of A. C. Bradley's great work on Shakespearean 
 Tragedy. It is as follows: 
 
 " In these lectures I propose to consider the four 
 principal tragedies of Shakespeare from a single point 
 of view. Nothing will be said of Shakespeare's place 
 in the history of either English literature or of the 
 drama in general. No attempt will be made to com- 
 pare him with other writers. I shall leave untouched, 
 or merely glanced at, questions regarding his life and 
 character, the development of his genius and art, the 
 genuineness, sources, texts, interrelations of his various 
 works. Even what may be called, in a restricted sense, 
 the ' poetry ' of the four tragedies — the beauties of 
 style, diction, versification — I shall pass by in silence. 
 Our one object will be what, again in a restricted sense, 
 may be called dramatic appreciation: to increase our 
 understanding and enjoyment of these works as 
 
THE METHODS OF ANALYSIS 105 
 
 dramas; to learn to apprehend the action and some of 
 the personages of each with a somewhat greater truth 
 and intensity, so that they may assume in our imagina- 
 tion a shape a little less unlike the shape they wore in 
 the imagination of their creator. For this end all those 
 studies that were mentioned just now, of literary his- 
 tory and the like, are useful and even in various degree 
 necessary. But an overt pursuit of them is not neces- 
 sary here, nor is any one of them so indispensable to 
 our object as that close familiarity with the plays, that 
 native strength and justice of perception, and that 
 habit of reading with an eager mind, which make many 
 an unscholarly lover of Shakespeare a far better critic 
 than many a Shakespeare scholar." 
 
 It is easily seen what the writer proposes to omit, and 
 at least four times in this one passage we are told in a 
 summary way precisely what the author will do in the 
 book that follows. 
 
 The work of a transitional summary is not, as it is 
 often the fashion to say of connectives, to link together 
 adjacent parts. Good discourse is not like a train of 
 cars. It is the work of a transitional summary to weld, 
 if it cannot be to make to grow together, parts of the 
 discourse. Perhaps no portion of the composition 
 comes more nearly to being entirely furnished by the 
 subject itself than the transitional summary. Tlsually 
 it contains a brief outline of what has preceded and of 
 what is to follow;- A fairly good summary occurs on 
 page 40 of Mr. Bradley's book, though it does not fully 
 cover what has preceded. It is as follows: 
 
 " Having discussed the substance of a Shakespearean 
 
106 THE METHOD AND PBACTICE OP EXPOSITION 
 
 tragedy, we should naturally go on to examine the 
 form. And under this head many things might be in- 
 cluded, for example, Shakespeare's methods of charac- 
 terisation, his language, his versification, the construc- 
 tion of his plots. I intend, however, to speak only of 
 the last of these subjects, which has been somewhat 
 neglected, and, as construction is a more or less techni- 
 cal matter, I shall add some general remarks on Shake- 
 speare as an artist." 
 
 This passage employs a generalisation to sum up 
 what has gone before; it also outlines what is in the 
 writer's thought but is not to go down in full on paper; 
 and it divides into two parts what actually is to follow. 
 
 The lover of beautiful phraseology has little chance 
 for display in the compressed work of a summary. 
 Such pompous beauty as in Shakespeare's 
 
 " Upon the beached verge of the salt flood, who once a day 
 With his embossed froth the turbulent surge doth cover," 
 
 or such pictures as Marlowe's 
 
 " Sometimes a lovely boy in Dian's shape, 
 With hair that gilds the water as it glides. 
 Shall bathe him in a spring," 
 
 we do not find in the summaries of even a Burke or a 
 Macaulay, fond of fine diction as they were. Yet there 
 is no essential reason why the writer of exposition, even 
 in his summarising passages, should not employ the 
 most attractive diction and phraseology, that aptness will 
 permit. There is no really good reason why Hamlet's 
 delicate phrase " the modesty of nature " should not 
 
THE METHODS OF ANALYSIS 107 
 
 have occurred to a botanist or a geographer; it would 
 not only have adorned but would have added to the 
 serviceableness of his prose. Exposition does afford 
 less opportunity for the divine delightfulness of poetic 
 diction than description does; yet a transitional sum- 
 mary may well illustrate the line of Barabbas, the Jew 
 of Malta, — 
 
 " Infinite riches in a little room." 
 
 A skilful concluding summary is a sort of subtle com- 
 pliment to the synthetic power of the mind of the 
 reader, in that it assures the reader that he has been 
 able to grasp the substance of the discourse as it has 
 proceeded. Alfred Eussell Wallace concludes a bril- 
 liant discussion of " The Importance of Dust " as fol- 
 lows: 
 
 Let us now briefly summarise what we owe to the univer- 
 sality of dust, and especially to that most finely divided 
 portion of it which is constantly present in the atmosphere 
 up to the height of many miles. First of all it gives us 
 the pure blue of the sky, one of the most exquisitely beauti- 
 ful colours in nature. It gives us also the glories of the 
 sunset and the sunrise, and all those brilliant hues seen in 
 high mountain regions. Half of the beauty of the world 
 would vanish with the absence of dust. But, what is far 
 more important than the colour of the sky and beauty of the 
 sunset, dust gives us also diffused daylight, or skylight, that 
 most equable, and soothing, and useful, of all illuminating 
 agencies. Without dust the sky would appear absolutely 
 black, and the stars would be visible even at noonday. The 
 sky itself would therefore give us no light. We should 
 have bright glaring sunlight or intensely dark shadows, 
 with hardly any half tones. From this cause alone the 
 
108 THE METHOD AND PBACTICE OF EXPOSITION 
 
 world would be so totally different from what it is that all 
 vegetable and animal life would probably have developed 
 into very different forms, and even our own organisation 
 would have been modified in order that we might enjoy life 
 in a world of such harsh and violent contrasts. 
 
 In our houses we should have little light except when 
 the sun shone directly into them, and even then every spot 
 out of its direct rays would be completely dark, except for 
 light reflected from the walls. It would be necessary to 
 have windows all round and the walls all white; and on 
 the north side of every house a high white wall would have 
 to be built to reflect the light and prevent that side from 
 being in total darkness. Even then we should have to Uve 
 in a perpetual glare, or shut out the sun altogether and use 
 artificial light as being a far superior article. 
 
 Much more important would be the effects of a dust-free 
 atmosphere in banishing clouds, or mist, or the "gentle 
 rain of heaven," and in giving us in their place perpetual 
 sunshine, desert lowlands, and mountains devastated by un- 
 ceasing floods and raging torrents, so as, apparently, to 
 render all life on earth impossible. {The Wonderful Cen- 
 tury, Chapter IX.) 
 
 Obviously, the business of an anticipatory summary 
 is to tell the reader vphat is going to be done ; that of a 
 transitional summary is not only to tell what has been 
 done and what is to be done, but also to weld these two 
 in such way that the reader shall get an impression that 
 composition is an organic structure; and, finally, the 
 business of a concluding summary is to synthesise all 
 that has been done and, by the subtle compliment we 
 have mentioned, to help insure acceptance of the truth 
 of the idea or ideas made clear by the exposition as a 
 whole. 
 
 Perhaps the second of the two following sentences 
 
THE METHODS OF AJSTALTSIS 109 
 
 from a section of Richard T. Ely's Monopolies and 
 Trusts will form an aptly practical conclusion of the 
 points in this discussion of analysis. " As our first 
 step in the discussion of monopolies is the definition of 
 monopoly, so the second step is the classification of 
 monopolies, with an examination of their causes. What 
 we need here as elsewhere in the scientific and popular 
 discussions of economic prohlems is analysis, for the 
 tendency in discussions of both kinds is to generalise 
 too hastily." 
 
 VI 
 
 ANAITTICAL EXERCISES 
 
 1. Make an outline of Milton's " II Penseroso," after 
 the manner of the outline of the " L' Allegro " in this 
 chapter. Show how the outline is a test of the logical 
 nature of the construction of the poem. Point out the 
 effect of this logical structure upon the clearness of the 
 pictures in the poem ; also upon the thought that Milton 
 wishes to convey. 
 
 2. Consult section II of Chapter II of Freytag's 
 Technique of the Drama (McEwan's translation), and 
 then analyse the structure of a five-act, a four-act, and 
 of a three-act drama; for example, Shakespeare's 
 Othello; Brieux's The Bed Bohej and Galsworthy's 
 Strife. 
 
 3. Read Poe's essay on The Philosophy of Composi- 
 tion. Apply the principles of that essay to Poe's story 
 of Ligeia. 
 
 4. Make a graph for each of the following named 
 
110 THE METHOD AND PEACTICE OF EXPOSITION 
 
 short-stories, showing the form of the plot in each case : 
 A Problem of Life, by Bjomson; The Struggle for 
 Life, by Aldrich; A Sisterly Scheme, by Bunner. 
 
 5. By means of a drawing, test the accuracy of Poe's 
 description of " Landor's Cottage " and its surround- 
 ings. 
 
 6. Examine the method of tracing the emotional line 
 in story as suggested on page 39 of Whitcomb's The 
 Study of A Novel. Trace the line of emotion through 
 a short story by Maupassant, by Hardy, by Poe, or by 
 Tolstoi. 
 
 7. Head a group of one-act plays, such as those in J. 
 M. Barrie's Half-Hours, Lord Dunsany's Five Plays, 
 or Eden Phillpotts' CurtairtrRaisers, and then compare 
 the method of the one-act play with that of the drama 
 of more than one act and with that of the short-story. 
 
 8. It has been said of Bronson Howard, the Ameri- 
 can playwright, that " his manner of work was method 
 itself. He never wrote a line of dialogue until he had 
 established the action of his play so soundly upon its 
 feet that it could be told in pantomime. He said that 
 he seldom put pen to paper for the first three months of 
 preparing a play. He had a system of charts drawn 
 upon cards of about six by four inches, and on each of 
 these cards was elaborated a series of squares much like 
 a chess-board, each card representing a scene of a play. 
 Upon these little-chess boards, Mr. Howard worked 
 about his characters until all of them knew their places. 
 Then he was ready to write dialogues and put words 
 into the mouths of his characters. It generally took 
 him two years to produce a play." Test a favourite 
 
THE METHODS OF ANALYSIS 111 
 
 printed play by means of this device ; or, put in action 
 by this device a group of characters for a play, — one 
 act will do, — of your own. creation. 
 
 9. Apply to Hawthorne's The Marble Faun the 
 method suggested in the following quotation from 
 Henry James: 
 
 " I remember that in sketching my project (The AwTc- 
 ward Age) I drew on a sheet of paper . . . the neat figure 
 of a circle consisting of a number of small rounds disposed 
 at equal distances about a central object. The central 
 object was my situation, to which the thing would owe its 
 title, and the small rounds represented so many distinct 
 lamps, as I liked to call them, the function of each of which 
 would be to light with all due intensity one of its aspects. 
 . . . Each of my ' lamps ' would be the light of a ' single 
 social occasion ' in the history and intercourse of the charac- 
 ters concerned, and would bring out to the full the latent 
 colour of the scene in question, and cause it to illustrate, 
 to the last drop, its bearing on my theme." 
 
 10. Study The Honourable Mr. Tawnish, by Jef- 
 fery Famol, Madonna of the Peach Tree by Maurice 
 Hewlett, and other novelettes. How does the novel- 
 ette differ in construction from the novel and from the 
 short-story ? 
 
 11. Take a text-book in political economy or in po- 
 litical science which does not outline its separate chap- 
 ters and make outlines of three chapters after the 
 method employed in Burch and hearing's Elements of 
 Economics. 
 
 12. After you have written your next expository 
 essay, look carefully at the diagrams in Kavana and 
 Beatty's Composition and Rhetoric, pages 285 to 289 
 
112 THE METHOD AND PEAOTICE OF EXPOSITION 
 
 and pages 335, 342, and 347. Analyse the paragraphs 
 of your essay by means of diagrams similar to those 
 shown upon those pages. 
 
 13. Make an outline of a proposed essay upon " Ideal 
 Commonwealths " or one upon " South American 
 Cities." Is your material arranged as the laws of as- 
 sociation in logic would require — the laws of con- 
 tiguity, of similarity and contrast, of cause and effect ? 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 Style in Exposition 
 
 I 
 
 CONCEETENESS 
 
 " For a man to write well, there are required three 
 necessaries — to read the best authors, observe the best 
 speakers, and much exercise of his own style. In 
 Style, to consider what ought to be written, and after 
 what manner, he must first think and excogitate his 
 matter, then choose his words, and examine the weight 
 of either. Then take care, in placing and ranking both 
 matter and words, that the composition be comely ; and 
 to do this with diligence and often." 
 
 " The brief style is that which expresseth much in 
 little; the concise style, which expresseth not enough 
 but leaves something to be understood ; the abrupt style, 
 which hath many breaches, and doth not seem to end but 
 fall. The congruent and harmonious fitting of parts in 
 a sentence hath almost the fastening and force of knit- 
 ting and connection; as in stones well squared, which 
 will rise string a great way without mortar." (Ben 
 Jonson, Discoveries.) 
 
 Huxley says in one of his letters, " The fact is that I 
 have a great love and a great respect for my native 
 tongue and take great pains to use it properly. Some- 
 
 113 
 
114 THE METHOD AND PEACTICE OF EXPOSITION 
 
 times I write essays half a dozen times before I can 
 get them into proper shape, and I believe I become 
 more fastidious as I grow older." Probably no author 
 ever wrote more clearly upon difficult subjects than 
 Huxley has written. The writings of Huxley are clear 
 because he never hesitated to do for the reader what the 
 reader would find it too difficult or too time-consuming 
 to do for himself. Few people really think except in 
 concrete terms ; but Huxley practically never permitted 
 a generalisation of his to stand without its being trans- 
 lated by himself into concreteness. If we examine his 
 essay upon " The Method of Scientific Investigation," 
 we find that literally every paragraph of it contains 
 what he terms " some familiar example." The first 
 paragraph illustrates the differences between the mental 
 operations of a man of science and those of an ordinary 
 person, by comparing the weighing upon the scales of a 
 tradesman vsdth the analysis by means of the chemist's 
 balance and finely graduated weights. The second par- 
 agraph begins, " You will understand this better, per- 
 haps, if I give you some familiar example." The third 
 paragraph opens, " There is a well-known incident in 
 one of Moliere's plays." The fourth paragraph like- 
 wise opens, " A very trivial circumstance will serve to 
 exemplify this." The fifth paragraph employs again 
 and again the illustration already used in the fourth. 
 In the sixth paragraph, the fourth sentence begins, " For 
 instance, etc." The seventh paragraph is transitional 
 and refers to the examples previously given, as " proof." 
 The opening sentence of the eighth paragraph is, — " I 
 want to put the case clearly before you, and I will 
 
STYLE IN EXPOSITION 115 
 
 therefore show you what I mean by another familiar 
 example." The familiar example of this paragraph is 
 carried on through the ninth and tenth; and in the 
 eleventh we have a new turn to the same example. The 
 twelfth paragraph begins, " Now, in this supposititious 
 case, I have taken phenomena of a very common kind, in 
 order that you might see what are the different steps in 
 an ordinary process of reasoning, if you will only take 
 the trouble to analyse it carefully." This paragraph 
 later refers to Newton and Laplace, and talks of 
 " flaws " and " cracks " in hypotheses of daily life. 
 The final paragraph has imbedded in its centre the sen- 
 tence " A man may say, if he likes, that the moon is 
 made of green cheese; that is an hypothesis." 
 
 Is not this perfectly clear, that in every turn and 
 phase of thought Huxley is constantly concrete? 
 
 Again, taking up a little volume of selections under 
 the general title of Little Masterpieces of Science: 
 Mind, and opening it wholly at random, on page 145, 
 near the close of the essay on " Common Sense," whose 
 author is William Boyd Carpenter, M.D., one reads, 
 " Of this we have a good illustration in the advice 
 which an eminent and experienced judge (the story is 
 told of Lord Mansfield), etc." Turning over one page, 
 one reads, " If we examine, for instance, etc." Plac- 
 ing the little book flat upon my table t find it opens at 
 page 77 ; and beginning at the point on which the eye 
 first falls, I read the following from the concluding 
 paragraph of Francis Galton's " Twins, Their History 
 as a Criterion of the Eelative Powers of Nature and 
 Nurture," — 
 
116 THE METHOD AND PRACTICE OP EXPOSITIOIT 
 
 But experience is often fallacious in ascribing great effects 
 to trifling circumstances. Many a person has amused him- 
 self with throwing bits of stick into a tiny brook and watch- 
 ing their progress ; how they are arrested, first by one chance 
 obstacle, then by another; and again, how their onward 
 course is facilitated by a combination of circumstances. 
 He might ascribe much importance to each of these events, 
 and think how largely the destiny of the stick has been 
 governed by a series of trifling accidents. Nevertheless all 
 the sticks succeed in passing down the current, and they 
 travel, in the long run, at nearly the same rate. So it is 
 with life in respect to the several accidents which seem to 
 have had a great effect upon our careers. The one element, 
 which varies in different individuals, but is constant in each 
 of them, is the natural tendency ; it corresponds to the cur- 
 rent in the stream, and invariably asserts itself, . . . etc., 
 etc." 
 
 It is plain that concreteness is one of the qualities 
 of style by means of which the scientist attains his end. 
 
 Sir Francis Bacon reports that " Mr. Saville was 
 asked by my lord of Essex his opinion touching poets, 
 who answered my Lord : ' He thought them the best 
 writers, next to those that write prose ! ' " And Sir 
 Francis Bacon, together with all other competent judges, 
 believed that the best and the greatest literature is best 
 and greatest not alone because of the scientific informa- 
 tion it conveys, nor only because of the guidance and sus- 
 taining power it affords to life, but because, also, of its 
 artistic, or stylistic qualities. In addition to the qual- 
 ity of concreteness there are three other chief qualities 
 of style, namely, order, tone, and diction. We have 
 now briefly discussed the quality of concreteness. After 
 a writer has accumulated the concrete material with 
 
STYLE IN EXPOSITION 117 
 
 which he proposes to develop and illustrate his idea, or 
 group of ideas, he will then proceed to think of the order 
 in which this material may best be arranged. 
 
 II 
 
 OEDEE 
 
 In the preceding chapter, in connection with the 
 methods of division, much emphasis was placed upon 
 the value of distinct and clear evidence of specific de- 
 sign in the plan of an exposition, the purpose of this 
 specific design being to exhibit the proportions of nat- 
 ural symmetry. Order is a matter of much more than 
 mere technique; it is the general method, or form. 
 When we speak of technique we have in mind the grasp 
 of the intellect upon all details of expression ; but when 
 we speak of form, or formal order, we have in mind the 
 result of the movement or direction of the theme as a 
 whole. Order, far more than diction even, illustrates 
 sharply the quality of mind which Thomas Hobbes 
 characterised as "bite." Style is often spoken of as 
 personal expression, and is akin to inspiration. But 
 while the aspect of style we call order does spring from 
 a certain disposition of mind, it is a disposition of mind 
 which does not come from without but depends upon 
 one's self. Style in the aspect of order is, as Buffon 
 explained, the principle of order inherent in a man's 
 mind' and exhibiting itself in his discourse; in that 
 sense alone, to Buffon, style is the man himseK. " A 
 man with no sense for order is without style." A most 
 
118 THE METHOD AKD PEACTICE OF EXPOSITIOIT 
 
 sensible proposition ; sensible, for it is order that, stow- 
 ing itself in the projecting of plan, distinguishes the 
 civilised man from the savage. 
 
 We owe a vast deal of this element of style to our lit- 
 erary inheritance, — more, no doubtj than we are likely 
 to admit readily. We owe our over-formality in great 
 measure to that inheritance. For example, the tradi- 
 tional division under three heads has excellent sanction 
 from the past. In the oration for the Manilian Law, 
 Cicero insists, " You must choose a general ; you must 
 choose an able general; you must choose Cneius Pom- 
 peius." Mediaeval literature was largely monkish, and, 
 doubtless, the mediaeval preachers desired to honour the 
 Trinity in their three-fold divisions ; at least, they said 
 they did. Perhaps the Aristotelian law of beginning, 
 middle, and end, too, was thought by them to be impera- 
 tive in the body of discourse as marking actual divisions. 
 Certainly a sense of completeness is given by dividing 
 into three parts, and perhaps a psychological climactic se- 
 quence. It seems logical, also, for it suggests the syllo- 
 gism. Yet " three heads, like a sermon " was ridiculed 
 as early as the seventeenth century by La Bruyere, the 
 author of Les Caraderes. 
 
 But men have become more and more impressed, 
 whether consciously or not, with the force of the truth 
 uttered by M. BufFon, and have come to recognise quite 
 freely that if style is fundamentally a matter of personal- 
 ity, this aspect of it, order, cannot always be adequately 
 exhibited by means of any traditional number of 
 " heads." A sincerely written explanation will have its 
 divisions and their order determined by what is in the 
 
STYLE IN EXPOSITION 119 
 
 writer's mind concerning the subject and by the relative 
 values of the parts of that which is in his mind. Obtru- 
 sive minuteness will rarely have style, for such minute- 
 ness belongs to the subject in itself and can but seldom 
 find natural lodgment in the mind of man ; therefore its 
 expression will usually be artificial, trumped-up. And 
 style is never " mere expression." What happened to 
 the Cheshire cat was that it became mere expression. 
 
 The mind of Huxley was in some rather high degree 
 a sort of logic machine; and yet his style shows large- 
 ness and generous freedom rather than obtrusive mi- 
 nuteness. While reading him we are impressed as 
 much with the belief that he has imposed an order upon 
 his subjects as that he has shov^n the order which exists 
 in those subjects. For we feel that he somehow has 
 taken refractory nature and made her plastic in his 
 hands, and that when he is through with his treatment 
 of her she is more orderly than before — and doubtless 
 this is the actual fact. It is this really artistic treat- 
 ment, this humanising of nature, that makes his scien- 
 tific expositions the most noteworthy of his century. 
 
 Ill 
 
 TONE 
 
 However, there are readers to whom a style even 
 more free than Huxley's is best adapted — a style which 
 has not scientific exactness and interest, but rather the 
 appearance of scientific exactness, combined with en- 
 tertainment. Such a style, pleasing for the orderliness 
 
120 THE METHOD AND PEACTICE OF EXPOSITIOK' 
 
 of procedure in the handling of the material, and sug- 
 gesting to the general reader that he is gaining both sci- 
 entific information and much enjoyment, is exempli- 
 fied in C. M. Flandrau'a explanation of the prepara- 
 tion of coffee, cited from his Viva Mexico : ^ 
 
 Beyond the fact that you " Don't take sugar, thank you," 
 and like to have the cream poured in first, do you know 
 anything about coffee? Did you know that the pretty 
 fussy trees (they are really more like large shrubs) won't 
 grow in the sun and won't grow in the shade, but have to be 
 given companionship in the form of other trees that, high 
 above them, permit just enough and not too much sunshine 
 to filter mildly in? And that unless you twist off the 
 berries in a persuasive, almost gentle fashion, you so hurt 
 their feelings that in the spring they may refuse to flower ? 
 And that the branches are so brittle that they have a way 
 of crackling off from the weight of their own crop? And 
 that wherever there is coffee there is also a tough, graceful 
 little vine about as thick as a telegraph wire, which, if left 
 uncut, winds itself around and around the tree, finally 
 strangling it to death as a snake strangles a rabbit? 
 
 When I see the brown hands of the pickers fluttering like 
 nimble birds among the branches, and think of the eight 
 different processes to which the little berries must be sub- 
 jected before they can become a drinkable coffee, I often 
 wonder how and by whom their secret was wrested from 
 them. Was it an accident like the original whitening of 
 sugar, when — so we used to be told — a chicken with clay 
 on its feet ran over a mound of crude, brown crystals ? Or 
 did a dejected Arabian, having heard all his life that (hke 
 the tomato of our grandmothers) it was a deadly thing, 
 attempt by drinking it to assuage forever a hopeless passion 
 for some bulbul of the desert, and find himself not dead, 
 but waking? A careless woman drops a bottle of bluing 
 
 1 Published by D. Appleton and Company. 
 
STTILE IBT EXPOSITION 121 
 
 into a vat of wood pulp and lo ! for the first time we have 
 coloured writing paper. But no one ever inadvertently 
 picked, dispulped, fermented, washed, dried, hulled, roasted, 
 ground, and boiled coffee, and unless most of these things 
 are done to it, it is of no possible use. 
 
 After the coffee is picked it is brought home in sacks, 
 measured, and run through the dispulper, a machine that 
 removes the tough, red, outer skin. Every berry (except 
 the pea berry — a freak) is composed of two beans, and 
 these are covered with a sweet slimy substance known as 
 "honey," which has to ferment and rot before the beans 
 may be washed. Washing simply removes the honey and 
 those pieces of the outer skin that have escaped the teeth 
 of the machine and flowed from the front end where they 
 weren't wanted. Four or five changes of water are made 
 in the course of the operation, and toward the last, when 
 the rotted honey has been washed away, leaving the beans 
 hard and clean in their coverings of parchment, one of the 
 men takes off his trousers, rolls up his drawers, and, knee 
 deep in the heavy mixture of coffee and water, drags his 
 feet as rapidly as he can around the cement washing tank 
 until the whole mass is in motion with a swirling eddy in 
 the centre. Into the eddy gravitate all the impurities — 
 the foreign substances — the dead leaves and twigs and 
 unwelcome hulls, and when they all seem to be there, the 
 man deftly scoops them up with his hands and tosses them 
 over the side. Then, if it be a fine hot day, the soggy mass 
 is shovelled on the asoleadero (literally, the sunning place), 
 an immense sloping platform covered with smooth cement, 
 and there it is spread out to dry while men in their bare 
 feet constantly turn it over with wooden hoes in order that 
 the beans may receive the sun equally on all sides. 
 
 It sounds simple, and if one numbered among one's 
 employes a Joshua who would command the sun to stand 
 still when one wished it to, it doubtless would be. But no 
 matter how much coffee there may be spread out on the 
 
122 THE METHOD AND PEACTICE OF EXPOSITION 
 
 asoleadero, the sun not only loses its force at a certain hour 
 and then inconsiderately sets, — it sometimes refuses for 
 weeks at a time to show itself at all. During these dreary 
 eternities the half -dried coffee is stowed away in sacks or, 
 when it is too wet to dispose of in this manner without 
 danger of moulding, it is heaped up in ridges on the 
 asoleadero and covered. When it rains, work of all kinds 
 in connection with the coffee necessarily ceases. The dryers 
 cannot dry and the pickers cannot pick. Even when it is 
 not actually raining, the pickers won't go out if the trees 
 are still wet. For the water from the shaken branches 
 chills and stiffens their bloodless hands and soaks through 
 their cotton clothes to the skin. If one's plantation and 
 one's annual crop are large enough to justify the expense, 
 one may defy the sun by investing in what is known as a 
 secadero — a machine for drying coffee by artificial heat. 
 But I haven't arrived at one of these two-thousand-dollar 
 sun scorners — yet. 
 
 That is as far as I go — I pick it, dispulp it, wash it, dry 
 it, and sell it. But while the first four of these per- 
 formances sometimes bid fair to worry me into my grave 
 before my prime, and the fourth is at least of vital im- 
 portance, as the flavour of coffee may certainly be marred, 
 if not made, in the drying, they are but the prelude to 
 what is eventually done to it before you critically sup it 
 and declare it to be good or bad. Women and children 
 pick it over by hand, separating it into different classes; 
 it is then run through one machine that divests it of its 
 parchment covering; another, with the uncanny precision 
 of mindless things, gropes for beans that happen to be of 
 exactly the same shape, wonderfully finds them, and drops 
 them into their respective places ; while at the same time it 
 is throwing out every bean that either nature or the dis- 
 pulping machine has in the slightest degree mutilated. The 
 sensitiveness and apperception of this iron and wooden box 
 far exceed my own. Often I am unable to see the differ- 
 
STYLE IN EXPOSITION 123 
 
 ence between the beans it has chosen to disgorge into one 
 sack and the beans it has relegated to another — to feel the 
 ■justice of its irrevocable decisions. But they are always 
 just, and every bean it drops into the defective sack will be 
 found, upon examination, to be defective. Then there is 
 still another machine for polishing the bean — rubbing off 
 the delicate tissue-paper membrane that covers it inside of 
 the parchment. This process does not affect the flavour. 
 In fact, nothing affects the flavour of coffee after it has once 
 been dried; but the separation and polishing give it what 
 is known to the trade as " style." And in the trade there 
 is as much poppy-cock about coffee as there is about wines 
 and cigars. When you telephone to your grocer for a mix- 
 ture of Mocha and Java, do you by any chance imagine that 
 you are going to receive coffee from Arabia and the Dutch 
 islands ? What you do receive, the coffee kings alone know. 
 There are, I have been told, a few sacks of real Mocha in the 
 United States, just as there are a few Vandykes and Hol- 
 beins ; but if you are very lucky indeed, the Mocha in your 
 mixture will have been grown in Mexico. 
 
 Is there any other quality than its concreteness and 
 orderliness to which this selection owes its interest? 
 Anything else to which it is indebted for its attractive- 
 ness ? In addition to its concreteness and its order, and 
 to the fact that its background is what to us is a some- 
 what mysterious country, the interest and attractiveness 
 are due also to tone. It is a tone of familiarity; fa- 
 miliarity with both subject-matter and the reader. The 
 familiarity is that of friendliness, a sort of personal in- 
 timacy, — not mere acquaintance, assuredly not indif- 
 ference. 
 
 We should object to this familiarity in certain writ- 
 ers and in the development of certain kinds of sub- 
 
124 THE METHOD AND PEACTICB OF EXPOSITION 
 
 jeets by any writer. We require of a writer, in certain 
 connections, that his tone shall be one of dispassionate 
 acquaintanceship; we require that dispassionate ac- 
 quaintanceship shall be shown in relation to the sub- 
 ject, and that the attitude towards the reader shall be 
 one as nearly impersonal as possible. Such dispassion- 
 ate acquaintanceship and impersonal treatment we find 
 in No. 77 of the Federalist, in which Alexander Ham- 
 ilton states the wisdom of the provisions in Sec. 2 of 
 Clause II of Article 2 of the Constitution. 
 
 IV 
 
 DICTION 
 
 Occasionally a writer gains his ends by combining 
 the exercise of specially strong powers in the handling 
 of all these elements of style, — careful order, ample 
 concreteness, fitting tone, and apt and inevitable dic- 
 tion. Consider the following, rather argumentative, 
 passage from Ruskin, — 
 
 We know more certainly every day, that whatever appears 
 to us harmful in the universe has some beneficent or neces- 
 sary operation; that the storm which destroys a harvest 
 brightens the sunbeams for harvests yet unsown, and that 
 the volcano which buries a city preserves a thousand from 
 destruction. But the evil is not for the time less fearful 
 because we have learned it to be necessary; and we easily 
 understand the timidity or the tenderness of the spirit which 
 would withdraw itself from the presence of destruction, and 
 create in its imagination a world of which the peace should 
 
STYLE IN EXPOSITION 125 
 
 be unbroken, in which the skj' should not darken nor the sea 
 rage, in which the leaf should not change nor the blossom 
 wither. That man is greater, however, who contemplates 
 with an equal mind the alternation of terror and of beauty ; 
 who, not rejoicing less beneath the sunny sky, can bear also 
 to watch the bars of twilight narrowing on the horizon; 
 and, not less sensible to the blessing of the peace of nature, 
 can rejoice in the magnificence of the ordinances by which 
 that peace is protected and secured. But separated from 
 both by an immeasurable distance would be the man who 
 delighted in convulsion and disease for their own sake ; who 
 found his daily food in the disorder of nature mingled with 
 the suffering of humanity ; and watched joyfully at the right 
 hand of the Angel whose appointed work is to destroy as 
 well as to accuse, while the corners of the House of feast- 
 ing were struck by the wind from the wilderness. 
 
 This is equally as concrete as the essay by Huxley 
 on " The Method of Scientific Investigation," but its 
 concreteness is pictorial, not the concreteness of ex- 
 amples vsfhich are intended to aid the exposition by ap- 
 pealing to information already common. The concrete- 
 ness of Euskin is not so much of analogies or examples 
 as it is of the pictorial aspects of the subject matter it- 
 self. In addition to its concreteness, the attractiveness 
 of this passage is due also to its tone, its order, and its 
 diction. The tone is one of impassioned conviction, 
 and this, when presented in logical order and with mas- 
 terly diction, is always impressive and moving. The 
 order is distinctly Euskinian, precisely an illustration 
 of what M. Buffon meant by style, — the order of 
 thought natural to the individual man's mind. First, 
 personal conviction; then, a universal point of view; 
 
126 THE METHOD AND PEACTICE OF EXPOSITION 
 
 next, operations in the phenomenology of nature; 
 fourth, the relations of evil and good; and finally, de- 
 grees of greatness in men determined by the nature of 
 their sensible and emotional apprehension of the pur- 
 poses of nature, — a reader of Kuskin would at once 
 recognise this as an outline of what would probably 
 come from Euskin at any moment. The march of his 
 thought is almost uniformly in this direction, with 
 logical harmony of ideas, with rhythmic cadence of 
 phrase and sentence, both working together to a spiritual 
 climax. Few men have had even an approach to Bus- 
 kin's ability to concentrate profusion of material into 
 point, or to accumulate a mere collection of inert matter 
 into orderly structure. The petty writer would be over- 
 whelmed by the multitudinous knowledge which 
 thronged Huskin's mind; the power of this man lay 
 in the strength of analysis which made it possible to 
 find where each detail would fit. Few trained readers, 
 at least, fail to-day to find him clear; and he is in- 
 creasingly recognised to have been, not a thirteenth 
 century mystic revived, but one who was in political 
 economy as well as in art criticism a generation ahead 
 of his time. It was chiefly this* power of analysis that 
 put him so much ahead of his contemporaries. 
 
 Ruskin's diction aids greatly in establishing and 
 holding the attention of the reader. His words belong 
 to the spheres of the thought of which he at any given 
 time writes, — nature, assthetics, religion, — and the 
 words are so artistically placed that sound and move- 
 ment and sense are inseparably convolved. His diction 
 is apt and inevitable and yet unexpected, " with a mas- 
 
STYLE IN EXPOSITION 127 
 
 tery over all the melody of cadence that has no rival in 
 the whole range of English literature." 
 
 Sound and movement unquestionably make a part of 
 the total resultant sense in all good writing. One needs 
 but to read Frederick Harrison upon Euskin as a mas- 
 ter of prose, in his Tennyson, Ruskin, Mill, and Other 
 Literary Estimates, to be convinced of the relation of 
 sound to sense. And one does not need to confine him- 
 self to the usual examples from Euskin, and Walter 
 Pater, and the Brontes, for illustration of the move- 
 ment of rhythm in English prose. It is everywhere, in 
 all good prose. In Butcher and Lang's translation of 
 the Odyssey of Homer, we read, — 
 
 Therewith she dived beneath the heaving sea, but I be- 
 took me to the ships where they stood in the sand, and my 
 heart was darkly troubled as I went. But after I had come 
 down to the ship and to the sea, and we had made ready 
 our supper, and immortal night had come on, then did we 
 lay us to rest upon the sea-beach. So soon as early Dawn 
 shone forth, the rosy-fingered, in that hour I walked by 
 the shore of the wide-wayed sea, praying instantly to the 
 gods ; and I took with me three of my company, in whom I 
 trusted most of every enterprise. 
 
 Picking up even a volume of Matthew Arnold and 
 turning to the essay upon " The Function of Criticism 
 at the Present Time," a half dozen random glances pre- 
 sent the following, — 
 
 What is at present the bane of 
 Practical considerations cling to it 
 Miss the chance now given to it 
 Organs of criticism are organs of 
 
128 THE METHOD AND PRACTICE OF EXPOSITION 
 
 Practical ends are the first thing 
 Play of mind as is compatible. — 
 
 The recurring beat of the rhythm is unmistakable 
 there. 
 
 Euskin said things worth while concerning diction, 
 as well as employed it skilfully. Of course, that is 
 what places him so well at the head of nineteenth cen- 
 tury English prose writers, that he said so much that is 
 worth while. 
 
 " Certainly," he remarks, " it is excellent discipline 
 for an author to feel that he must say all he has to say 
 in the fewest possible words, or his reader is sure to 
 skip them; and in the plainest possible words, or his 
 reader will certainly misunderstand thenu" 
 
 In that are the two principles of apt and telling 
 diction; the fewest possible words to adequate expres- 
 sion, and the simplest possible to adequate impression. 
 These principles of number and plainness are very com- 
 monly misunderstood, and, therefore, very commonly 
 misapplied. It is true that the masters of language are 
 quite apt to play with it ; yet he who is not a master of 
 words, he who is not gifted with a ready command of 
 words, is likely to think that the principle of number of 
 words is the fewest words, and not the fewrat possible. 
 " Possible " implies possible to something, to some end 
 desired. The fewest possible to such an end may not 
 be a small number. Here, for example, is one sentence 
 from Lockhart's Life of Bums, — 
 
 It needs no effort of imagination to conceive what the sen- 
 sations of an isolated set of scholars (almost all either 
 
STYLE IN EXPOSITION 129 
 
 clergymen or professors) must have been in the presence 
 of this big-boned, black-browed, brawny stranger, with his 
 great flashing eyes, who, having forced his way among them 
 from the plough-tail at a single stride, manifested in the 
 whole strain of his bearing and conversation a most thor- 
 ough conviction that in the society of the most eminent 
 men of his nation he was exactly where he was entitled 
 to be ; hardly deigned to flatter them by exhibiting even an 
 occasional symptom of being flattered by their notice; by 
 turns calmly measured himself against the most cultivated 
 understandings of his time in discussion ; over-powered the 
 bon mots of the most celebrated convivialists by broad 
 floods of merriment, impregnated with all the burning life 
 of genius; astounded bosoms habitually enveloped in the 
 thrice-piled folds of social reserve, by compelling them to 
 tremble, — nay to tremble visibly, — beneath the fearless 
 touch of natural pathos ; and all this without indicating the 
 smallest willingness to be ranked among those professional 
 ministers of excitement who are content to be paid in money 
 and smiles for doing what the spectators and auditors would 
 be ashamed of doing in their own persons, even if they 
 had the power of doing it ; and last, and probably worst of 
 all, who was known to be in the habit of enlivening societies 
 which they would have scorned to approach, still more fre- 
 quently than their own, with eloquence no less magnificent ; 
 with wit, in all likelihood still more daring ; often enough, 
 as the superiors whom he fronted without alarm might have 
 guessed from the beginning, and had erelong no occasion 
 to guess, with wit pointed at themselves. 
 
 Lockhart's sentence, to tell V7hat should be told, could 
 hardly be shorter. 
 
 Kuskin himself has a sentence famous for its length, 
 in volume II of Modem Painters. He is talking of the 
 desire for and conception of Beauty even among men of 
 
130 THE METHOD AND PEACTICE OF EXPOSITION 
 
 impious and unreflecting spirit, and illustrates his idea 
 thus, — 
 
 There is in all works of such men a taint and stain, and 
 jarring discord, darker and louder exactly in proportion to 
 the moral deficiency; of which the best proof and measure 
 are to be found in their treatment of the human form 
 (since in landscape it is nearly impossible to introduce defi- 
 nite expression of evil), of which the highest beauty has 
 been attained only once, and then by no system-taught 
 painter, but by a most holy Dominican monk of Fiesole: 
 and beneath him all fall lower and lower in proportion to 
 their inferior sanctity (though with more or less attain- 
 ment of that which is noble, according to their intellectual 
 power and earnestness), as Raffaelle in his St. Cecilia (a 
 mere study of a passionate, dark-eyed, large-formed Itahan 
 model) ; and even Perugino, in that there is about Ma 
 noblest faces a short-coming, indefinable ; an absence of the 
 full outpouring of the sacred spirit that there is in Angel- 
 ico ; traceable, I doubt not, to some deficiencies and avari- 
 cious flaws of his heart, whose consequences in his conduct 
 were such as to give Vasari hope that his lies might stick 
 to him (for the contradiction of which in the main, if 
 there be not contradiction enough in every line that the 
 hand of Perugino drew, compare Eio; and note also what 
 Eio has singularly missed observing, that Perugino, in 
 his portrait of himself in the Florence Gallery, has put a 
 scroll into the hand, with the words " Timete Deum," thus 
 surely indicating what he considered his duty and mes- 
 sage) : and so all other even of the sacred painters, not to 
 speak of the lower body of men in whom, on the other 
 hand, there is marked sensuality and impurity in all that 
 they seek in beauty, as in Correggio and Guido ; or, on the 
 other, a partial want of the sense of beauty itself, as in 
 Eubens and Titian, exhibited in the adoption of coarse 
 types of features and form; sometimes, also (of which I 
 
STYLE IN EXPOSITION 131 
 
 could find instances in modern times), by a want of evidence 
 of delight in what they do ; so that, after they have rendered 
 some passage of exceeding beauty, they will suffer some dis- 
 cordant point to interfere with it, and it will not hurt them ; 
 as if they had no pleasure in that which was best, but had 
 done it in inspiration that was not profitable to them; as 
 deaf men might touch an instrument with a feeling in their 
 heart, which yet returns not outwardly upon them, and so 
 know not when they play false; and sometimes by total 
 want of choice, for there is a choice of love in all rightly 
 tempered men ; not that ignorant and insolent choice which 
 rejects half nature as empty of the right, but that pure 
 choice that fetches the right out of everything; and where 
 this is wanting, we may see men walking up and down in 
 dry places, finding no rest ; ever and anon doing something 
 noble and yet not following it up, but dwelling the next 
 instant on something impure or profitless with the same in- 
 tensity and yet impatience, so that they are ever wondered at 
 and never sympathised with, and while they dazzle all they 
 lead none; and then, beneath these again, we find others 
 on whose works there are definite signs of evil desire ill 
 repressed, and then inability to avoid, and at last perpetual 
 seeking for, and feeding upon, horror and ugliness, and 
 filthiness of sin; as eminently in Salvator and Caravaggio, 
 and the lower Dutch Schools, only in these last less pain- 
 fully as they lose the villainous in the brutal, and the horror 
 of crime in its idiocy. 
 
 These, perhaps, are the fewest possible words in which 
 any one could have well said what Euskin is saying; 
 but there must be in our minds much question whether 
 the facts might have been better said in more than one 
 sentence: though, in order to get them under way, a 
 larger number of sentences would have made necessary a 
 few more words. 
 
132 THE METHOD AND PEACTICE OF EXPOSITION 
 
 Many a section of Modem Painters would repay 
 analysis by the student in the light of what De Quincey 
 in his Autobiography wrote of the secrets of prose com- 
 position. " The two capital secrets in the art of prose 
 composition are these ; first, the philosophy of transition 
 and connexion, or the art by which one step in an evolu- 
 tion of thought is made to arise out of another : all fluent 
 and effective composition depends on the connexions: 
 secondly, the way in which sentences are made to modify 
 each other ; for the most powerful effects in written elo- 
 quence arise out of the reverberation, as it were, from 
 each other in a rapid succession of sentences; and, be- 
 cause some limitation is necessary to the length and 
 complexity of sentences, in order to make this interde- 
 pendency felt ; hence it is that the Germans have no 
 eloquence. The construction of German prose tends to 
 such immoderate length of sentences that no effect of 
 inter-modification can ever be apparent. Each sentence, 
 stuffed with innumerable clauses of restriction, and 
 other parenthetical circumstances, becomes a separate 
 section, — an independent whole." But De Quincey has 
 been surpassed in severe criticism of the involved style. 
 For the sharpest and most penetrating arraignment of 
 the stupid, impolite, and often inveterate habit of seH- 
 interruption in the process of sentence building, one 
 should read Arthur Schopenhauer's lively, though some- 
 what personally bitter, essay on " Style " in the group 
 of essays translated under the general title of The Art 
 of Literature. 
 
 The fewest words Hazlitt could get into one of his 
 sentences is probably the largest number in any printed 
 
STYLE IN EXPOSITION 133 
 
 English sentence, — eight hundred and forty-eight ; but 
 that sentence was an attempt to describe comprehen- 
 sively, to give one unified impression of the content of 
 the mind of Samuel Taylor Coleridge : and, while it may 
 seem a bit of grotesquerie to refuse to grant, as Hazlitt 
 seems to refuse to grant, that unity can not be gained 
 in a larger phase of structural composition than the sen- 
 tence, yet surely the mind of Coleridge could hardly be 
 compassed in less than eight hundred and forty-eight 
 words, and, furthermore, nothing short of a style 
 coloured with some sort of grotesquerie could adequately 
 suggest the content of that teeming mind. The fact 
 is that short sentences often mean insignificant content. 
 This is Hazlitt's sentence, — 
 
 Next, he was engaged with Hartley's tribes of mind, 
 " etherial braid, thought-woven," — and he busied himself 
 for a year or two with vibrations and vibratiuncles, and the 
 great law of association that binds all things in mystic 
 chain, and the doctrine of Kecessity (the mild teacher of 
 Charity) and the Millennium, anticipative of a life to come 
 — and he plunged deep into the controversy of Matter and 
 Spirit, and, as an escape from Dr. Priestly's Materialism, 
 where he felt himself imprisoned by the logician's spell, like 
 Ariel in the cloven pine-tree, he became suddenly enamoured 
 by Bishop Berkeley's fairy-world, and used in all companies 
 to build the universe, like a brave poetical fiction, of fine 
 words — and he was deep-read in Malebranche and in Cud- 
 worth's Intellectual System (a huge pile of learning, un- 
 wieldy, enormous) and in Lord Brooke's hieroglyphic theo- 
 ries, and in Bishop Butler's Sermons, and in the Duchess of 
 Newcastle's fantastic folios, and in Clarke and South and 
 Tillotson, and all the fine thinkers and masculine reasoners 
 of that age — and Leibnitz's Pre-established Harmony 
 
134 THE METHOD AND PEACTICE OF EXPOSITION 
 
 reared its arch above his head, like the rainbow in the cloud, 
 convenanting with the hopes of man — and then he fell 
 plump, ten thousand fathoms down (but his wings saved 
 him harmless) into the hortus siccus of Dissent, where he 
 pared religion down to the standard of reason, and stripped 
 faith of mystery, and preached Christ crucified and the 
 Unity of the Godhead, and so dwelt for a while in the spirit 
 with John Huss and Jerome of Prague and Soeinus and 
 old John Zisca, and ran through Neal's history of the 
 Puritans and Calamy's Non^Conf or mists' Memorial, having 
 like thoughts and passions with them — but then Spinoza 
 became his God, and he took up the vast chain of being in 
 his hand, and the round world became the centre and the 
 soul of things in some shadov?y sense, forlorn of meaning, 
 and around him he beheld the living traces and the sky- 
 pointing proportions of the mighty Pan — but poetry re- 
 deemed him from this spectral philosophy, and he bathed 
 his heart in beauty, and gazed at the golden light of heaven, 
 and drank of the spirit of the universe, and wandered at 
 eve by fairy-stream or fountain, 
 
 " — When he saw nought but beauty, 
 
 When he heard the voice of that Almighty One 
 In every breeze that blew or wave that murmured " — 
 
 and wedded with truth in Plato's shade, and in the writings 
 of Proclus and Plotinus saw the ideas of things in the 
 eternal mind, and unfolded all mysteries with the School- 
 men and fathomed the depths of Duns Scotus and Thomas 
 Aquinas, and entered the third heaven with Jacob Behmen, 
 and walked hand in hand with Swedenborg through the 
 pavilions of the New Jerusalem, and sang his faith in the 
 promise and in the word in his Religious Musings — and, 
 lowering himself from that dizzy height, poised himself on 
 Milton's wings, and spread out his thoughts in charity with 
 the glad prose of Jeremy Taylor, and wept over Bowles's 
 Sonnets, and studied Cowper's blank verse, and betook him- 
 
STYLE IN EXPOSITION 135 
 
 self to Thomson's Castle of Indolence, and sported with the 
 wits of Charles the Second's days and of Queen Anne, and 
 relished Swift's style and that of the John Bull (Arbuth- 
 not's we mean, not Mr. Croker's) and dallied with the 
 British Essayists and Novelists, and knew all qualities of 
 more modern writers with a learned spirit, Johnson, and 
 Goldsmith, and Junius, and Burke, and Godwin, and the 
 Sorrows of Werther, and Jean Jacques Eousseau, and Vol- 
 taire, and Marivaux, and Crebillon, and thousands more — 
 now " laughed with Eabelais in his easy chair," or pointed 
 to Hogarth, or afterwards dwelt on Claude's classic scenes, 
 or spoke with rapture of Eaphael, and compared the women 
 at Eome to figures that had walked out of his pictures, or 
 visited the Oratory of Pisa, and described the works of 
 Giotto and Ghirlandaio and Massaccio, and gave the moral 
 of the picture of the Triumph of Death, where beggars and 
 the wretched invoke his dreadful dart, but the rich and 
 mighty of the earth quail and shrink before it; and in 
 that land of siren sights and sounds, saw a dance of peasant 
 girls, and was charmed with lutes and gondolas, — or wan- 
 dered into Germany and lost himself in the labyrinths of 
 the Hartz Forest and the Kantian philosophy, and amongst 
 the cabalistic names of Pichte and Schelling and Lessing, 
 and God knows who — this was long after, but all the 
 former while he had nerved his heart and filled his eyes 
 with tears, as he hailed the rising orb of Liberty, since 
 quenched in darkness and in blood, and had kindled his 
 affection at the blaze of the French Eevolution, and sang 
 for joy when the towers of the Bastille and the proud 
 places of the insolent and the oppressor fell, and would 
 have floated his bark, freighted with fondest fancies, across 
 the Atlantic wave with Southey and others to seek for 
 peace and freedom : — 
 
 " In Philharmonia's undivided dale ! " 
 The sentence is worth close study for its most mar- 
 
136 THE METHOD AND PEACTICE OF EXPOSITION 
 
 vellous rhythm. And the length of the sentence is not 
 serious — " Half a dozen stones rising out of a brook," 
 says Walter Savage Landor, " give the passenger more 
 trouble than a plank across it." 
 
 The fewest possible in conversation in fiction may be 
 garrulousness itself, because it may require that sort 
 of talk to do what is desired, and it does in the case of 
 Miss Bates in Jane Austen's Emma, who is endless in 
 her volubility and yet is as sheer and unalloyed in her 
 talk as is the man most austere in words. 
 
 In the statement of the second principle of diction, 
 the use of the plainest possible words, plainness, sim- 
 plicity, does not mean the utmost possible barrenness. 
 That is simplest in language which is most richly able to 
 express fully the meaning desired to be expressed. 
 
 The language of the writers of the English of the 
 so-called Irish Renaissance is simplicity itseH. The 
 reader of J. M. Synge's Deirdre of the Sorrows, or 
 Riders to the Sea, or The Shadow of the Olen, feels at 
 once and vividly that here more is meant than meets the 
 eye, and yet that all is said which it is possible to say. 
 He feels that the stark and near-run diction and phras- 
 ing of the primitive and suffering peasant, pure, single 
 as their diction and phrasing is, is yet, in every word of 
 it, marked with true " magnanimity of the meaning." 
 " O'er-swelling with significance " this language is, — 
 that is its characteristic. Even the mouthings to the 
 world and to himself of the Philosopher in James 
 Stephens's (another of this Irish group) Crock of Gold 
 are clean-cut and restrained as compared with what they 
 might easily have been ; and they are always clear ! 
 
STYLE IN BXPOSITIOIT 13Y 
 
 The " fewest possible," therefore, means conciseness, 
 — but profusion may be concise ; that will depend upon 
 what is to be expressed. The " simplest possible " 
 means the best adapted to what it is intended to express ; 
 it means richness, — " There is that scattereth and yet 
 increaseth, and there is that withholdeth and it tendeth 
 to poverty," " He that gathereth not with me scatter- 
 eth," — everything which is unnecessary to the explana- 
 tion is an encumbrance, and everything that does not 
 help forward to the solution is an interruption. The 
 master of style shows in what he wisely suppresses. 
 
 Diction, then, to be simple need by no means be com- 
 monplace. Where there is any real thinking there is no 
 commonplaceness. Thinking is a matter of compari- 
 sons, after all. It is all in some measure new, for each 
 thing compared is at each succeeding moment not quite 
 what it was the moment before, and therefore is never 
 commonplace. 
 
 There is plenty of wording, of course, which repre- 
 sents no thinking upon the part of him who writes it, 
 or practically none. There is the conventional phrasing 
 or kind of wording which is indulged in because it is the 
 accepted tradition to use conventional wording; and 
 there is the kind of wording which the man at the non- 
 thinking level employs, not merely in order to be " safe " 
 as in the case of the writer according to tradition, but 
 because the man at the non-thinking level is filled with 
 admiration that he can use words which seem to make 
 any sense at all. The first type is well illustrated by 
 those historians and biographers who think they are 
 thinking when they go on telling only what makes a 
 
138 THE METHOD AND PEACTICE OF EXPOSITION 
 
 man or a movement in history, without ever dreaming 
 that there have been many and hard things which have 
 tended to prevent the man and the movement from be- 
 coming what each has become. Perhaps this type of the 
 traditional language-user is worse than the merely non- 
 thinking type, who is most excellently illustrated by the 
 average writer of communications to local papers and 
 by the average writer " for the occasion." These write 
 as the Mother Goose rhymer, — though lacking his 
 grace, — 
 
 In a cottage in Fife 
 
 Lived a man and his wife 
 Who, believe me, were comical folk; 
 
 For to people's surprise. 
 
 They both saw with their eyes. 
 And their tongues moved whenever they spoke. 
 
 When they were asleep, 
 
 I'm told, — that to keep 
 Their eyes open they could not contrive ; 
 
 They walked on both their feet, 
 
 And 'twas thought what they eat. 
 Helped, with drinking, to keep them alive. 
 
 That conservative " I'm told " is most exquisite, most 
 learned ! Here is your writer arriving at the stage of 
 wonder at his own powers, and yet determined, pruden- 
 tial thinker that he is, to be cautious! Too much of 
 that which gets into print is gross with commonplace- 
 ness. It is commonplace often because of its extreme 
 brevity alone. It is brief because its writers are scant 
 of spirit. The average student, be it said, despite the 
 common opinion and the occasional sad example, rarely 
 writes at sufficient length to give an adequate idea of 
 
STYLE IN EXPOeiTIOIir 139 
 
 what is the content of his mind. He has heard that 
 brevity is the soul of wit, and that commonplace saying 
 has frightened the wits out of him. Brevity, he thinks, 
 must mean the fewest, when in reality it means the 
 fewest possible to adequate expression of the truth. 
 Shreds, patches, scraps, are handed out in the brave 
 endeavour to follow the advice of bold Cotton Mather, — 
 " Be short." But the reader is left wondering if there 
 really was anything in the writer's mind, for there is 
 not enough represented for the reader's most disciplined 
 powers of imagination to work upon in filling out the 
 texture. The average student sins often enough in the 
 attempt to " cover the ground " but he sins oftener in 
 the attempt to " cover with shorts." Henry James may 
 in the " definitive edition " of his work refine his lan- 
 guage beyond our power, at times, to follow, but there 
 are still lessons in style to be learned of him. His Eng- 
 lish is perhaps the most perfect of our day; and his 
 analysis of life in fiction perhaps the most nearly per- 
 fect, too, and it is so partly because he dares to be 
 lengthy. 
 
 In this wonderful instrument of power, the English 
 language, it is not the source from which the words are 
 derived that determines the power ; it is the use to which 
 the words are put. The following is effective use : 
 
 Our tests, investigations, experiments, and comparisons 
 demonstrated conclusively to us that a four cylinder engine, 
 designed with the skill and executed with the precision 
 which characterises the . . . engine — and scientifically 
 balanced, affords the highest degree of all round efficiency 
 possible to attain. 
 
 These tests further demonstrated that with such an 
 
140 THE METHOD AND PEACTICE OF EXPOSITION 
 
 engine, in conjunction with a properly designed two-speed 
 axle, there is obtained an extraordinary range of operating 
 flexibility, an extraordinary reduction of friction, an ex- 
 traordinary degree of operation and maintenance economy, 
 an extraordinary degree of luxurious riding qualities, and a 
 reduction of vibration, particularly at high speeds, almost 
 to the vanishing point. 
 
 It is evident from vrhat source these words are drawn, 
 — Latin ; and it is a curious commentary upon those 
 who insist upon " pure Saxon " for forcefulness, that 
 this advertisement of an automobile should contain so 
 little of anything like Saxon. 
 
 IMPORTANCE OF STYXE 
 
 There is abundant opportunity for the practice of 
 good style. In the business or social correspondence of 
 the average man and woman there is demand for the 
 best of style. John Stuart Mill said, — " To me it ap- 
 pears a weighty matter to write a letter ; there is scarcely 
 anything that we do which requires a more complete 
 possession of our faculties in their greatest freshness 
 and vigour." Then, if the non-literary man or woman 
 thinks it too much labour to correct and revise his or 
 her work and that the " genius " must be one who does 
 not have to do so, the story of Balzac's proofs may help 
 a trifle : " From every substantive, verb, and adjective 
 that he had written rose a thin rocket line of ink, to 
 burst at its end into a corruscation of new substantives, 
 verbs, and adjectives that he preferred to those he had 
 at first thought so good." 
 
STYLE IN EXPOSITION- 141 
 
 In all of this, it is not merely the technique, that is, 
 the handling of the minute details, which is important ; 
 but the keeping in mind the form, that is, the direction 
 of the developing idea as a whole. It is true that to 
 many a reader the form of what he reads is negligible, 
 its function being all that interests him. It is true also 
 that many an amateur writer is impatient of form, of 
 organisation. But just as the most scrupulously care- 
 ful assembling of the parts of a machine is necessary to 
 its performing any function whatever, and as the an- 
 atomy and organisation of the animal are absolutely 
 vital to its character and functions, so it is of discourse, 
 that it is what it is and does what it does because its 
 parts have been organised in the writer's mind and have 
 been carefully assembled into definite form. 
 
 As a general thing, the unpractised writer would more 
 quickly become expert if he were not, so much as he is, 
 influenced by more or less standardised and conventional 
 forms. The forms of the novel, of the drama, of the 
 short-story, of the sonnet, of the argumentative essay, 
 of the speech for a debate, even of a descriptive sketch, 
 have been so carefully and elaborately worked out in 
 treatises and text-books that the beginner fears to con- 
 struct his production upon any lines but those pre- 
 scribed. We are all, in every activity of life, too much 
 influenced by methods already successful. Shelley re- 
 ferred to the venerable allegory that the Muses are the 
 daughters of memory, and deplored that no one of the 
 nine was ever said to be the daughter of invention. 
 There is danger in veneration for forms that have suc- 
 ceeded, the danger that we may become uninventive and 
 
142 THE METHOD AND PEACTICE OF EXPOSITION 
 
 stereotyped. The psychology of man does not change a 
 great deal, and therefore the methods of appeal to man's 
 mind alter but slightly from age to age; but they do 
 alter, for there is some growth, some change, in aU 
 mental phenomena, and there should be a corresponding 
 development in the methods of organising and con- 
 trolling our ways of communication. 
 
 VI 
 
 STYLE AND MATTEE 
 
 A perfect style would be perfect control of matter to a 
 certain definite end. There is no such thing as a perfect 
 style, of course, but it may be approached. Much of 
 what is called style in authors is only mannerism. Style 
 is manner, but it is not mannerism. Style is the man's 
 relatively perfect manner of controlling his matter. 
 When the writer is controlling only himself, instead of 
 his subject-matter, when he is guiding himself in a cer- 
 tain conscious manner, conscious most of all of the effect 
 he hopes to have upon the reader, there results manner- 
 ism. Laurence Sterne, for example, in the bulk of his 
 book entitled A Sentimental Journey through France 
 and Italy, is constantly indulging in the display of man- 
 nerism. " The Marquis entered the court with his 
 whole family: he supported his lady — his eldest son 
 supported his sister, and his youngest son was at the 
 other extreme of the line next his mother — he put his 
 handkerchief to his face twice — There was a dead 
 silence." One does feel keyed up, and yet is jerked 
 
STYLE IN EXPOSITION 143 
 
 hither and yon, his mind bumped against this, then 
 that, then another thing, with no centring of attention, 
 for longer than a moment, upon any one thing. A slight 
 illustration this is, but reading many pages in Sterne 
 gives the decided impression of a most trifling manner- 
 ism. Yet when Sterne forgets himself and his audience, 
 and writes with attention concentrated upon subject- 
 matter, — his control all centred there, — he has an 
 almost perfect style. " There is no more masterly page 
 of English prose," says Lowell, " than that in the Senti- 
 mental Journey describing the effect of the chorus, ' O 
 Cupid, King of Gods and Men ' on the people of 
 Abdera." The town of Abdera had been so vile and so 
 profligate, such a place for poisons, conspiracies, and 
 assassinations, libels, pasquinades, and tumults, that 
 there was no going there by day, and it was worse by 
 night. But here was what happened, according to this 
 page of Sterne, after a recitation by the poet, — 
 
 Every man almost spoke pure iambics the next day, and 
 talk'd of nothing but Perseus his pathetic address — " 
 Cupid, prince of God and men " — in every street of Abdera, 
 in every home — " Cupid ! Cupid ! " — in every mouth, 
 like the natural notes of some sweet melody which drops 
 from it whether it will or not — nothing but " Cupid ! 
 Cupid ! prince of God and men ! " — The fire caught — 
 and the whole city, like the heart of one man, open'd itself 
 to Love. 
 
 No pharmacopolist could sell one grain of helebore — not 
 a single armourer had a heart to forge one instrument of 
 death — Friendship and Virtue met together and kiss'd 
 each other in the street — the golden age returned, and 
 hung over the town of Abdera — every Abderite took his 
 oaten pipe, and every Abderitish woman left her purple 
 
144 THE METHOD AND PKACTICE OF EXPOSITION 
 
 web, and chastely sat her down and listened to the song — 
 'Twas only in the power, says the Fragment, of the God 
 whose empire extendeth from heaven to earth, and even to 
 the depths of the sea, to have done this. 
 
 The diction in this passage, is, perhaps, better than 
 even the Biblical English, for it is under no necessity 
 to conform itself to the forms of ideas already expressed 
 and generally accepted, as in a translation, such as the 
 King James "Version, there alvrays is this necessity. 
 Sterne is himself here, and is writing with perfect spon- 
 taneity; and no writer, until he has practised up to 
 spontaneity of expression, will attain excellence in him- 
 self or be able fully to appreciate excellence in the writ- 
 ings of others. One may fancy he sees in this statement 
 the eartip of treachery to our former urgency to scientific 
 method ; but we are not treacherous, for just as it makes 
 less difference what a man owns than how he got his 
 gains, so it makes less difference what a man knows than 
 how he achieved his knowledge; and, furthermore, it 
 often makes much less difference what a man says than 
 how he says it. But the thing which makes most differ- 
 ence of all is that a man shall have perfect control of 
 his subject-matter. He will then scarcely know how 
 he is saying a thing ; it will seem to say itself ; it prob- 
 ably will be true that, however his expression may be 
 disciplined, the ideas at the last, as in the song of the 
 nightingale, will with 
 
 " fledged notes at length forsake their nests. 
 Fluttering in wanton shoals," — 
 
 but they will be effective, because they will be sincere. 
 
STYLE IN EXPOSITION 145 
 
 VII 
 
 SELECTIONS FOK THE STUDY OF STYLE 
 
 1. Science is, I believe, nothing but trained and or- 
 ganised common sense, differing from the latter only as 
 a veteran may differ from a ravs^ recruit ; and its methods 
 differ from those of common sense only so far as the 
 guardsman's cut and thrust differ from the manner in 
 which a savage wields his club. The primary power 
 is the same in each case, and perhaps the untutored sav- 
 age has the more brawny arm of the two. The real ad- 
 vantage lies in the point and polish of the swordsman's 
 weapon; in the trained eye quick to spy out the weak- 
 ness of the adversary ; in the ready hand prompt to fol- 
 low it on the instant. But, after all, the sword exer- 
 cise is only the hewing and poking of the clubman de- 
 veloped and perfected. 
 
 So the vast results won by Science are won by no 
 mystical faculties, by no mental processes other than 
 those which are practised by every one of us in the 
 humblest and meanest affairs of life. A detective 
 policeman discovers a burglar from the marks made by 
 his shoes, by a mental process identical with that by 
 which Cuvier restored the extinct animals of Mont- 
 martre from fragments of their bones. Nor does that 
 process of induction and deduction by which a lady, 
 finding a stain of a peculiar kind upon her dress, con- 
 cludes that somebody has upset the inkstand thereon, 
 differ in any way, in kind, from that by which Adams 
 and Leverrier discovered a new planet. 
 
146 THE METHOD AND PEACTICE OF EXPOSITIOM- 
 
 The man of science, in fact, simply uses with scrupu- 
 lous exactness the methods which we all, habitually and 
 at every moment, use carelessly; and the man of busi- 
 ness must avail himself of the scientific method — must 
 be as truly a man of science — as the veriest bookworm 
 of us all. Thomas Heney Huxley. 
 
 2. Perhaps there is no more impressive scene on earth 
 than the solitary extent of the Campagna of Rome under 
 evening light. Let the reader imagine himself for the 
 moment withdrawn from the sounds and motion of the 
 living world, and sent forth alone into this wild and 
 wasted plain. The earth yields and crumbles beneath 
 his foot, tread he never so lightly, for its substance is 
 white, hollow, and carious, like the dusty wreck of the 
 bones of men. The long knotted grass waves and tosses 
 feebly in the evening wind, and the shadows of its mo- 
 tion shake feverishly along the banks of ruin that lift 
 themselves to the sunlight. Hillocks of mouldering 
 earth heave around him, as if the dead beneath were 
 struggling in their sleep. Scattered blocks of black 
 stone, four-square remnants of mighty edifices, not one 
 left upon another, lie upon them to keep them down. A 
 dull purple poisonous haze stretches level along the 
 desert, veiling its spectral wrecks of massy ruins, on 
 whose rents the red light rests, like dying fire on defiled 
 altars; the blue ridge of the Alban Mount lifts itseH 
 against a solemn space of green, clear, quiet sky. 
 Watch-towers of dark clouds stand steadfastly along the 
 promontories of the Apennines. From the plain to the 
 mountains, the shattered aqueducts, pier beyond pier, 
 
STYLE IN EXPOSITION 147 
 
 melt into darkness, like shadowy and countless troops of 
 funeral mourners passing from a nation's grave. 
 
 John Ruskin. 
 
 3. As the fool dieth, so dieth the wise, and there is no 
 difference ; it was the chance of the sea, and the ill re- 
 ward of humane action — a melancholy end for such a 
 man ^ — like the end of a warrior, not dying Epaminon- 
 das-like on the field of victory, but cut off in some poor 
 brawl or ambuscade. But so it was with all these men. 
 They were cut off in the flower of their days, and few 
 indeed of them laid their bones in the sepulchres of 
 their fathers. They knew the service which they had 
 chosen, and they did not ask the wages for which they 
 had not laboured. Life with them was no summer holi- 
 day, but a holy sacrifice offered up to duty, and what 
 their Master sent was welcome. Beautiful is old age — 
 beautiful as the slow-dropping mellow autumn of a rich, 
 glorious summer. In the old man, nature has fulfilled 
 her work ; she loads him with her blessings ; she fills him 
 with the fruits of a well-spent life ; and, surrounded by 
 his children and his children's children, she rodss him 
 softly to the grave, to which he is followed with bless- 
 ings. God forbid we should not call it beautiful. It is 
 beautiful, but not the most beautiful. There is another 
 life, hard, rough, and thorny, trbdden with bleeding feet 
 and aching brow; the life of which the cross is the 
 symbol ; a battle which no peace follows, this side of the 
 grave; which the grave gapes to finish, before the vic- 
 tory is won ; and — strange that it should bq so — this 
 
 1 John Davis, an Elizabethan seaman. 
 
148 THE METHOD AND PEACTICE OF EXPOSITION 
 
 is the highest life of man. Look back along the names 
 of history ; there is none whose life has been other than 
 this. They to whom it has been given to do the really 
 highest work in this earth — whoever they are, Jew or 
 Gentile, Pagan or Christian, warriors, legislators, phi- 
 losophers, priests, poets, kings, slaves — one and all, 
 their fate has been the same — the same bitter cup has 
 been given them to drink ; and so it was with the servants 
 of England in the sixteenth century. Their life was a 
 long battle, either with the elements or with men, and 
 it was enough for them to fulfil their work, and to pass 
 away, in the hour when God had nothing more to bid 
 them do. They did not complain, and why should we 
 complain for them? Peaceful life was not what they 
 desired, and an honourable death had no terrors for 
 them. Theirs was the old Grecian spirit, and the great 
 heart of the old Theban poet lived in them. 
 
 James Anthony Feoude. 
 
 4. We may look upon these mountains again and 
 again from a dozen different points of view; a peren- 
 nial glory surrounds them which associates with every 
 new prospect fresh impressions. I had thought I had 
 scarcely ever seen the Alps to greater advantage. 
 Hardly ever was their majesty more fully revealed or 
 more overpowering. The colouring of the air con- 
 tributed as much to the effect as the grandeur of the 
 masses on which that colouring fell. A calm splendour 
 overspread the mountains, softening the harshness of the 
 outlines without detracting from their strength. But 
 half the interest of such scenes is psychological ; the soul 
 
STYLE IN EXPOSITION 149 
 
 takes the tint of the surrounding nature, and in its turn 
 becomes majestic. 
 
 And as I looked over this wondrous scene towards 
 Mont Blanc, the Grand Combin, the Dent Blanche, the 
 Weisshorn, the Dom, and the thousand lesser peaks 
 which seemed to join in celebration of the risen day, I 
 asked myself, as on previous occasions : How was this 
 colossal work performed ? Who chiselled these mighty 
 and picturesque masses out of a mere protuberance of 
 the earth ? And the answer was at hand. Ever young, 
 ever mighty — with the vigour of a thousand worlds 
 within him — the real sculptor was even then climbing 
 up the eastern sky. It was he who planted the glaciers 
 on the mountain-slopes, thus giving gravity a plough to 
 open the valleys; and it is he who, acting through the 
 ages, will finally lay low these mighty monuments, roll- 
 ing them gradually seawards, 
 
 Sowing the seeds of continents to be ; 
 
 so that the people of an older earth may see mould 
 spread and corn wave over the hidden rocks which at this 
 moment bear the weight of the Jungfrau. 
 
 John Ttndall. 
 
 5. The generality of princes, if they were stripped of 
 their purple and cast naked into the world, would imme- 
 diately sink to the lowest rank of society, without a hope 
 of emerging from their obscurity. But the personal 
 merit of Julian was, in some measure, independent of 
 his fortune. Whatever had been his choice of life, by 
 the force of intrepid courage, lively wit, and intense 
 
150 THE METHOD AND PEACTICE OF EXPOSITION 
 
 application, he would have obtained, or at least he would 
 have deserved, the highest honours of his profession; 
 and Julian might have raised himself to the rank of 
 minister or general of the State in which he was bom 
 a private citizen. If the jealous caprice of power had 
 disappointed his expectations, if he had prudently de- 
 clined the paths of greatness, the employment of the 
 same talents in studious solitude would have placed be- 
 yond the reach of kings his present happiness and his 
 immortal fame. When we inspect with minute, or per- 
 haps malevolent, attention the portrait of Julian, some- 
 thing seems wanting to the graces and perfection of the 
 whole figure. His genius was less powerful and sublime 
 than that of Caesar, nor did he possess the consummate 
 prudence of Augustus. The virtues of Trajan appear 
 more steady and natural and the philosophy of Marcus 
 is more simple and consistent. Yet Julian sustained 
 adversity with firmness, and prosperity with modera- 
 tion. After an interval of one hundred and twenty 
 years from the death of Alexander Severus, the Romans 
 beheld an Emperor who made no distinction between his 
 duties and his pleasures, who laboured to relieve the 
 distress and to revive the spirit of his subjects, and who 
 endeavoured always to connect authority with merit, and 
 happiness with virtue. Even faction, and religious fac- 
 tion, was constrained to acknowledge the superiority of 
 his genius, in peace as well as in war, and to confess, 
 with a sigh, that the apostate Julian was a lover of his 
 country, and that he deserved the empire of the world. 
 
 Edwabd Gibbon. 
 
STYLE IN EXPOSITION 151 
 
 6. All the materials and the physical process which 
 the artist uses — take our English language as used in 
 poetry for an example — has been elaborated and re- 
 fined, and, so to speak, consecrated by ages of adapta- 
 tion and application in which it has been fused and 
 blended with feeling — and it carries the life-blood of 
 all this endeavour in its veins; and that is how, as we 
 have said over and over again, feelings get their embodi- 
 ment, and embodiments get their feeling. If you try 
 to cut the thought and fancy loose from the body of the 
 stuff in which it moulds its pictures and poetic ideas 
 and musical constructions, you impoverish your fancy, 
 and arrest its growth, and reduce it to a bloodless shade. 
 When I pronounce even a phrase so commonplace in 
 itself as " Eule Britannia ! " the actual vibrations of the 
 sound, the bodily experience I am aware of in saying 
 it, is alive with the history of England which passed 
 into the words in the usage and formation of the lan- 
 guage. Up to a certain point, language is poetry ready- 
 made for use. 
 
 Beeitaed Bosanquet. 
 
 7. Why should we live with such hurry and waste of 
 life? We are determined to be starved before we are 
 hungry. Men say that a stitch in time saves nine, and 
 so they take a thousand stitches to-day to save nine to- 
 morrow. As for work, we haven't any of any conse- 
 quence. We have the St. Vitus' dance and cannot pos- 
 sibly keep our heads still. If I should only give a few 
 pulls at the parish bell-rope, as for a fire, that is, without 
 setting the bell, there is hardly a man on his farm in the 
 outskirts of Concord, notwithstanding that press of en- 
 
152 THE METHOD AND PEACTICE OF EXPOSITION 
 
 gagements which was his excuse so many times this 
 morning, nor a boy, nor a woman, I might also say, 
 but would all forsake and follow that sound, not mainly 
 to save property from the flames, but, if we will confess 
 the truth, much more to see it burn, since bum it must, 
 and we, be it known, did not set it on fire, — or to see it 
 put out, and have a hand in it, if that is done as hand- 
 somely; yes, even if it were the parish church itself. 
 Hardly a man takes a half hour's nap after dinner but 
 when he wakes he holds up his head and asks, " What's 
 the news ? " as if the rest of mankind bad stood his 
 sentinels. Some give directions to be waked every half 
 hour, doubtless for no other purpose; and then, to pay 
 for it, they tell what they have dreamed. After a 
 night's sleep the news is as indispensable as the break- 
 fast. " Pray tell me anything new that has happened to 
 a man anywhere on this globe " — and he reads it over 
 his coffee and rolls, that a man has had his eyes gouged 
 out this morning on the Wachito Eiver ; never dreaming 
 the while that he lives in the dark unf athomed mammoth 
 cave of this world, and has but the rudiment of an eye 
 himself. 
 
 For my part, I could easily do without the postoffice. 
 I think that there are very few important coiomunica- 
 tions made through it. To speak critically, I never re- 
 ceived more than one or two letters in my life — I wrote 
 this some years ago — that were worth the postage. 
 The penny-post is, commonly, an institution through 
 which you seriously offer a man that penny for his 
 thoughts which is so often safely offered in jest. And 
 I am sure that I never read any memorable news in a 
 
STYLE IW EXPOSITION 153 
 
 newspaper. If we read of one man robbed, murdered, 
 or killed by accident, or of one house burned, or one 
 vessel wrecked, or one steamboat blown up, or one cow 
 run over on the Western Railroad, or one mad dog 
 killed, or one lot of grasshoppers in the winter — we 
 never need read of another. One is enough. If you 
 are acquainted with the principle, what do you care for a 
 myriad instances and applications? To a philosopher 
 all news, as it is called, is gossip, and they who edit it 
 and read it are old women over their tea. Yet not a few 
 are greedy after this gossip. There was such a rush, 
 as I hear, the other day at one of the ofEces to learn 
 the foreign news by the last arrival, that several large 
 squares of plate glass belonging to the establishment 
 were broken by the pressure — news which I seriously 
 think a ready wit might write a twelvemonth or twelve 
 years beforehand with suiHcient accuracy. As for 
 Spain, for instance, if you know how to throw in Don 
 Carlos and the Infanta, and Don Pedro, and Seville, 
 and Granada, from time to time in the- right propor- 
 tions — they may have changed the names a little since 
 I saw the papers — and serve up a bull-fight when other 
 entertainments fail, it will be true to the letter, and give 
 us as good an idea of the exact state or ruin of things 
 in Spain as the most succinct and lucid reports under 
 this head in the newspapers : and as for England, almost 
 the last significant scrap of news from that quarter was 
 the revolution of 1649; and if you have learned the 
 history of her crops for an average year, you need never 
 attend to that thing again, unless your speculations are 
 of a merely pecuniary character. If one may judge 
 
154 THE METHOD AND PEACTICE OF EXPOSITION 
 
 who rarely looks into the newspapers, nothing new does 
 ever happen in foreign parts, a French Eevolution not 
 excepted. 
 
 Heney David TnoEEAr. 
 
CHAPTEE VI 
 
 Reporting and Inteepbeting 
 
 I 
 
 ■WHAT THEY AKE 
 
 Lowell said, " One, at least, of the objects of writing 
 is (or was) to be read, and, other things being equal, the 
 best writers are those who make themselves most easily 
 readable." 
 
 While we have, in this book, given much attention to 
 the anatomy of expository discourse, we have tried also, 
 while discussing its purpose and its vital processes, to 
 make it evident that, to be easily readable, exposition 
 must be clear and must be interesting. The English 
 word " interesting " was not used until the eighteenth 
 century; then for the first time, with its present mean- 
 ing, in Sterne's Sentimental Journey. Unquestionably 
 it is a more and more insistent word in our day. To be 
 interesting is not always easy. The writer who would 
 be interesting must be willing, in his work, to choose the 
 line of greatest advantage rather than follow the line of 
 least resistance. 
 
 Exposition must be scientific, and any man is writing 
 
 scientifically if he is classifying facts of any kind and 
 
 at the same time is showing their mutual relations and 
 
 155 
 
156 THE METHOD AND PRACTICE OF EXPOSITION 
 
 describing their sequences. Only in doing so can he 
 be clear. Science becomes artistic when it satisfies the 
 demand of the aesthetic judgment for harmony between 
 representation and the thing represented, that is, when 
 science is convincing of truth in what science says. 
 Continual gratification of the aesthetic judgment in this 
 respect is one of the chief rewards in the pursuit of 
 scientific studies. It is most difficult to say when this 
 gratification passes from the intellectual into the emo- 
 tional state; perhaps the line between the two is not 
 fixed in our equipment. If a true work of art is a brief 
 statement, a statement in a simple formula or by means 
 of a few symbols, of that in which we find concentrated 
 a wide range of human emotions, most exposition can 
 not be artistic in this, the true sense. But, as we have 
 suggested, art consists in a harmonious statement or 
 representation of what is seen in its relationships and 
 sequences, — and that sort of statement exposition is 
 constantly trying to make. There is little or no reason 
 why practically every exposition, whose subject-matter 
 is of any importance whatever, should not captivate the 
 imagination as well as appeal to the reason. The capti- 
 vating of the imagination is accomplished by doing what 
 it is the fvmction of pure science to do, namely, to dis- 
 cover and formulate the laws or formulas from which a 
 whole group of facts is seen to flow. It is the business 
 of science to replace isolated phenomena as they appear 
 in our minds by a formula which includes within itself 
 a wide range of relationships. That is the function, 
 also, of the creative imagination. That is what the 
 
KEPOETING AND INTEBPKETING 157 
 
 writer does when he engages himself in interpretative 
 writing. 
 
 It is the business of the reporter to place before the 
 reader the isolated phenomena, after he has accurately 
 observed those phenomena. The writing of the good 
 reporter will show that in observing the facts he has in 
 his mind accurately classified them ; it will show that he 
 has gone through the formal processes of reasoning 
 which alone result in such accurate classification. The 
 reporter is a scientist in so far as he is endeavouring to 
 ascertain truth in any possible branch of knowledge. 
 That man is, however, a higher sort of scientist, a crea- 
 tive scientist, who shows that the truths found can be 
 classified into systems independent of the individual 
 thinker. 
 
 It is the function of any one of the forms of discourse 
 to arouse in the reader a state of mind which is charac- 
 terised by a certain rather definite condition. In the 
 case of narrative, the condition is one of perception that 
 events have been succeeding each other in the passage of 
 time; in description, it is a picture-seeing condition of 
 mind ; in argument, it is a condition of conviction as to 
 the truth or falsity of a statement specifically made at 
 the outset, and frequently leading to a course of action 
 upon the part of the one convinced. In exposition the 
 state of mind to be aroused is one in which the reader 
 finally recognises that there has come to him release of 
 mental tension, a tension which, upon analysis, will 
 prove to have been caused by the ambiguity, the vague- 
 ness, or the obscurity of the ideas which the reader pre- 
 
158 THE METHOD AND PEACTICE OF EXPOSITION 
 
 viously had in connection with the suhject handled in 
 the exposition. 
 
 Since it is the purpose of exposition to release this 
 mental tension, exposition does not often consist of the 
 mere reporting of facts, the mere statement of a list of 
 isolated phenomena. It is quite true that the facts often 
 " explain themselves " so that their origin and purport 
 need no setting forth ; hut in the state of ignorance which 
 oppresses most of us human beings, facts do not so often 
 do so in relation to but a few restricted experiences. 
 Therefore, exposition is usually interpretation, — or 
 rather it is a combination of reporting and interpreting. 
 
 Of course, however, the greatest triumphs of author- 
 ship are sometimes achieved by so cataloguing simplest 
 facts that significance is immediate and powerful. Who 
 could separate from moving significance the itemised 
 schedule of Olivia's beauty, as it is reported in Twelfth 
 Night, or What You Will? — " item, two lips indiffer- 
 ent red; item, two grey eyes, vsdth lids to them; item, 
 one neck, one chin, and so forth." Or what a world of 
 heart-ache after heart-leap is significantly latent in the 
 relatively perfect though bare statement of anatomical 
 details in Browning's specifications for the painting of 
 
 A FACE 
 
 If one could have that little head of hers 
 Painted upon a background of pale gold, 
 
 Such as the Tuscan's art prefers ! 
 No shade encroaching on the matchless mould 
 
 Of those two lips, which should be opening soft 
 In the pure profile; not as when she laughs, 
 
EEPOETING AND INTEEPEETHiTG 159 
 
 For that spoils all : but rather as if aloft 
 
 Yon hyacinth, she loves so, leaned its staff's 
 Burthen of honey-coloured buds to kiss 
 
 And capture 'twixt the lips apart for this. 
 Then her lithe neck, three fingers might surround, 
 
 How it should waver on the pale gold ground 
 Up to the fruit-shaped, perfect chin it lifts ! 
 
 I know, Correggio loves to mass, in rifts 
 Of heaven, his angel faces, orb on orb 
 
 Breaking its outline, burning shades absorb: 
 But these are only massed there, I should think, 
 
 Waiting to see some wonder momently 
 Grow out, stand full, fade slow against the sky 
 
 (That's the pale ground you'd see this sweet face by). 
 All heaven, meanwhile, condensed into one eye 
 
 Wlich fears to lose the wonder, should it wink. 
 
 To report is to present the facts ; to interpret is to pre- 
 sent the meaning of the " facts." For example, if we 
 define a " thing " as " a system of relations," or even if 
 we go farther and state what those relations are, we are 
 reporting the facts. But if we go still farther and ex- 
 press the suggestiveness, the allusiveness, the purport of 
 those relations, then we are interpreting the facts. 
 
 The simple matter of arrangement, of stating the facts 
 in accordance with the logical law of contiguity, fre- 
 quently serves as an interpretation, as in the accompany- 
 ing example on page 160, which is a graphical analysis 
 of a portion of a chapter of Morley's Edmund Burke : 
 
160 
 
 THE MKTHOD AND PEACTICE OF EXPOSITIOH 
 
 The reason for the general lack of credence in the 
 reporter, whether in the daily newspaper or in the sci- 
 entific journal, is that he can not keep himself from in- 
 terpretation even though he has rarely taken the time 
 necessary to warrant drawing generalisations from his 
 
EEPOETING AND INTEEPEETING 161 
 
 isolated fragments of observation. The editorial com- 
 ment in a metropolitan daily during the early days of the 
 European War, " What a lot of ships there are nowadays 
 floating around with iive million dollars in their holds ! " 
 is sufficient to indicate that the reporter of what are 
 called " facts " needs often to have stand between him 
 and the reader some one who can interpret the alleged 
 facts by the application of the principles of probability. 
 
 II 
 
 THE WAT THET SHOW THEMSELVES 
 
 The normal manner of the mind's reaction to its ex- 
 perience is a combination of perception of facts and of 
 reasoning about them; and so the normal manner of 
 writing exposition is a combination of reporting and 
 interpreting. In a page and a half of a little book en- 
 titled Dramatic Values/ a little book every page of 
 which is stimulating, Mr. C E. Montague reports the 
 actor George Kobey in action and interprets the acting, 
 — as follows : — 
 
 Mr. Eobey's range of characterisation, like that of most 
 of his peers at the halls, is very small, but the study is 
 diabolically intimate, and the execution edged and finished 
 like a cut jewel. He will come on the stage first as that 
 veteran theme, the middle-aged toper in black, frock-coated, 
 tieless and collarless, leering with imbecile knowingness, 
 Stiggins and Bardolph and Ally Sloper in one, his face all 
 bubuckles and welks and knobs and flames o' fire. He will 
 end as the equally trite old woman, also of bibulous aspect, 
 also half cunning, half crazy, a scold, farcical with relics 
 
 1 Published by the Maomillan Company. 
 
162 THE METHOD AND PEACTICE OF EXPOSITION 
 
 of vanity, ugly as a gargoyle. Nothing could be staler than 
 the matter, nothing more keen with fresh gusto than the 
 craftsman's manner. In a sense Mr. Eobey attempts noth- 
 ing hard ; he does not even sketch a character ; he only iso- 
 lates and caricatures a few odd traits. But the relatively 
 easy task is done amazingly well. He will stand in mid- 
 stage and suggest a dialogue with an invisible second per- 
 son, he himself uttering no complete speeches, but only the 
 trimmings of speech, the humming and hawing, grinning, 
 bowing, odds and ends of suspensive or stimulatory " Yes " 
 and " Oh, I see ! " and " Oh, then," and yet the affluent 
 expressiveness of each inflection and each twitch of a muscle 
 makes everything radiantly clear. What he sings is 
 naught; he might leave it out without taking much from 
 the fun ; as he has grown great his music has withered and 
 his patter has grown more and more; the patter is every- 
 thing now, and yet he says wonderfully little ; first a word, 
 and then he seems to detect some misplaced laugh in the 
 audience, checks, bridles up, passes in pantomime from tan- 
 trum to tantrum, the gusts and squalls of temper coming 
 and going in him visibly. You may call the topics outworn 
 and trivial, the mere words insignificant, the humour 
 metallic, rasping, or worse, but the art, within its limits, is 
 not to be surpassed in its gleaming, elliptical terseness, the 
 volumes it speaks in some instants, its suddenness, fire, and 
 zest. 
 
 It may be false thinking which lies beneath the claim 
 for interpretation that it is a power superior to the 
 power of reporting. In fact, it is not subject to proof 
 that the power to analyse experience as it comes and to 
 report the details of experience from analytical observa- 
 tion is inferior to the synthetic power of interpretation. 
 To interpret is to find a concept which is referable to a 
 type, it is the power to generalise ; but the power to see 
 
EEPOKTING AND INTEEPKETING 163 
 
 the individual thing fully may, after all, be equal in 
 importance to the power that hegins with what has been 
 perceived and then seeks a concept referable to a type. 
 The one who interprets is usually thought to exercise 
 a higher mental power than he who reports only; but 
 perhaps this is only because we are quite conscious of 
 the balancing of probabilities in interpreting, while we 
 know very little of the processes of the mind in simple 
 observation, such as that of the one who desires to do 
 nothing but report. The fact is that it is our power of 
 observing the stages or steps in interpreting, and the 
 power to report the processes of interpretation, that 
 make it possible to think of interpretation as superior. 
 We willingly accord the reporter, who has done his work 
 well, a strong and stable faculty of organic vision. But 
 we expect the interpreter to have, strongly developed, 
 the faculty to reproduce in his own mind the record 
 of literal faithfulness to fact, and also the faculty to con- 
 sider concrete probability, abstract probability, and 
 plausibility. We expect the interpreter to restore the 
 literal fact into the intricate plexus of cause and effect 
 from which it has been brought forth by the reporter. 
 We expect him to be able to estimate the plausibility of 
 those facts which are more external but over which the 
 person or thing involved has little or no voluntary con- 
 trol, and, further, the plausibility which is within the 
 realm of what we know to be purely subjective, or psy- 
 chological. We expect the interpreter to be competent 
 to consider cause and reason, or explanation, to be the 
 same thing. 
 An interpretation is not a series of abstract statements 
 
164 THE METHOD AND PEACTICE OF EXPOSITION 
 
 as opposed to reporting considered as the recording of 
 literal facts. Many interpretations are concreteness 
 itself. The Belgian dramatist and essayist Maeter- 
 linck, believing that life is not all physical action, be- 
 lieving that it is not even altogether the sort of psycho- 
 logical action which brings the actors to physical ex- 
 pression, believing that the more universal life may be 
 one close to inertness, attempts to explain his belief in 
 this concrete way : " I have come to believe that an old 
 man sitting in his armchair, waiting patiently with his 
 lamp beside him, giving unconscious ear to all the ex- 
 ternal laws that reign about his house, interpreting, 
 without comprehending, the silence of doors and win- 
 dows and the quivering voice of the light, submitting 
 with bent head in the presence of his soul and hia 
 destiny — I have come to believe that he, motionless as 
 he is, does yet live in reality a deeper, more human, and 
 more universal life than the lover who strangles his 
 mistress, the captain who conquers in battle, or the hus- 
 band who avenges his honour." 
 
 Charles Lamb, in a letter to Bernard Barton, May 15, 
 1824, writes an interpretation that is a very marvel of 
 concreteness. The first half of the letter reads as fol- 
 lows — (of course, the " Eobert " Blake referred to is 
 William Blake),— 
 
 Dear B. B., — I am oppressed with business all day and 
 Company all night. But I will snatch a quarter of an hour. 
 Your recent acquisitions of the Picture and the Letter are 
 greatly to be congratulated. — I too have a picture of my 
 father and the copy of his first Love verses, but they have 
 been mine long. Blake is a real name, I assure you, and a 
 Ulfist extraordinary man, if he be still living. He is the 
 
EEPOKTING AND INTEEPKETING 165 
 
 Eobert Blake whose wild designs accompany a splendid folio 
 edition of the Night Thoughts, which you may have seen, 
 in one of which he pictures the parting of soul and body 
 by a solid mass of human form floating off God knows how 
 from a lumpish mass (fac Simile to itself) left behind on 
 the dying bed. He paints in water colours, marvellous 
 strange pictures, visions of his brain which he asserts that 
 he has seen. They have great merit. He has seen the old 
 Welsh bards on Snowdon — he has seen the Beautif ullest, 
 the Strongest, and the Ugliest Man, left alone from the 
 Massacre of the Britons by the Eomans, and has painted 
 them from memory (I have seen his paintings), and asserts 
 them to be as good as the figures of Eaphael and Angelo, 
 but not better, as they had precisely the same retro-visions 
 and prophetic visions with himself. The painters in Oil 
 (which he will have it that neither of them practised) he 
 aflEirms to have been the ruin of art, and affirms that all the 
 while he was engaged in his Water-paintings, Titian was dis- 
 turbing him, Titian the 111 Genius of Oil Painting. His 
 Pictures, one in particular, the Canterbury Pilgrims (far 
 above Stothard's), have great merit, but hard, dry, yet with 
 grace. He has written a Catalogue of them, with a most 
 spirited criticism on Chaucer, but mystical and full of 
 Vision. His poems have sold hitherto only in manuscript. 
 I never read them, but a friend at my desire procured the 
 Sweep Song. There is one to a Tiger, which I have heard 
 recited, beginning 
 
 " Tiger, Tiger, burning bright, 
 Thro' the deserts of the night " 
 
 which is glorious. But alas ! I have not the Book, for the 
 man is flown, whither I know not, to Hades, or a Mad 
 House. — But I must look on him as one of the most ex- 
 traordinary persons of the age.^ 
 
 1 It is farther on in this letter that Lamb wrote, " I have writ- 
 ten nothing now for near six months. It is in vain to spur me on. 
 
166 THE METHOD AND PEACTICE OF EXPOSITION 
 
 Packed with fact and vivid with allusions, this letter 
 is; the sort of writing marked especially by that rich- 
 ness which is Poe's test of art. And this allusiveness 
 helps one not only to understand what Lamb is most 
 intent upon, — William Blake, — but also mysteries in 
 other books as well. Por example, one who had read of 
 the Most Beautiful, the Strongest, and the Ugliest Man 
 only in Stephens's Crock of Gold, may have finished the 
 book annoyed that he did not quite know who they were. 
 But in this letter it is recalled who they were. 
 
 Concreteness to the extent of picturing, even, is of 
 immense value to the vsrriter whose purpose is primarily 
 interpretation, as well as to the reporter. The pictured 
 sentence is the best interpreter, to both the average and 
 the most highly intelligent mind. One scarcely needs 
 a context to understand that both a situation and a 
 character are being interpreted in Giovanni's line, in 
 Stephen Phillips's Paolo and Francesca, — 
 
 " I did not know the dead could haye such hair." 
 
 The first half of the nineteenth century, as well as 
 the whole of the eighteenth, was well equipped with 
 brains and self-containment, despite Revolutions and 
 •Reform Bills and the lack of automobiles, aeroplanes, 
 submersibles, and cinematographs. Charlotte Bronte 
 was of that epoch. In the first volume of Villette she 
 reports her visit to an art gallery. The report is con- 
 tained in the chapter entitled " The Cleopatra." The 
 entire chapter is largely given up to " that mulatto," 
 but one paragraph will suffice : 
 
 I must wait. / cannot write mthout a genial impulse, and I 
 have none." 
 
EEPOKTING AND INTEEPKETING 16Y 
 
 It represented a woman, considerablj larger, I thought, 
 than the life. I calculated that this lady, put into a scale 
 of magnitude suitable for the reception of a commodity of 
 bulk, would infallibly turn from fourteen to sixteen stone. 
 She was, indeed, extremely well fed: very much butcher's 
 meat — to say nothing of bread, vegetables, and liquids — 
 must she have consumed to attain that breadth and height, 
 that wealth of muscle, that affluence of flesh. She lay half- 
 reclined on a couch : why, it would be difficult to say ; broad 
 daylight blazed around her : she appeared in hearty health, 
 strong enough to do the work of two plain cooks ; she could 
 not plead a weak spine; she ought to have been standing, 
 or at least sitting bolt upright. She had no business to 
 lounge away the noon on a sofa. She ought likewise to 
 have worn decent garments; a gown covering her properly, 
 which was not the case: out of abundance of material — 
 seven-and- twenty yards, I should say, of drapery — she 
 managed to make inefficient raiment. Then, for the 
 wretched untidiness surrounding her, there could be no ex- 
 cuse. Pots and pans — perhaps I ought to say vases and 
 goblets — were roUed here and there on the foreground ; a 
 perfect rubbish of flowers was mixed amongst them, and 
 an absurd and disorderly mass of curtain upholstery 
 smothered the couch and cumbered the floor. On referring 
 to the catalogue, I found that this notable production bore 
 name " Cleopatra." 
 
 While Miss Bronte's comparison, a little further on, 
 of this full-fed flesh with " any other slug," may seem 
 a trifle over-drawn, yet the whole chapter is delicious 
 art criticism, vivid interpretation, as the chapter on 
 " Vashti " in the second volume, — Vashti that " fallen, 
 insurgent, banished " tigress, — is keen and exquisite 
 dramatic criticism ; yet the manner of presentation is, in 
 the main, purely reportorial. 
 
168 THE METHOD AISTD PEACTICE OF EXPOSITION 
 
 Lafcadio Hearn in the following selection from 
 Koito/ is much more the pure reporter than even 
 Miss Bronte: 
 
 Many persons in Japan earn their living during the sum- 
 mer months by catching and selling fireflies: indeed, the 
 extent of this business entitles it to be regarded as a special 
 industry. The chief centre of this industry is the region 
 about Ishiyama, in Goshu, by the Lake of Omi, — a number 
 of houses there supplying fireflies to many parts of the coun- 
 try, and especially to the great cities of Osaka and Kyoto. 
 From sixty to seventy firefly-catchers are employed by each 
 of the principal houses during the busy season. Some 
 training is required for the occupation. A tyro might find 
 it no easy matter to catch a hundred fireflies in a single 
 night ; but an expert has been known to catch three thou- 
 sand. The methods of capture, although of the simplest 
 possible kind, are very interesting to see. 
 
 Immediately after sunset, the flrefly-hunter goes forth, 
 with a loDg bamboo pole upon his shoulder, and a long bag 
 of brown mosquito-netting wound, like a girdle, about his 
 waist. When he reaches a wooded place frequented by fire- 
 flies, — usually some spot where willows are planted, on the 
 bank of a river or lake, — he halts and watches the trees. 
 As soon as the trees begin to twinkle satisfactorily, he gets 
 his net ready, approaches the most luminous tree, and with 
 his long pole strikes the branches. The firefiies, dislodged 
 by the shock, do not immediately take flight, as more active 
 insects would do under like circumstances, but drop help- 
 lessly to the ground, beetle-wise, where their light — always 
 more brilliant in moments of fear or pain — renders them 
 conspicuous. If suffered to remain upon the ground for a 
 few moments, they will fly away. But the catcher, picking 
 them up with astonishing quickness, using both hands at 
 once, deftly tosses them into his mouth — because he can- 
 
 1 Published by the Macmillan Company. 
 
EEPOETING AND INTEEPEETING 169 
 
 not lose the time required to put them, one by one, into the 
 bag. Only when his mouth can hold no more, does he drop 
 the fireflies, unharmed, into the netting. 
 
 Thus the firefly-catcher works until about two o'clock in 
 the morning, — the old Japanese hour of ghosts, — at which 
 time the insects begin to leave the trees and seek the dewy 
 soil. There they are said to bury their tails, so as to remain 
 viewless. But now the hunter changes his tactics. Taking 
 a bamboo broom, he brushes the surface of the turf, lightly 
 and quickly. Whenever touched or alarmed by the broom, 
 the fireflies display their lanterns, and are immediately 
 nipped and bagged. A little before dawn, the hunters re- 
 turn to town. 
 
 At the firefly-shops the captured insects are sorted as 
 soon as possible, according to the brilliancy of their light, — 
 the more luminous being the higher-priced. Then they are 
 put into gauze-covered boxes or cages, with a certain quan- 
 tity of moistened grass in each cage. From one hundred 
 to two hundred fireflies are placed in a single cage, accord- 
 ing to the grade. To these cages are attached small wooden 
 tablets inscribed with the names of customers, — such as 
 hotel proprietors, restaurant-keepers, wholesale and retail 
 insect-merchants, and private persons who have ordered 
 large quantities of fireflies for some particular festivity. 
 The boxes are despatched to their destinations by nimble 
 messengers, — for goods of this class cannot be safely in- 
 trusted to express companies. 
 
 Great numbers of fireflies are ordered for display at 
 evening parties in the summer season. A large Japa- 
 nese guest-room usually overlooks a garden; and during 
 a banquet or other evening entertainment, given in the 
 sultry season, it is customary to set fireflies at liberty in the 
 garden after sunset, that the visitors may enjoy the sight 
 of the sparkling. Eestaurant-keepers purchase largely. In 
 the famous Dotombori of Osaka, there is a house where 
 myriads of fireflies are kept in a large space enclosed by 
 
170 THE METHOD AND PEACTICE OF EXPOSITION 
 
 mosquito-netting; and customers of this house are per- 
 mitted to enter the enclosure and capture a certain number 
 of fireflies to take home with them. 
 
 The wholesale price of living fireflies ranges from three 
 sen per hundred up to thirteen sen per hundred, according 
 to season and quality. Eetail dealers sell them in cages; 
 and in Tokyo the price of a cage of fireflies ranges from 
 three sen up to several dollars. The cheapest kind of cage, 
 containing only three or four fireflies, is scarcely more 
 than two inches square; but the costly cages — veritable 
 marvels of bamboo work, beautifully decorated — are as 
 large as cages for songbirds. Firefly cages of charming 
 or fantastic shapes — model houses, junks, temple-lanterns, 
 etc., — can be bought at prices ranging from thirty sen up 
 to one dollar. 
 
 Dead or alive, fireflies are worth money. They are 
 delicate insects, and they live but a short time in con- 
 finement. Great numbers die in the insect-shops; and 
 one celebrated insect-house is said to dispose every season 
 of no less than five sho — that is to say, about one peck — 
 of dead fireflies, which are sold to manufacturing estab- 
 lishments in Osaka. Formerly fireflies were used much 
 more than at present in the manufacture of poultices and 
 pills, and in the preparation of drugs peculiar to the prac- 
 tice of Chinese medicine. Even to-day some curious ex- 
 tracts are obtained from them; and one of these, called 
 Hotarunoabura, or Firefly grease, is still used by wood- 
 workers for the purpose of imparting rigidity to objects 
 made of bent bamboo. 
 
 A very curious chapter on firefly medicine might be 
 written by somebody learned in the old-fashioned literature. 
 The queerest part of the subject is Chinese, and belongs 
 much more to demonology than to therapeutics. Firefly- 
 ointments used to be made which had power, it was alleged, 
 to preserve a house from the attacks of robbers, to coun- 
 teract the effect of any poison, and to drive away "the 
 
EEPORTING AND INTEEPEETING 171 
 
 hundred devils." And pills were made with firefly sub- 
 stance which were believed to confer invulnerability; — 
 one kind of such pills being called Kanshogan, or " Com- 
 mander-in-Chief Pills"; and another, Buigan, or "Mili- 
 tary-Power Pills." 
 
 Whether one can secure any response to questions 
 asked of Japanese as to the truth of this exposition of 
 an " industry " except in the form of smiles and shrugs, 
 doesn't matter, for the passage has the air of reality, at 
 least. 
 
 Ill 
 
 SELECTIONS FOE STUDY 
 
 1. The following were clipped from journals. Is 
 each "news" or an editorial? What should be its 
 headline, or its title ? 
 
 (a) A simple air played on the violoncello calls for a 
 total expenditure of energy equal to two and three-quarter 
 pounds per note, or more than four tons of energy for the 
 single selection. This statement is vouched for by Prof. 
 Poffenberger of Columbia university, who made some ex- 
 periments in his laboratory with the aid of the famous Dutch 
 • cellist, Michael Penha. 
 
 A special apparatus is necessary to conduct the tests. 
 Against the surface of a revolving carbon cylinder is sus- 
 pended a chalked point which is actuated by a slender 
 wire attached to the musician's finger. At each pressure 
 the tension vibrates along the communicating connection 
 and records the energy expended. 
 
 At a recent test Michael Penha at times raised the point 
 to a distance equalling three pounds in weight, that being 
 the record of the forefinger. The pressure alone required 
 
172 THE METHOD AND PRACTICE OF EXPOSITION 
 
 to produce the characteristically luscious tones of a simple 
 Bach aria averaged two and three-quarter pounds per note. 
 The total energy expended amounted to 9,414 pounds, or 
 more than four tons. 
 
 This same amount of energy would be sufficient to carry 
 a labourer through his entire day's work. Yet it took but 
 five minutes for the artist to exert the same amount of 
 force. 
 
 (b) The Australian troops in Flanders have a reputa- 
 tion for eccentric military deportment. English comedy 
 probably exaggerates the behaviour of these colonials, af- 
 fectionately, but the Australians are distinctive or there 
 would be no basis for comment. Their personal independ- 
 ence is noted even where Canadians have prepared Eng- 
 lish militarists to look for an individualism not strictly in 
 keeping with military theories. 
 
 It is said of the Australians that they obey significant 
 orders as well as any martinet could wish, but that their 
 disregard for the aristocracy of war is complete. It is 
 related that an English colonel complained to Gen. Bird- 
 wood of the Australian contingent that a sentry had failed 
 to salute him. The general said it was not uncommon 
 for the men to fail to salute him. 
 
 He said he had approached a sentry one day and had 
 been amused to note that the soldier merely stared at him 
 curiously and made no movement to acknowledge his pres- 
 ence. A shell came along and the sentry called out: 
 " Duck, Birdie ! " The outraged colonel asked what the 
 general had done. "I ducked," said Birdwood. 
 
 England amuses itself with these stories of the Aus- 
 tralians. A drawer of comics represented an Australian 
 colonel imploring his men to make a show of discipline and 
 military bearing for an English inspector who was de- 
 scending upon them. He ended his appeal with : " And 
 for the Lord's sake don't call me Alf ! " 
 
 Possibly the military qualities of the Australians, which 
 
EEPOETINQ AND INTEKPKETING 173 
 
 are reputed to be of a high order, are not bettered by the 
 disregard of certain conventions, but the interesting point 
 is that the Australians are the only people in the British 
 empire who have a system of universal military service. 
 
 When the British empire entered the war the Australa- 
 sians were the only citizens in the empire who had submitted 
 to compulsion. The opponents of conscription, when de- 
 feated on other arguments, say that it breaks down a 
 democracy and establishes caste; that it deprives the in- 
 dividual of self-respect and independence. 
 
 The parts of the British empire which have conscrip- 
 tion produce soldiers whose conduct outrages convention 
 and amazes the militarists of the English free will system. 
 
 An army commanding the services of all of the people of 
 a nation reflects the spirit of the nation. An army does 
 not make a national spirit; it merely expresses it. A 
 democratic nation will have a democratic army. Con- 
 scription merely makes the military system just and effi- 
 cient. Conscription in a free people enslaves no one, 
 merely treats everybody fairly. 
 
 2. The following selection is from H. G. Wells. Do 
 you think the selection is complete, or is it a part of 
 a larger whole ? What would you say is the theme of 
 the selection ? Make a title for it. 
 
 Hitherto my only flights have been flights of imagina- 
 tion, but this morning I flew. I spent about ten or fifteen 
 minutes in the air; we went out to sea, soared up, came 
 back over the land, circled higher, planed steeply down to 
 the water, and I landed with the conviction that I had had 
 only the foretaste of a great store of hitherto unsuspected 
 pleasures. At the first chance I will go up again, and I 
 will go higher and further. 
 
 This experience has restored all the keenness of my 
 ancient interest in flying, which had become a little fagged 
 
174 THE METHOD AND PEACTICE OF EXPOSITION 
 
 and flat by too much hearing and reading about the thing 
 and not enough participation. Fifteen years ago, in the 
 days of Langley and Lilienthal, I was one of the few 
 journalists who believed and wrote that flying was possible 
 — it affected my reputation unfavourably, and produced in 
 a few discouraged pioneers of those days a quite touching 
 gratitude. Over my mantel as I write hangs a very blurred 
 and bad but interesting photograph that Professor Lang- 
 ley sent me thirteen years ago. It shows the flight of the 
 first piece of human machinery heavier than air that ever 
 kept itself up for any length of time. It was a model, a 
 little affair that would not have lifted a cat; it went up in a 
 spiral and came down unsmashed, bringing back, like 
 Noah's dove, the promise of tremendous things. 
 
 That was only thirteen years ago, and it is amusing to 
 recall how cautiously even we out-and-out believers did our 
 prophesying. I was quite a desperate fellow; I said out- 
 right that in my lifetime we should see men flying. But 
 I qualified that by repeating that for many years to come 
 it would be an enterprise only for quite fantastic daring 
 and skill. We conjured up stupendous diflBculties and 
 risks. I was deeply impressed and greatly discouraged by 
 a paper a distinguished Cambridge mathematician pro- 
 duced to show that a flying-machine was bound to pitch 
 fearfully, that as it flew on its pitching miist increase, 
 until up went its nose, down went its tail, and it fell like a 
 knife. We exaggerated every possibility of instability. 
 We imagined that when the aeroplane wasn't " kicking up 
 ahind and afore " it would be heeling over to the lightest 
 side wind. A sneeze might upset it. We contrasted our 
 poor human equipment with the instinctive balance of a 
 bird, which has had ten million years of evolution by way 
 of a start. . . . 
 
 Then we went on from those anticipations of swaying 
 insecurity to speculations about the psychological and 
 physiological effects of flying. Most people who look down 
 
EEPORTING AND INTEEPEETING 175 
 
 from the top of a cliff or high tower feel some slight qualms 
 of dread, many feel quite sickening dread. Even if men 
 struggled high into the air, we asked, wouldn't they be 
 smitten up there by such a lonely and reeling dismay as to 
 lose all self-control? And, above all, wouldn't the pitch- 
 ing and tossing make them quite horribly seasick ? 
 
 I have always been a little haunted by that last dread. 
 It gave a little undertow of funk to the mood of lively 
 curiosity with which I got aboard the waterplane this morn- 
 ing — that sort of faint, thin funk that so readily in- 
 vades one on the verge of any new experience; when one 
 tries one's first dive, for example, or pushes off for the 
 first time down an ice-run. I thought I should very prob- 
 ably be seasick — or, to be more precise, airsick ; I thought 
 also that I might get thoroughly cold and uncomfortable. 
 None of those things happened. 
 
 I am still in a state of amazement at the smooth stead- 
 fastness of the motion. There is nothing on earth to 
 compare with that, unless — and that I can't judge — it is 
 an ice-yacht travelling on perfect ice. The finest motor-car 
 in the world on the best road would be a joggling, quiver- 
 ing thing beside it. 
 
 To begin with, we went out to sea before the wind, and 
 the plane would not readily rise. We went with an un- 
 dulating movement, leaping with a light splashing pat upon 
 the water; from wave to wave. Then we came about into 
 the wind, and rose ; and, looking over, I saw that there were 
 no longer those periodic flashes of white foam. I was fly- 
 ing. And it was as still and steady as dreaming.^ 
 
 3. Write an exposition of the values of some common- 
 place thing, — some thing hitherto neglected in litera- 
 ture, it may he. Perhaps a little article from Casual 
 Essays of the Sun may be suggestive : 
 
 The comprehensive merits of the hairpin are known to • 
 1 From the American Magazine. 
 
176 THE METHOD AND PEACTICE OF EXPOSITION 
 
 all observant men. Its special value in surgery is as- 
 serted by a writer in American Medicine. It seems that a 
 surgeon can do almost anything with a hairpin. He can 
 wire bones with it, probe and close wounds, pin bandages, 
 compress blood vessels, use it " to remove foreign bodies 
 from any natural passage," and as a curette for scraping 
 away soft material. And no doubt the women doctors can 
 do a great deal more with that most gifted and versatile of 
 human implements. Anthropologists have never done jus- 
 tice to the hairpin. It keeps civilisation together. In the 
 hands of girls entirely great it is much mightier than the 
 sword or, for that matter, the plough. What is the plough 
 but a development of the forked stick, and what is the 
 forked stick but a modification of the hairpin? If there 
 was any necessity, a woman could scratch the ground suc- 
 cessfully now. In fact, there is no work or play in which 
 something may not be accomplished by means of it. 
 
 Dullards will tell you that women aren't so inventive as 
 men, don't take out so many patents. They don't have to. 
 With the hairpin all that is doable can be done. With a 
 hairpin a woman can pick a lock, pull a cork, peel an apple, 
 draw out a nail, beat an egg, see if a joint of meat is done, 
 do up a baby, sharpen a pencil, dig out a sliver, fasten a 
 door, hang up a plate or picture, open a can, take up a 
 carpet, repair a baby carriage, clean a lamp chimney, put 
 up a curtain, rake a grate fire, cut a pie, make a fork, a 
 fishhook, an awl, a gimlet, or a chisel, a papercutter, a 
 clothespin, regulate a range, tinker a sewing machine, stop 
 a leak in the roof, turn over a flapjack, caulk a hole in a 
 pair of trousers, stir batter, whip cream, reduce the pres- 
 sure in the gas metre, keep bills and receipts on file, spread 
 butter, cut patterns, tighten windows, clean a watch, untie 
 a knot, varnish floors, do practical plumbing, reduce the 
 asthma of tobacco pipes, pry shirt studs into buttonholes 
 too small for them, fix a horse's harness, restore damaged 
 mechanical toys, wrestle with refractory beer stoppers, im- 
 
EEPOBTING AND INTEEPEETING 177 
 
 provise suspenders, shovel bonbons, inspect gas burners, saw 
 cake, jab tramps, produce artificial buttons, hooks and eyes, 
 sew, knit, and darn, button gloves and shoes, put up awn- 
 ings, doctor an automobile. In short, she can do what she 
 wants to ; she needs no other instrument. 
 
 If a woman went into the Eobinson Crusoe line, she 
 would build a hut and make her coat of the skin of a goat 
 by means of the hairpin. She will revolutionise surgery 
 with it in time. Meanwhile the male chirurgeons are do- 
 ing the best they can ; but it is not to be believed that they 
 have mastered the full mystery of the hairpin.^ 
 
 4, What is the leading idea set forth in the closing 
 chapter of Pater's Renaissance^ here quoted? What 
 relation does each paragraph sustain to that idea ? 
 
 To regard all things and principles of things as in con- 
 stant modes or fashions has more and more become the 
 tendency of modern thought. Let us begin with that which 
 is without — our physical life. Fix upon it in one of its 
 most exquisite intervals, the moment, for instance, of deli- 
 cious recoil from the flood of water in summer heat. What 
 is the whole physical life in that moment but a combination 
 of natural elements to which science gives their names? 
 But these elements, phosphorus and lime and delicate 
 fibres, are present not in the human body alone : we detect 
 them in places most remote from it. Our physical life is 
 a perpetual motion of them — the passage of the blood, 
 the wasting and repairing of the lenses of the eye, the 
 modification of the tissues of the brain under every ray 
 of light and sound — processes which science reduces to 
 simpler and more elementary forces. Like the elements 
 of which we are composed, the action of these forces ex- 
 tends beyond us: it rusts iron and ripens corn. Par out 
 on every side of us those elements are broadcast, driven in 
 
 1 From the Sun, New York, May 19, 1902. 
 
 2 Published by the Macmillan Company. 
 
178 THE METHOD AND PEACTICE OF EXPOSITION 
 
 many currents; and birth and gesture and death and the 
 springing of violets from the grave are but a iew out of 
 ten thousand resultant combinations. That clear, perpetual 
 outline of face and limb is but an image of ours, under 
 which we group them — a design in a web, the actual 
 threads of which pass out beyond it. This at least of 
 flame-like our life has, that it is but the concurrence, re- 
 newed from moment to moment, of forces parting sooner or 
 later on their ways. 
 
 Or if we begin with the inward world of thought and 
 feelings, the whirpool is still more rapid, the flame more 
 eager and devouring. There it is no longer the gradual 
 darkening of the eye, the gradual fading of colour from 
 the wall — movements of the shoreside, where the water 
 flows down indeed, though in apparent rest — but the race 
 of the mid-stream, a drift of momentary acts of sight and 
 passion and thought. At first sight experience seems to 
 bury us under a flood of external objects, pressing upon 
 us with a sharp and importunate reality, calling us out of 
 ourselves in a thousand forms of action. But when reflec- 
 tion begins to play upon those objects they are dissipated 
 under its influence; the cohesive force seems suspended 
 like some trick of magic ; each object is loosed into a group 
 of impressions — colour, odour, texture — in the mind of 
 the observer. And if we continue to dwell in thought on 
 this world, not of the objects in the solidity with which 
 language invests them, but of impressions, unstable, flicker- 
 ing, inconsistent, which burn and are extinguished with 
 our consciousness of them, it contracts still further: the 
 whole scope of observation is dwarfed into the narrow 
 chamber of the individual mind. Experience, already re- 
 duced to a group of impressions, is ringed round for each 
 one of us by that thick wall of personality through which 
 no real voice has ever pierced on its way to us, or from us 
 to that which we can only conjecture to be without. Every 
 one of these impressions is the impression of the individual 
 
EEPOETING AND INTEEPKETING 179 
 
 in his isolation, each mind keeping as a solitary prisoner its 
 own dream of a world. Analysis goes a step farther still, 
 and assures us that those impressions of the individual 
 mind to which, for each one of us, experience dwindles 
 down, are in perpetual flight; that each of them is limited 
 by time, and that as time is infinitely divisible, each of 
 them is infinitely divisible also; all that is actual in it be- 
 ing a single moment, gone while we try to apprehend it, 
 of which it may ever be more truly said that it has ceased 
 to be than that it is. To such a tremulous wisp con- 
 stantly re-forming itself on the stream, to a single sharp 
 impression, with a sense in it, a relic more or less fleeting, 
 of such moments gone by, what is real in our life fines it- 
 self down. It is with this movement, with the passage 
 and dissolution of impressions, images, sensations, that 
 analysis leaves oif — that continual vanishing away, that 
 strange, perpetual weaving and tmweaving of ourselves. 
 
 Philosophiren, says Novalis, ist dephlegmatisiren vivi- 
 ficiren. The service of philosophy, of speculative culture, 
 towards the human spirit, is to rouse, to startle it to a life 
 of constant and eager observation. Every moment some 
 form grows perfect in hand or face ; some tone on the hills 
 or the sea is choicer than the rest; some mood of passion 
 or insight or intellectual excitement is irresistibly real and 
 attractive to us, — for that moment only. l^Tot the fruit of 
 experience, but experience itself, is the end. A counted 
 number of pulses only is given to us of a variegated, dra- 
 matic life. How may we see in them all that is to be 
 seen in them by the finest senses? How shall we pass 
 most swiftly from point to point, and be present always at 
 the focus where the greatest number of vital forces unite 
 in their purest energy ? 
 
 To burn always with this hard, gem-like flame, to main- 
 tain this ecstasy, is success in life. In a sense it might 
 even be said that our failure is to form habits ; for, after all, 
 habit is relative to a stereotyped world, and meantime it is 
 
180 THE METHOD AND PRACTICE OF EXPOSITION 
 
 only the roughness of the eye that makes any two persons, 
 things, situations, seem alike. While all melts under our 
 feet, we may well grasp at any exquisite passion, .or any 
 contribution to knowledge that seems by a lifted horizon to 
 set the spirit free for a moment, or any stirring of the 
 senses, strange dyes, strange colours, and curious odours, or 
 work of the artist's hands or the face of one's friend. Not 
 to discriminate every moment some passionate attitude in 
 those about us, and in the very brilliancy of their gifts some 
 tragic dividing of forces on their ways, is, on this short 
 day of frost and sun, to sleep before evening. With this 
 sense of the splendour of our experience and of its awful 
 brevity, gathering all we are into one desperate effort to see 
 and touch, we shall hardly have time to make theories about 
 the things we see and touch. What we have to do is to be 
 forever curiously testing new opinions and courting new 
 impressions, never acquiescing in a facile orthodoxy of 
 Comte, or of Hegel, or of our own. Philosophical theories 
 or ideas, as points of view, instruments of criticism, may 
 help us to gather up what might otherwise pass unregarded 
 by us. " Philosophy is the microscope of thought." The 
 theory or idea or system which requires of us the sacrifice 
 of any part of this experience, in consideration of some in- 
 terest into which we cannot enter, or some abstract theory 
 we have not identified with ourselves, or of what is only 
 conventional, has no real claim upon us. 
 
 One of the most beautiful passages of Eousseau is that 
 in the sixth book of the Confessions, — where he describes 
 the awakening in him of the literary sense. An undefin- 
 able taint of death had clung always about him, and now 
 in early manhood he believed himself smitten by mortal 
 disease. He asked himself how he might make as much as 
 possible of the interval that remained; and he was not 
 biassed by anything in his previous life when he decided 
 that it must be by intellectual excitement, which he found 
 just then in the clear, fresh writings of Voltaire. Well! 
 
EEPOETING AND INTEEPEETING 181 
 
 we are all condamnes, as Victor Hugo says: we are all un- 
 der sentence of death, but with a sort of indefinite reprieve 
 — les hommes sont tous condamnes a mort avec des sursis 
 indeflnis: we have an interval, and then our place knows us 
 no more. Some spend this interval in listlessness, some in 
 high passions, the wisest, at least among " the children of 
 this world," in art and song. For our one chance lies in 
 expanding that interval, in getting as many pulsations as 
 possible into the given time. Great passions may give us 
 this quickened sense of life, ecstasy and sorrow of love, the 
 various forms of enthusiastic activity, disinterested or other- 
 wise, which come naturally to many of us. Only be sure 
 it is passion — that it does yield you this fruit of quickened, 
 multiplied consciousness. Of such wisdom, the poetic pas- 
 sion, the desire of beauty, the love of art for its own sake, 
 has most. For art comes to you, proposing frankly to give 
 nothing but the highest quality to your moments as they 
 pass, and simply for those moments' sake. 
 
CHAPTER Vn 
 
 Cbiticism 
 
 I 
 
 WHAT IT IS 
 
 Criticism, as the term is usually employed, is the 
 search after and the communication of the truth con- 
 cerning any literary or other artistic work. In this 
 search after truth, the critic, if his search is an ex- 
 haustive one, examines the circumstances surrounding 
 the production of the work of literature or other art, 
 and examines also the substance of the work, its method, 
 and its probable and actual effects. 
 
 Of course, the term Criticism has a wider applica- 
 tion than to the search after truth relative to artistic 
 productions, which are, in so far as they are artistic, 
 quite largely the work of the imagination. Criticism 
 is also the very life of sciencej in that it tests in every 
 conceivable way the generalisations which the scientist 
 deduces from his observation and his experiments. In 
 fact, the term criticism applies to the judging and de- 
 fining of the qualities or merits, or both, of anything^ — 
 politics, morals, industry, education, religion, as they 
 find expression in life, as well as in literature, drama, 
 
 music, painting, and the like. And the same general 
 
 182 
 
CEITICISM 183 
 
 principles apply in the criticism of all things, whether 
 it be a criticism of a well-made play or of a poorly-con- 
 ducted campaign for election to public office. Criti- 
 cism is always an inquiry into man's work, or his play, 
 — into something that man has done. Every person 
 who sets himself seriously to the task of authorship 
 thereby becomes a critic, for, said Ibsen, 
 
 To write — is to summon one's self, 
 And play the judge's part. 
 
 Criticism asks four general questions concerning 
 man's activity : first. How did he come to do it ? second. 
 What is it that he has done ? third. What methods did 
 he employ in doing it? and, fourth, What are the ef- 
 fects of his achievement ? 
 
 II 
 
 WHAT THE CEITIC MUST BE 
 
 The critic, like the man of science, must be a man 
 equipped with strong and accurate powers of observa- 
 tion. As with the writer of exposition by the indirect 
 methods, of description or narrative, so it is with the 
 critic ; his task is a two-fold one, because, in addition to 
 re-examining what the producer of the work under con- 
 sideration has observed, the critic must also examine 
 the results of the producer's observation. The critic 
 of a scientific work, for example, must have the power 
 to hold in his mind both the actual objective facts 
 upon which the work is based and the scientific work it- 
 
184 THE METHOD AND PEACTICE OF EXPOSITION 
 
 self; as Stevenson would put it, he must, in this con- 
 nection, be juggling with two oranges at the same time. 
 The critic must also be a man of accurate perception, 
 which involves understanding and classification. He 
 must, too, be one who has the ability to evaluate, to ap- 
 praise, to estimate the worth of what he sees, under- 
 stands, and classifies. Then the critic must have the 
 skill so to express his evaluation that it will be clear, 
 interesting, and convincing to those to whom he com- 
 municates that evaluation. Furthermore, the critic 
 must be honest ; and yet he must not be eccentric. He 
 must be honest ; he must, that is to say, judge in accord- 
 ance with the powers that are within himself. He 
 must judge by means of his own equipment, his own 
 knowledge, reasoning, — his own temperament, even. 
 He must not guide his seeing and understanding, clas- 
 sifying and evaluating, in accordance with what he be- 
 lieves would be in the observation and judgment of 
 another. And yet he must not be eccentric. His ob- 
 servation and judgment must not be out of all keep- 
 ing with facts and standards already known and ac- 
 cepted. There is just as much foolishness in eccen- 
 tricity as in conventionality. The critic may vary from 
 accepted standards; and, if a live man, he is likely to 
 vary from them in many particulars, but hardly likely 
 to do so in relation to general truths. The critic is a 
 scientist ; and as such he must do his work vdth scrupu- 
 lous care in accordance with well-considered methods, 
 and under the never-absent supervision of re-examina- 
 tion. There is no room for eccentricity. If the critic 
 rambles, he must ramble concentrically. 
 
CEITICISM 185 
 
 III 
 
 THE KINDS OF CEITICISM 
 
 Criticism is of various general kinds, — impression- 
 istic, scientific, historical, appreciative, judicial, psycho- 
 logical ; even the terms constructive and destructive are 
 often applied to criticism, — also higher and lower, and 
 collective and individual. 
 
 Some of these terms over-lap in their meanings. 
 With the terms " lower " criticism and " higher " criti- 
 cism, we have little here to do, hecause they are so much 
 intermingled with the other terms named above. 
 Suifice it to say that lower or textual criticism is con- 
 cerned with establishing the text in the form which 
 it originally had at the hands of its author ; and higher 
 or interpretative criticism attempts to arrive at and 
 bring out the meaning intended by the original author. 
 Neither are the terms " collective " and " individual," as 
 applied to criticism, of special interest here, as their 
 significance is involved in some of the other terms. 
 Collective criticism is simply the consensus of acute and 
 able scholars; not the consensus of contemporary 
 opinion, of course. Individual criticism, as opposed to 
 collective, is nothing more, and it may be nothing less, 
 than the opinions simply of one man, without regard 
 to the opinions held by others. 
 
 As to " destructive " and " constructive " criticism, 
 the terms are rather vague, as commonly used. De- 
 structive criticism is not worthy the name of criticism 
 if it is no more than the pronouncement of the lack 
 
186 THE METHOD AND PEACTICE OF EXPOSITION 
 
 of worth of a composition ; nor is it worthy of the name 
 if its purpose runs even to the showing of why the 
 composition is worthless, if that is the sole thing done 
 by the critical effort. That which is intended to be- 
 stow blame and blame alone may be destructive, but it 
 is not criticism. It is the prevalence of such a, prac- 
 tice, however, that gave some warrant for Disraeli's sav- 
 age statement that the critics are the men who have 
 failed in literature and in art. True destructive criti- 
 cism is that which, after judging with openness of mind 
 the elements, qualities, and values of a product, re- 
 sults in over-turning established views of what has 
 been thus evaluated. Constructive criticism is still more 
 vague, in the popular mind. Constructive criticism is 
 not an attempt to achieve the opposite of what is ac- 
 complished by destructive criticism, not an attempt to 
 find all that is praiseworthy and nothing else, and thus 
 to secure a roseate view of the object criticised. If it is 
 anything quite definite, constructive criticism is rather 
 the attempt to find what lies beneath those things that 
 are obvious to the hasty or superficial view; it is the 
 attempt to find new views and even new principles to 
 add to the already accumulated principles of critical 
 judgment. 
 
 Impressionistic criticism is good criticism provided 
 the critic has ability. Impressionistic criticism implies 
 capability of being impressible, and it implies a fresh 
 condition of the mind. It is, of course, much deter- 
 mined in its processes and its results by personal stand- 
 ards. There are three general types of good impres- 
 sionistic critics: First, those with a high degree of 
 
CEITICISM 
 
 187 
 
 power to appreciate slight and faint effects; Second, 
 those with special sensibility to first experiences rela- 
 tive to the given object, the immediate and momentary 
 effects being considered more important than those 
 slower in coming and remaining longer; Third, those 
 who react readily to only the larger facts of the ob- 
 ject, intellectual or moral or emotional, and who are 
 inclined to recognise these facts in the aggregate rather 
 than in combination. Each of these three groups of 
 impressionistic critics tends to represent its experiences 
 in one of two ways: (1) by expressing the whole of 
 its impressions with no elaboration, with no complete- 
 ness or finish of detail; and (2) quite the opposite to 
 (1), by expressing impressions in full completeness, 
 with elaboration of detail concerning the growth of the 
 impressions in the critic's mind, — contemplating the 
 mental image as the real thing, — pure subjectivity. 
 The second of the three groups above mentioned, is not 
 so much inclined as the first and the third to a re- 
 version to the attitude of the old Stoics, presenting 
 only the appearances in the mind caused by the object 
 external to it. 
 
 Impressionistic criticism in literature is usually ap- 
 plied to works that are compelling, works that affect the 
 mind forcibly and deeply and in definite form ; though 
 the criticism itself is too often vague and indistinct, 
 because too impatient of the significance of detail. In 
 art generally this type of criticism is applied more to 
 physical appearances than to those appearances within 
 the realm of perception, and is applied to perceptive 
 images more than to the ideas in the work involved in 
 
188 THE METHOD AND PEACTICE OF EXPOSITION 
 
 the criticism; yet it does not present even physical ap- 
 pearances with photographic detail, preferring to ex- 
 press rather the tone with which they impress the mind, 
 and nearly always being quite impatient of detail even 
 as to tone. 
 
 Scientific criticism attempts to measure the author 
 completely; to contemplate his personality, to scan his 
 achievement, to collect, in- fact, all possible data, to 
 weigh it all, striving, in the weighing, to eliminate all 
 personal views of the critic. It follows, as a rule, the 
 argumentative method, — by defining terms in the light 
 of the history of the object investigated in the criticism, 
 by examining all available opinions and comparing them, 
 by accepting no mere assertions, searching for exact 
 evidence only, if possible drawing no imperfect gener- 
 alisations, permitting no causes and no effects to stand 
 without their relationships being discovered, — proceed- 
 ing logically in all things. " Scientific " implies not 
 learning alone, but skill as well. A scientist must not 
 only collect facts, but he must understand them; he 
 must co-ordinate, arrange, and systematise them. 
 Scientific criticism, however, is not quite like science 
 itself, for the method of science includes observation, ex- 
 periment, and reasoning; while in literature and in art 
 generally, experiment belongs rather to the process of 
 creation than to that of criticism. 
 
 In historical criticism the history of the work is in- 
 vestigated. The path followed by the work from its 
 first conception in the mind of the author until the 
 hour of the criticism is carefully traversed. The so- 
 cial circumstances which made possible the conception 
 
CEITICISM 189 
 
 in the first instance, the culture and growth of the con- 
 ception in the mind-life of the author, the conditions 
 surrounding his giving expression to it, its publication, 
 its immediate reception by readers, its subsequent re- 
 ception by the general reader and by the critics, its re- 
 visions, if any, — all the facts in relation to the history 
 of the work are examined in exhaustive detail. Oc- 
 casionally historical criticism is considered as but an 
 attempt to regain or restore the points of view contem- 
 porary with the work discussed, but that is a limited 
 notion of the term historical. 
 
 Appreciative criticism implies observation of facts 
 and their relations. It implies apprehension, also, of 
 facts and relations, implies a clear perception, intelli- 
 gent recognition, and sympathetic understanding. It 
 implies, in other words, that the critic is equipped to 
 perceive and skilled to manifest what he has perceived 
 of fact and relation. It implies that the critic can set 
 a just and sufficiently high estimate upon what is criti- 
 cised, that he can wisely judge as well as delicately per- 
 ceive. It implies intellectual power, moral power, emo- 
 tional power. The critic who would appreciate must 
 be a thinker, he must understand life-values, and he 
 must be able to recreate within himself the feeling which 
 gave atmosphere to the work under consideration. He 
 must be a candid investigator, one who perceives fine dif- 
 ferences, one who can, above all, respond to the quali- 
 ties in things and give them their due values. The 
 appreciative critic must understand the history of the 
 work, and he must be judicial, or his appreciation may 
 easily become not just in its assigning of values. The 
 
190 THE METHOD AND PEACTICE OF EXPOSITION 
 
 power of apprehending and the power of evaluating are 
 the chief endowments needed hy him. Appreciative 
 criticism will try to find all the values of that to which 
 the criticism is applied, and to express those values 
 in the most adequate terms. 
 
 Judicial criticism is not only impartial but also dis- 
 criminating. It is determinative. It decides upon and 
 gives utterance to judgment as to points hitherto open 
 to question, and to points now for the first time open 
 to question. Judicial criticism implies deliberation, 
 of course, — hence the writing of it must give evidence 
 of careful, well-balanced, and sustained thought. The 
 judicial critic must seem to be even an arbitrator, 
 taking cognisance of opposing ideas, and with discre- 
 tion determining the values upon all sides. He should 
 not, however, become legislative; he should not pre- 
 scribe for the future, neither what the future critical 
 opinion shall be nor what shall be the proper or best 
 methods for the present or the future author. The 
 term judicial is sometimes applied to criticism which 
 busies itself chiefly with testing by means of external 
 standards, or already established canons or tests, such 
 as Matthew Arnold applies in his essay upon The Study 
 of Poetry; but in such case it is likely to turn out to 
 be impressionistic criticism of the purely personal sort 
 because, however universal the standards may be, they 
 may still be applied from a purely individual point of 
 view. 
 
 Psychological criticism is often defined as that criti- 
 cism which brings to bear upon the work under con- 
 
CEITICISM 191 
 
 sideration all that can be found out concsming the per- 
 sonality of the artist who produced the work. This is 
 too narrow a definition. Psychological criticism is not, 
 or should not be, concerned with only the personality 
 of the artist producing the work; it is, or should be, 
 social in its interests as well as individual. The psycho- 
 logical critic studies the mental conditions of the time 
 of the production, and the effects of the work, both tem- 
 porary and permanent, so far as they can be determined, 
 upon the mind of society. Furthermore, he examines 
 carefully his own mind relative to the work; and, in 
 the various steps his mind takes in estimating the facts 
 and the significance of the facts relative to the author, 
 to the subject-matter and form of the work, to the so- 
 cial effects, he presents psychological data that has 
 weight and worth according as the critic himself is of 
 weight and worth. Psychological criticism is not wholly 
 introspective ; impressionistic criticism is more likely to 
 be that; but it is observational, too, — yet of necessity, 
 as a rule, it is not experimental except in relation to 
 the critic himself. Its work is hosed upon a knowl- 
 edge of the constitution and function of the normal mind 
 of man as that constitution and function are discovered 
 primarily by introspection under strict conditions of 
 experimental control. \ 
 
 Of course, it is evident even to the most casual 
 thinker that the various kinds of criticism are not 
 mutually exclusive. For example, the most judicial 
 should be scientific, the most scientific must also be 
 historical, and all the kinds of criticism are compara- 
 
192 THE METHOD AND PEACTICE OF EXPOSITION 
 
 tively valueless unless they are intenningled with the 
 psychological method. All try to find the facts, and 
 to express the meaning and the value of those facts. 
 
 IV 
 
 THE QUESTIONS CKITICISM ASKS 
 
 But let us come back to the four general questions 
 asked by criticism, which were mentioned at the be- 
 ginning of this chapter. The first question as to man's 
 activity is, How did he come to do it? That is a his- 
 torical question. It is also a psychological one, and 
 the facts concerning the why of the author's work should 
 be canvassed with full and painstaking scientific ac- 
 curacy, and with the most judicial temper of mind. All 
 the circumstances affecting the production of the work 
 in process of criticism must be examined, — the per- 
 sonality of the author, his environment, and especially 
 his purpose in bringing the work to birth. 
 
 The second question is. What is it that the man has 
 done? That is a question which must be asked with 
 judicial mind, and one whose answer must be sought 
 in the most scientific spirit, the author being careful 
 to be fully appreciative of all values that the work 
 possesses. The general nature of the subject-matter 
 must be gone into. Is it in the field of political science, 
 or of chemistry, or of art? And the special nature of 
 the subject-matter must be evaluated. Does it have to 
 do with the organisation of the legislative branch of 
 government, or with coal-tar compounds, or with en- 
 
CBITICISM 193 
 
 graving ? Is th& work history, or is it fiction ? — and 
 thus we inevitably pass to the third question. 
 
 The third question is, What methods did the producer 
 of the work employ in accomplishing his task? The 
 second and the third questions are not to he thought 
 of apart. Matter and execution cannot he kept apart ; 
 they are one and indivisible. " Content and form," 
 said Aristotle, " are inseparable." A work of art is 
 organic. In a work of art the relation of form to con- 
 tent is not that of goblet to water contained, nor of 
 apparel to body, but of body to spirit The analysis 
 of the form of a composition is also the analysis of 
 its substance. Just so soon as one begins to inspect 
 closely the form of literature, for example, asking 
 whether it is prose or poetry, whether it is history or 
 fiction, whether it is plot or not plot, whether it is 
 climactic or anti-climactic, whether it is long or short, 
 or any other question as to form, he immediately lets 
 a djinn out of the pot, the djinn named content, whose 
 bidding he must at once obey. The best of reasons for 
 the unsatisfactory character of nearly all discussions of 
 the formal aspects of artistic work is that the content 
 is constantly looking without from the enclosing form. 
 The content will nonplus and then again it will in- 
 spirit us whenever we apply ourselves to analysis of 
 form and of formal processes. And well it is that it 
 does so, that the " thing-in-itself " is constantly calling 
 aloud for attention. And the opposite is equally true, 
 that no bold facing of substance, or subject-matter, or 
 content, or whatever the critic calls it, is attempted that 
 does not lead almost at once to a consideration ot the 
 
194 THE METHOD AND PEACTICE OF EXPOSITION 
 
 form or method or way or appearance which the con- 
 tent or substance assumes. 
 
 The fourth of the general questions which criticism 
 asks is, What are the effects of the author's having 
 done as he has done and of his having done what he 
 has done ? This question is inseparably bound up with 
 all and each of the other three. It is bound up with 
 the first, because the effect and the purpose can rarely, 
 if ever, be entirely kept apart. This question is not to 
 be kept apart from the second question either, for, of 
 course, the effect upon society depends upon what it 
 is that is affecting it. True also it is that this fourth 
 query is not to be separated from the third, for one 
 man is affected by one way of doing a thing, another by 
 another, and so on indefinitely. The answering of the 
 fourth question involves a study of society. The psy- 
 chology of audiences must be taken into account. To 
 answer the question adequately involves sociological 
 knowledge and insight. If the work criticised is not a 
 new one, at least new historical acumen is needed by 
 the critic. If, on the other hand, the work is new, a 
 wide and penetrating insight into one's own epoch is in- 
 dispensable. And in both cases, the writer of criticism 
 is usually forced into the role of prophet, and thus led 
 to tell what he infers may be the effect of the work 
 upon the future. Only the impressionistic critic, and 
 one who is impressionistic in the very narrow sense of 
 speaking from his own limited experience without re- 
 gard for collective experience or achieved successes in 
 the past, can for long consistently refuse to speak of 
 and for the future. 
 
CEITICISM 195 
 
 And so the four critical questions require that the 
 questioner and answerer must study the author's envi- 
 ronment, equipment, and purpose, that he must study for 
 himself the subject, not following alone in the footsteps 
 of the author examined, that he must estimate the apt- 
 ness in handling, that he must look into the nature, num- 
 ber, and permanency of the audience appealed to by the 
 material involved. This is criticism; the examination 
 and evaluation of who and why and where and what 
 and how and what then. And it must be remembered 
 that literature itself, and all good art, too, is criticism, — 
 a criticism of life. 
 
 SELECTIONS FOE ANALYSIS 
 
 1. Discover all you can concerning the writers of the 
 following criticisms, and determine their fitness, in 
 each case, to accomplish the task of criticism which was 
 attempted. Also, apply to the criticisms themselves the 
 principles stated in the above discussion of the various 
 kinds of criticism. 
 
 a. There have been sporadic seasons of the operettas of 
 Gilbert and Sullivan in the theatres of New York as long 
 as the operettas have existed; but last week was the first 
 week in thirty years, if we are not mistaken, in which the 
 same work occupied two stages for days together at the 
 same time. Then, as now, it was The Mikado which was 
 performed, and the operetta was brand new. It would be 
 a pleasant reflection, could it be indulged, that the simul- 
 taneous performances at the Forty-eighth Street and Stand- 
 
196 THE METHOD AND PEACTICE OF EXPOSITIOBT 
 
 ard Theatres were an indication of a return of Gilbert and 
 Sullivan's works to the extraordinary vogue which they had 
 a quarter of a century ago, before idiotic buffooneries and 
 vulgar jingles had debauched public taste. It may be an 
 extravagant hope that this might be so, but there are in- 
 dications of a return to better standards than those which 
 gradually took possession of the Broadway playhouse after 
 the last of the Gilbert and Sullivan works had been brought 
 forward, and a cataclysm may be impending which will 
 submerge the now-dominant frivolity and bring back a love 
 for comedy which shall be bright and clean and music which 
 shall be worthy of the name. Such appreciation as The 
 Lilac Domino received might be looked upon as a pre- 
 liminary step toward this desirable consummation, for that 
 clever work at least gave no offence to lovers of good music 
 and showed how much more refinement and skill the best 
 foreign composers have than the best of those who live in 
 this country. Now, in his day Sir Arthur Sullivan was a 
 much more thoroughly schooled musician than any of the 
 men of France and Germany whose works he supplanted 
 in the popular taste of England and America, and, no 
 doubt, frequently regretted that fate had turned his muse 
 into the comic path. His friends knew that he cast many 
 regretful looks upon the scores of The Prodigal Son,, The 
 Golden Legend, and Ivanhoe when in the full flush of his 
 victories on the operetta stage; but the most discerning 
 critics among them must have known that in the serious 
 vein which he would have preferred to follow he had added 
 nothing to music with all his fine talent (or genius, if one 
 would have it so), whereas, in the light dramatic style into 
 which he was drawn by his partnership with Gilbert he 
 did a distinct and even great service to his generation, his 
 art, his people, and all peoples who use the English tongue. 
 The props which Mr. Gilbert placed under the structure of 
 his reputation were more numerous and more varied, but 
 
CRITICISM 197 
 
 he, too, was at his best in the refined whimsicality and 
 polite satire of his operetta books. Their destruction 
 would be a severe loss to the literature of the stage, while 
 the wiping out of all his other dramatic writings might be 
 contemplated with equanimity. It will be interesting for 
 a long time to come to read the social history of the closing 
 decades of the nineteenth century in Gilbert's skits, which, 
 in spite of their farcical character, served the true and best 
 purposes of comedy in their smiling chastisement of popu- 
 lar follies. 
 
 Looked at from one point of view it may safely be said 
 that through their ministrations Gilbert and Sullivan placed 
 their native England far in advance of all the nations of 
 the world. Theirs was peculiarly the age of operetta. 
 During the last forty years no form of theatrical entertain- 
 ment has compared in popularity with musical comedy in 
 England, Germany, France, and America. Yet it was 
 only in England and America that, through their efforts, 
 popular taste was turned and developed in a direction which 
 deserved commendation by the standards at once of good art 
 and good morals. In Prance the descent from the opera 
 comique of Auber, Boieldieu, and Adam to the opera bouffe 
 of Offenbach was great ; but it was atoned for, measurably, 
 by the gracefulness and piquancy of Offenbach's melodic 
 talent, and also, to some extent, by the satirical scourge 
 which his librettists applied to the manners of the Second 
 Empire. In Germany, French opera bouffe crowded out 
 the Singspiel of men like Lortzing, whose talent was most 
 ingratiating, without putting works of characteristic orig- 
 inality in its place. Clever as the best operettas of Suppe 
 (a Dalmatian to the Italian manner born), Strauss, and 
 Millocker were (we can only say " are " of a few of them), 
 it cannot be said for them that they were at all unique in 
 their genre. They were but developments of the French 
 type tricked out with German dance rhythms. Not so the 
 
198 THE METHOD ASTD PEACTICE OF EXPOSITION 
 
 creations of Gilbert and Sullivan. They are racy of the 
 English soil. H. E. E^eehbiel, — in the New York Tri- 
 bune, May 23, 1915. 
 
 b. Among the minor poems in this collection is " The 
 Forsaken," so widely known and so universally admired. 
 The popular as well as the critical voice ranks it as the most 
 beautiful ballad of its kind ever written. 
 
 We have read this little poem more than twenty times, 
 and always with increasing admiration. It is inexpressibly 
 beautiful. No one of real feeling can peruse it without a 
 strong inclination to tears. Its irresistible charm is its 
 absolute truth — the unafEected naturalness of its thought. 
 The sentiment which forms the basis of the composition is, 
 perhaps, at once the most universal and the most passion- 
 ate of sentiments. Fo human being exists, over the age of 
 fifteen, who has not, in his heart of hearts, a ready echo 
 for all there so pathetically expressed. The essential poetry 
 of the ideas would only be impaired by " foreign orna- 
 ment." This is a case in which we should be repelled by 
 the mere conventionalities of the muse. We demand, for 
 such thoughts, the most rigorous simplicity at all points. 
 It will be observed that, strictly speaking, there is not an 
 attempt at "imagery" in the whole poem. All is direct, 
 terse, penetrating. In a word, nothing could be better 
 done. The versification, while in full keeping with the 
 general character of simplicity, has, in certain passages, a 
 vigorous, trenchant euphony, which would confer honour 
 on the most accomplished masters of the art. We refer 
 especially to the lines : — 
 
 And follow me to my long home 
 Solemn and slow. 
 
 And the quatrain — 
 
 Could I but know when I am sleeping 
 Low in the ground 
 
CEITICISM 199 
 
 One faithful heart would there be keeping 
 Watch all night round. 
 
 The initial trochee here, in each instance, substituted for 
 the iambus, produces, so naturally as to seem accidental, a 
 very effective echo of sound to sense. The thought in- 
 cluded in the line, " And light the tomtv," should be dwelt 
 upon to be appreciated in its full extent of beauty; and 
 the verses which I have italicised in the last stanza are 
 poetry — poetry in the purest sense of that much misused 
 word. They have power — indisputable power; making 
 us thrill with a sense of their weird magnificence as we 
 read them. Edgak Allan Poe, — on Estelle Ann Lewis. 
 
 c. Urbs : " You must find it very annoying to be tied 
 to exact hours of trains and boats, " says Urbs to Eus, " and 
 it is not the pleasantest thing in the world to be obliged to 
 pick your way through the river streets to the ferry, or wait 
 at stations. However, you probably calculated the waste 
 of time and the trouble before you decided to live in 
 Frogtown." 
 
 Eus : " Every choice has its conveniences, undoubtedly, 
 but I concluded that I preferred fresh air for my children 
 to the atmosphere of sewers and gas factories, and I have 
 a prejudice for breakfasting by sunlight rather than by 
 gas. Then my wife enjoys the singing of birds in the 
 morning more than the cry of the milkman, and the silence 
 at night secures a sweeter sleep than the rattle of the horse- 
 cars. It is true that we have no brick block opposite, and 
 no windows of houses behind commanding our own. But 
 to set off such deprivations there are pleasant hills and 
 wooded slopes and gardens. They are not sidewalks, to be 
 sure, but they satisfy us." 
 
 Urbs : " Yes, yes ; I see," says Urbs. " We are more 
 to be pitied than I thought. If we must go out in the 
 evening, we don't have the advantage of stumbling over 
 hummocks, and sinking in the mud or dust in the dark ; we 
 
200 THE METHOD AND PEACTICE OF EXPOSITION 
 
 can only go dry-shod upon clean flagging, abundantly 
 lighted. Then we have nothing but Thomas's orchestra and 
 the opera and the bright little theatre to console us for the 
 loss of the frog and tree-toad concert and the tent-circus. 
 Instead of plodding everywhere upon our own feet, which 
 is so pleasant after running round upon them all day in 
 town, we have nothing but cars and stages on hand to 
 carry us to our own doors. I see clearly there are great 
 disadvantages in city life. If a friend and wife drop in 
 suddenly in the evening or to dine, it is monstrously in- 
 convenient to have an oyster shop round the corner whence 
 to improvise a supper or a dinner. It would be much bet- 
 ter to have nothing but the village grocery a mile or two 
 away. The advantages are conspicuous. I wonder the 
 entire population of the city doesn't go out to live in 
 Progtown." Geoege William Curtis, — in Essays from 
 the Easy Chair. 
 
 d. There are so many helpful books, the books that truly 
 pay, the useful books that drive the spooks of grief and 
 care away, it's foolishness and worse, gadzooks, to pass 
 away the time a-reading books that treat of crooks and 
 fifty brands of crime. So many books are merely foam, 
 made for the passing hour; and every tome you read at 
 home should have a lifting power. The stuff you read 
 should help you meet your duties everywhere; impel your 
 feet along the street with vim to do and dare. Your books 
 should help you do your grind, and to your labours waltz ; 
 and make you kind, and make you blind to other people's 
 faults. Your books should teach you what is right, and 
 also what is wrong, and help you fight like armoured 
 knight, with battle-cry and song. They should make home 
 a happy place, your wife the joy in chief, with not a trace 
 upon her face of weariness or grief. So do not soak your 
 spongy head in rubbish day by day, but read instead the 
 books that spread some light upon your way. Eead hefty 
 books that hit the spot with fierce and forceful stroke; oh, 
 
CEITICISM 201 
 
 turn your thought away from rot to truths that fairly 
 smoked Walt Mason. 
 
 e. It is a restful chapter in any book of Cooper's when 
 somebody doesn't step on a dry twig and alarm all the reds 
 and whites for two hundred yards around. Every time a 
 Cooper person is in peril, and absolute silence is worth 
 four dollars a minute, he is sure to step on a dry twig. 
 There may be a hundred handier things to step on, but 
 that wouldn't satisfy Cooper. Cooper requires him to turn 
 out and find a dry twig; and if he can't do it, to go and 
 borrow one. In fact the Leather Stocking Series ought 
 to have been called the Broken Twig Series. 
 
 Mark Twain. 
 
 f. A mob is a society of bodies voluntarily bereaving 
 themselves of reason, and traversing its work. The mob 
 is man descending to the nature of the beast. Its ac- 
 tions are insane, like its whole constitution. It persecutes 
 a principle ; it would whip a right ; it would tar and feather 
 justice by inflicting fire and outrage upon the houses and 
 persons of those who have these. It resembles the prank 
 of boys who run with fire-engines to put out the ruddy 
 aurora streaming to the stars. The inviolate spirit turns 
 its spite against the wrong-doers. The martyr cannot be 
 dishonoured. Every lash inflicted is a tongue of fame; 
 every prison a more illustrious abode; every burned book 
 or house enlightens the world; every suppressed or ex- 
 punged word reverberates through the earth from side to 
 side. Hours of sanity and consideration are always arriv- 
 ing to communities, as to individuals, when the truth is 
 seen, and the martj'rs are justified. 
 
 Ealph Waldo Emerson. 
 
 g. Among the powers which suffer by this too intense life 
 of the social instincts, none suffers more than the power 
 
 1 Printed by permission of the George Matthew Adams Service. 
 
202 THE METHOD AND PEACTICE OF EXPOSITION 
 
 of dreaming. Let no man think this a trifle. The ma- 
 chinery for dreaming planted in the human brain was not 
 planted for nothing. That faculty, in alliance with the 
 mystery of darkness, is the one great tube through which 
 man communicates with the shadowy. And the dreaming 
 organ, in connection with the heart, the eye, and the ear, 
 composes the magnificent apparatus which forces the in- 
 finite into the chambers of a human brain, and throws 
 dark reflections from eternities below all life upon the 
 mirrors of the sleeping mind. 
 
 Thomas De Quincet. 
 
 h. Had he lived, William Sydney Porter — " 0. Henry " 
 
 — would have celebrated his fifty-fourth birthday on the 
 11th of this month. Among American writers of short 
 stories he occupies a practically unchallenged position as 
 the delineator of an intensely modern life. Nor is that 
 his only conquest. In sheer interest of character and plot 
 
 — the two main ingredients of fiction — it is doubtful 
 whether there are any among old or new writers who, judg- 
 ing by popular acclaim, supersede him. Poe's short stories 
 are, unquestionably, a national literary asset. His Fall 
 of the House of Usher, his Masque of the Red Death, 
 his Pit and the Pendulum, have penetrated every coun- 
 try of Europe. But these stories, and practically all of 
 Poe's work, either in prose or poetry, are not particularly 
 related to America. They might have been written in any 
 one of the half-dozen countries of Europe that see in Poe 
 to-day one of the greatest imaginative writers of the nine- 
 teenth century. 0. Henry, on the other hand, like Haw- 
 thorne before him, is distinctively American. Only the 
 other day we noted that, among modern writers, 0. Henry 
 enjoyed a steady popularity even in distant Bussia. And 
 this means, of course, that his art, always absorbed in the 
 creation of things that are intensely American, has been 
 able to transcend the boundaries of national prejudice, find- 
 ing a place for itself in soil that is alien in matters of 
 
CRITICISM 203 
 
 life and habit of thought. This is really a notable achieve- 
 ment. For has it taken place only in Eussia — that coun- 
 try of free-handed generosities toward literary art. In 
 Prance, 0. Henry has been translated and is being eagerly 
 read. In England, we learn that, as a result of a long 
 appreciation of his genius, 0. Henry is being brought out, 
 on this anniversary, in a shilling edition of which the pub- 
 lishers expect to sell over a million copies. So far, only 
 six of the twelve 0. Henry volumes have been published in 
 England, but, according to the best information, the de- 
 mand is waxing so great that the others will soon make 
 their appearance. The voice of foreign countries in de- 
 termining the literary value of an author is anything but 
 negligible. It has exerted an almost deciding influence 
 in a number of instances in American literature. The dis- 
 covery of Walt Whitman is practically due to the Eos- 
 settis in England. Even to-day Prance and Eussia are 
 apparently more appreciative of Poe than his native land. 
 As regards 0. Henry, however, a similar reluctance on the 
 part of the American critic is not in evidence. 0. Henrj-'s 
 popularity here was practically immediate and his vogue 
 with us has increased ever since we were first engaged by 
 the vitality and interest of his fiction. Eecently, it is true, 
 we were told that his short stories were " episodical " in 
 character, that they were thus not true to the art of the 
 short story. It is difficult to take the criticism seriously. 
 A short story is to be Judged by its effect on the reader. If 
 it excites interest and leaves on the mind a complete and 
 living image of the men and women that it depicts, the 
 question as to whether or not it is episodical becomes quite 
 insignificant. As a matter of fact, there are no short 
 story writers in recent years who have exerted so profound 
 an appeal on the readers as 0. Henry. The publication 
 of his books in edition after edition, here and abroad, is an 
 indication, barring every other consideration, of their in- 
 herent worth. There is, indeed, no doubt as to the perma- 
 
204 THE METHOD AND PEACTICE OF EXPOSITION 
 
 nent position occupied by 0. Henry in American literature. 
 It is gratifying to learn also that the long-promised biog- 
 raphy of 0. Henry is about to appear. Some years ago 
 the late Harry Peyton Steger commenced collecting ma- 
 terial for a life of 0. Henry. The forthcoming work has 
 been written by Professor C. A. Smith, a lifelong friend of 
 Sydney Porter. — Editorial from the New YorTc Times Boole 
 Review, October 29, 1916. 
 
CHAPTER VIII 
 
 Additional. Assignments; and Selections foe 
 Analysis 
 
 I 
 
 ASSIGNMENTS ^ 
 Subjects for Expository Essays 
 
 1. Define " the grand style." 
 
 2. What is " charm " in writing ? 
 
 3. What is " essential knowledge " ? 
 
 4. Is there an " American racial type " ? 
 
 5. Where is "The West"? 
 
 6. The Vulgarity of Education. 
 
 II 
 
 1. The President. 
 
 2. Compare the Dictionary of Dr. Johnson with the Cen- 
 
 tury Dictionary. 
 
 3. The Difference between a Sonata and a Symphony. 
 
 4. The Influence of Novelty. 
 
 5. Imaginative Terror in the Drama. 
 
 6. What are students in American Colleges reading? 
 
 Ill 
 
 1. The Best bit of American Prose. 
 
 3. The Collective Consciousness of Women. 
 
 iFor other assignments, see ends of preceding chapters. 
 
 205 
 
206 THE METHOD AND PRACTICE OF EXPOSITIOH" 
 
 3. Psychological Paranoia. 
 
 4. The Art of Illustration. 
 
 5. The Military Policy of the United States. 
 
 6. The greatest Political Achievement in history. 
 
 IV 
 
 1. The Break-down of Internationalism. 
 
 2. The American Indian in the literature of the Short- 
 
 story. 
 
 3. The greatest Story ever told upon the Stage. 
 
 4. The Symbolism of the Short-stories of Poe. 
 
 5. The Common Denominator of Franklin, Washington, 
 
 Jackson, Webster, Lee, Lincoln, Emerson, Mark 
 Twain, and . . . 
 
 6. What are Students in American Colleges Thinking? 
 
 1. The Letter-writers in the plays of Shakespeare. 
 
 2. What an American Citizen finds in Plato's Crito. 
 
 3. Criticise D. G. Eossetti's A Last Confession from the 
 
 point of view of a portrait painter. 
 
 4. Study Browning's Luria and Shakespeare's Othello; then 
 
 tell what.makes a great play-wright. 
 
 5. Classify the short-stories of Hawthorne as historical 
 
 stories, essay-tales, and psychological studies; then 
 determine which group is most characteristic of the 
 author. 
 
 6. The London editor, W. T. Stead, together with a com- 
 
 mittee of thirty appointed by himself, once chose a 
 list of the " world's twenty greatest men " as follows : 
 
 Shakespeare 
 Gutenberg 
 Julius Caesar 
 
 Columbus. 
 
 Newton 
 
 Darwin 
 
 Dante 
 
 Michelangelo 
 
 Tiincoln 
 
 Stephenson 
 
 Franklin 
 
 Watt 
 
ADDITIONAL, ASSIGNMENTS 207 
 
 Moses 
 
 Homer 
 
 Buddha 
 
 Aristotle 
 
 Socrates 
 
 St. Paul 
 
 Confucius 
 
 Luther 
 
 Choose four of those who seem to you to be greatest in 
 this list, stating them in the order of their relative great- 
 ness, giving reasons for your employing that order. Then, 
 if you think the list of four could be improved by substitu- 
 tion from outside the list of twenty, make the substitution 
 or substitutions, giving your reasons for doing so. 
 
 VI 
 
 1. Write a letter to some novelist, assuming the personal- 
 
 ity of one of his characters, and telling the author 
 what you think of his presentation of that character. 
 
 2. Compare The Blessed Damozel and The Raven as to 
 
 theme and as to treatment. 
 
 3. If Hamlet could have written one of the plays of Shake- 
 
 speare, which one would it have been? 
 
 4. Discuss Bernard Shaw's Major Barbara under the title 
 
 " The Eeligion of a Munitions-Maker." 
 
 5. Japan and the Future. 
 
 6. What are students in American Colleges doing? 
 
 VII 
 
 1. What is the common element in the following five of the 
 
 world's greatest plays — - QHdipus Rex, Hamlet, As 
 You Like It, Tartufe, Cyrano de Bergerac. 
 
 2. Examine the parts spoken by Beatrice, Rosalind, and 
 
 some of the fools in Shakespeare's plays, and see if 
 you can detect in their language the style of the 
 modern novel. 
 
 3. Eead Sir Walter Scott's The Fortunes of Nigel; then 
 
 write a character sketch of James I, solely from the 
 impressions derived from that book. 
 
208 THE METHOD AND PEACTICE OF EXPOSITION 
 
 4. Eodin said, " All art is founded on mathematics ; only, 
 
 the artist must not let his mathematics grow cold." 
 Write an estimate of Jane Austen's Pride and Preju- 
 dice, with that statement in mind. 
 
 5. The World's Worst Failure. 
 
 6. " When the distribution of attention is perfect, the limit 
 
 of vision is the circumference of a circle, whose 
 diameter subtends sixty degrees, whose centre is op- 
 posite the eye, and whose are is a section of the cone 
 of rays by which the object is made sensible to the 
 eye." Why, then, are pictures nearly always rec- 
 tangular in shape? 
 
 VIII 
 
 1. Poe's Best Poem. 
 
 2. If you had the privilege of leaving in the ink-stand all 
 
 the material of all sorts that you have read since you 
 entered college, what would you choose to leave there ? 
 Be full, minute, and give ample reasons. 
 
 3. Poem Outlines, by Sidney Lanier, was collected after 
 
 the author's death, from jottings he had made upon 
 musical programmes, letter envelopes, scraps of waste 
 paper, etc. 
 
 a. What can you determine of the character of the 
 author from these spontaneous utterances ? 
 
 b. Which one of the outlines, in your opinion, would 
 make the best poem? Give fully developed rea- 
 sons. 
 
 4. Assume that Hamlet or Othello had just been published 
 
 for the first time. What would the literary critic of 
 to-day have to say about the play? 
 
 5. Compare Scene 2 of Act III of Maeterlinck's The Blue 
 
 Bird with Stevenson's poem entitled The Woodman. 
 
 6. " Law is the point where life and logic meet." Develop 
 
 the statement ; discuss it ; make it concrete and timely. 
 
 7. President Wilson and the European War to March, 1917. 
 
ADDITIONAL ASSIGNMENTS 209 
 
 IX 
 
 1. " The highest praise of a book is that it sets us think- 
 
 ing, but surely the next highest praise is that it ran- 
 soms us from thought," said Lowell. In accordance 
 with this distinction, classify all the books which you 
 have read since you entered college. Explain and 
 make convincing the classification. 
 
 2. Bead a scene from Hamlet and one from Pinero's The 
 
 Thunderbolt, employing a metronome until you have 
 found the correct rhythm. Then determine how rap- 
 idly or slowly the scenes should be played in order to 
 make them effective. 
 
 3. Of the two groups of Longfellow's poems that follow, 
 
 which will wear the longer ? — 
 
 a. Evangeline, Hiawatha, Paul Revere's Ride, The Saga 
 of King Olaf. 
 
 b. The Bridge, The Day is Done. 
 
 4. Discuss the following statement, illustrating concretely : 
 
 "In the mind of the poet, the angle of reflection is 
 not equal to the angle of incidence." 
 
 5. Browning's Bordello has been said to contain the finest 
 
 isolated distichs in the English language. Find 
 them, and write your impressions of them. 
 
 6. Bolingbroke said, " History is philosophy teaching by ex- 
 
 ample." Freeman said, " History is past politics ; 
 politics is present history." Justin McCarthy said, 
 " There are but two events in history, — the Trojan 
 War and the French Eevolution." , Are these state- 
 ments adequate interpretations of history? 
 
 X 
 
 1. Education is the drawing out of all the aptitudes, ready 
 for use. 
 a. Define carefully for yourself the terms of this state- 
 ment, so far as its predicate is concerned in your 
 case. 
 
210 THE METHOD AND PEACTICE OF EXPOSITION 
 
 b. Then minutely take stock of yourself and of what you 
 are doing in residence at college. 
 
 c. Finally, Write a painstaking and full answer to the 
 question, as applied to yourself, " Am I being edu- 
 cated?" 
 
 2. " A prose sentence only fulfils its entire function when, 
 
 as in some passage of the English version of the Old 
 Testament, its rhythm so keeps time with the thought 
 or feeling that the reader is guided to the accentua- 
 tion of the writer as surely as if listening to his very 
 voice," — Lowell. Analyse Judges V, in the light of 
 this statement. 
 
 3. The Patriotic Lyric. 
 
 4. The Future of Mexico. 
 
 5. Write a letter of appreciation to your favourite author 
 
 among those dead. 
 
 6. A consensus of opinion resulted in the following paint- 
 
 ings being considered the world's twenty greatest: 
 
 The Broken Pitcher, Greuze 
 
 Phcebus and Aurora, Guido Beni 
 
 The Gleaners, Frangois Millet 
 
 My Mother, J. M. Whistler 
 
 The Angelus, Frangois Millet 
 
 Christ in the Temple, Heinrich Hofmann 
 
 Baby Stuart, Anthony Van Dyke 
 
 The Immaculate Conception, Murillo 
 
 The Dance of the Nymphs, Corot 
 
 The Horse Fair, Eosa Bonheur 
 
 Holy Night, Correggio 
 
 The Sistine Madonna, Raphael 
 
 The Madonna of the Chair, Eaphael 
 
 Mona Lisa, Leonardo da Vinci 
 
 The Last Supper, Leonardo da Vinci 
 
 The Windmill, Jacob Van Euysdael 
 
 The Avenue, Middelharnis, Meinert Hobbema 
 
 Sir Galahad, George Watts 
 
ADDITIONAL ASSIGNMENTS 211 
 
 The Age of Innocence, Eeynolds 
 
 The Night Watch, Eembrandt 
 
 Analyse the list, determining thereby upon what prin- 
 ciple or principles these pictures were chosen above 
 all others. 
 
 II 
 
 Selections foe Analysis ^ 
 
 ON THE EEADING OF NEWSPAPERS ^ 
 
 Heney David Tiioeeau 
 
 I do not know but it is too much to read one news- 
 paper a week. I have tried it recently, and for so long 
 it seems to me that I have not dwelt in my native re- 
 gion. The sun, the clouds, the snows, the trees, say not 
 so much to me. Tou cannot serve two masters. It re- 
 quires more than a day's devotion to know and to pos- 
 sess the wealth of a day. 
 
 We may well be ashamed to tell what things we have 
 read or heard in our day. I do not know why my news 
 should be so trivial, — considering what one's dreams 
 and expectations are, why the developments should be 
 so paltry. The news we hear, for the most part, is not 
 news to our genius. It is the stalest repetition. You 
 are often tempted to ask why such stress is laid on a 
 particular experience you have had, — that, after twenty- 
 five years Hobbins, Registrar of Deeds, is again on the 
 sidewalk. Have you not budged an inch, then ? Such 
 
 1 For other and briefer selections, see ends of preceding chapters. 
 
 2 From Miscellanies, published by Houghton Mifflin Company. 
 
212 THE METHOD AND PEACTICE OF EXPOSITIOIf 
 
 is the daily news. Its facts appear to float in the 
 atmosphere, insignificant as the sporules of fungi, and 
 impinge on some neglected thallus, or surface of our 
 minds, which affords a basis for them, and hence a 
 parasitic growth. We should wash ourselves clean of 
 such news. Of what consequence, though our planet 
 explode, if there is no character involved in the ex- 
 plosion ? In health we have not the least curiosity about 
 such events. We do not live for idle amusement. I 
 would not run round a corner to see the world blow up. 
 Not without a slight shudder at the danger, I often 
 perceive how near I had come to admitting into my 
 mind the details of some trivial affair, — the news of 
 the street, and I am astonished to observe how willing 
 men are to lumber their minds with such rubbish, — to 
 permit idle rumours and incidents of the most insignifi- 
 cant kind to intrude on ground which should be sacred 
 to thought. Shall the mind be a public arena, where 
 the affairs of the street and the gossip of the tea table 
 chiefly are discussed? Or shall it be a quarter of 
 heaven itself, — an hypsethral temple, consecrated to the 
 service of the gods ? I find it so difficult to dispose of 
 the few facts which to me are significant, that I hesi- 
 tate to burden my attention with those which are insig- 
 nificant, which only a divine mind could illustrate. 
 Such is for the most part the news in newspapers and 
 conversation. It is important to preserve the mind's 
 chastity in this respect. Think of admitting the details 
 of a single case of the criminal court into our thoughts, 
 to stalk profanely through their very sanctum sanctorum 
 for an hour, ay, for many hours ! to make a very bar- 
 
ADDITIONAL ASSIGNMENTS 213 
 
 room of the mind's inmost apartment, as if for so long 
 the dust of the street had occupied us, — the very street 
 itself, with all its travel, its bustle and filth, had passed 
 throughout thought's shrine! Would it not be an 
 intellectual and moral suicide ? When I have been com- 
 pelled to sit spectator and auditor in a court room for 
 some hours, and have seen my neighbours, who are not 
 compelled, stealing in from time to time, and tip-toeing 
 about with washed hands and faces, it has appeared to 
 my mind's eye that, when they took off their hats, their 
 ears suddenly expanded into vast hoppers for sound, 
 between which even their narrow heads were crowded. 
 Like the vanes of windmills, they caught the broad but 
 shallow stream of sound, which, after a few titillating 
 gyrations in their coggy brains, passed out the other 
 side. I wondered if, when they got home, they were 
 as careful to wash their ears as before their hands and 
 faces. It has seemed to me at such a time that the 
 auditors and the witnesses, the jury and the counsel, the 
 judge and the criminal at the bar, — if I may presume 
 him guilty before he is convicted, — were all equally 
 criminal, and a thunderbolt might be expected to descend 
 and consume them altogether. 
 
 By all kinds of traps and signboards, threatening the 
 extreme penalty of the divine law, exclude such tres- 
 passers from the only ground which can be sacred to 
 you. It is so hard to forget what it is worse than use- 
 less to remember ! If I am to be a thoroughfare, I pre- 
 fer that it be of the mountain brooks, the Parnassian 
 streams, and not the town sewers. There is inspiration, 
 that gossip which comes to the ear of the attentive mind 
 
214 THE METHOD AISTD PEACTICE OF EXPOSITION 
 
 from the courts of heaven. There is the profane and 
 stale revelation of the barroom and the police court. 
 The same ear is fitted to receive both communications. 
 Only the character of the hearer determines to which it 
 shall be open, and to which closed. I believe that the 
 mind can be permanently profaned by the habit of at- 
 tending to trivial things, so that all our thoughts shall 
 be tinged with triviality. Our very intellect shall be 
 macadamised, as it were, — its foundation broken into 
 fragments for the wheels of travel to roll over; and if 
 you would know what will make the most durable pave- 
 ment, surpassing rolled stones, spruce blocks, and as- 
 phaltum, you have only to look into some of our minds 
 which have been subjected to this treatment so long. 
 
 If we have thus desecrated ourselves, — as who has 
 not ? — the remedy will be by wariness and devotion to 
 reconsecrate ourselves, and make once more a fane of 
 the mind. We should treat our minds, that is, our- 
 selves, as innocent and ingenuous children, whose guar- 
 dians we are, and be careful what objects and what sub- 
 jects we thrust on their attention. Read not the Times. 
 Read the Eternities. Conventionalities are at length 
 as bad as impurities. Even the facts of science may 
 dust the mind by their dryness, unless they are in a sense 
 effaced each morning, or rather rendered fertile by the 
 dews of fresh and living truth. Knowledge does not 
 come to us by details, but in flashes of light from 
 heaven. Yes, every thought that passes through the 
 mind helps to wear and tear it, and to deepen the ruts, 
 which, as in the streets of Pompeii, evince how much 
 it has been used. How many things there are concern- 
 
ADDITIONAL ASSIGNMENTS 215 
 
 ing which we might well deliberate whether we had 
 better know them, — had better let their peddling carts 
 be driven, even at lowest trot or walk, over that bridge 
 of glorious span by which we trust to pass at last from 
 the farthest brink of time to the nearest shore of 
 eternity! Have we no culture, no refinement, — but 
 skill only to live coarsely and serve the Devil ? — to ac- 
 quire a little worldly wealth, or fame, or liberty, and 
 make a false show with it, as if we were all husk and 
 shell, with no tender and living kernel to us? Shall 
 our institutions be like those chestnut burrs which con- 
 tain abortive nuts, perfect only to prick the fingers? 
 
 WHISTLER'S POETEAIT OF MISS 
 ALEXANDER ^ 
 
 Geoege Mooee 
 
 Among all of Whistler's pictures, for my own per- 
 sonal pleasure, to satisfy the innermost cravings of my 
 own soul, I would choose to live with the portrait of 
 Miss Alexander. Truly, this picture seems to me the 
 most beautiful in ' the world. I know very well that it 
 has not the profound beauty of the Infantes by Velas- 
 quez in the Louvre — but for pure magic of inspira- 
 tion, is it not more delightful ? Just as Shelley's " Sen- 
 sitive Plant " thrills the innermost sense like no other 
 poem in the language, the portrait of Miss Alexander 
 enchants with the harmony of colour, with the melody 
 of composition. 
 1 From Modern Pointing, published by Charles Scribner's Sons. 
 
216 THE METHOD AND PEACTICE OF EXPOSITIOIT 
 
 Strangely original, a rare and unique thing, is this 
 picture, yet we know whence it came, and may easily 
 appreciate the influence that brought it^nto being. Ex- 
 quisite and happy combination of the art of an entire 
 nation and the genius of one man — the soul of Japan 
 incarnate in the body of the immortal Spaniard! It 
 was Japan that counselled the strange grace of the sil- 
 houette, and it was that country, too, that inspired in 
 a dim, far-off way those subtly sweet and magical pas- 
 sages from grey to green, from green again to changing 
 evanescent grey. But a higher intelligence massed and 
 impelled those chords of green and grey than ever mani- 
 fested itself in Japanese fan or screen — the means are 
 simpler, the effect is greater. The whole art of Japan 
 is selection, and Japan taught Mr. Whistler, or im- 
 pressed upon M.T. Whistler, the imperative necessity of 
 selection. No Western artist of the present or of the 
 past time — no, not Velasquez himself — ever selected 
 from the model so tenderly as Mr. Whistler. Japan 
 taught him to consider N^ature as a storehouse whence 
 the artist may pick and choose, combining the frag- 
 ments of his choice into an exquisite whole. 
 
 But this picture is, throughout, a selection from the 
 model ; nowhere has anything been copied brutally, yet 
 the reality of the girl is not sacrificed. 
 
 The picture represents a girl of ten or eleven. She 
 is dressed according to the fashion of twenty years ago 
 — a starched muslin frock, a small overskirt of pale 
 brown, white stockings, square-toed black shoes. She 
 stands, her left foot advanced, holding in her left hand 
 a grey felt hat adorned with a long plume reaching 
 
ADDITIONAL ASSIGNMENTS 217 
 
 nearly to the ground. The wall behind her is grey 
 with a black wainscot. On the left, far back in the pic- 
 ture, on a low stool, some grey-green drapery strikes the 
 highest note of colour in the picture. On the right, in 
 the foreground, some tall daisies come into the picture, 
 and two butterflies flutter over the girl's blond head. 
 This picture seems to exist principally in the seeing. 
 I mean that the execution is so strangely simple that the 
 thought, " If I could only see the model like that, I 
 think I could do it myself," comes spontaneously into 
 the mind. And this spontaneous thought is excellent 
 criticism, for three parts of Mr. Whistler's art lies in the 
 seeing; no one ever saw Nature so artistically. ITotice 
 on the left the sharp line of white frock cutting against 
 the black wainscoting. Were that line taken away, how 
 much would the picture lose! Look at the leg that is 
 advanced, and tell me if you can detect the modelling. 
 There is modelling, I know, but there is no vulgar round- 
 ness. Apparently, only a flat tint ; but there is on the 
 bone a light, hardly discernible; and this light is suffi- 
 cient. And the leg that is turned away, the thick chubby 
 ankle of the child, how admirable in drawing ; and that 
 touch of darker colour, how it tells the exact form of 
 the bone! To indicate is the final accomplishment of 
 the painter's art, and I know no indication like the 
 ankle bone. And now, passing from the feet to the 
 face, notice, I beg of you to notice — it is one of the 
 points in the picture — that jawbone. The face is seen 
 in three-quarter, and to focus the interest in the face 
 the painter has slightly insisted on the line of the jaw- 
 bone, which, taken in conjunction with the hair, brings 
 
218 THE METHOD AND PEACTICE OF EXPOSITION 
 
 into prominence the oval of tlie face. In nature that 
 charming oval only appears at moments. The painter 
 seized one of these moments and called it into our con- 
 sciousness as a musician with certain finger will choose 
 to give prominence to a certain note in a chord. 
 
 It was Velasquez who taught Mr. Whistler that flow- 
 ing limpid execution. In the painting of that blond 
 hair there i^ something more than a souvenir of the 
 blond hair of the Infantes in the Salle Caree in the 
 Louvre. There is also something of Velasquez in the 
 black note of the shoes. Those blacks — are they not 
 perfectly observed? How light and dry the colour is! 
 How heavy and shiny it would have become in other 
 hands ! Notice, too, that in the frock nowhere is there 
 a single touch of pure white, and yet it is all white — a 
 rich luminous white that makes every other white in 
 the gallery seem either chalky or dirty. What an en- 
 chantment and delight the handling is ! How flowing, 
 how subtle, infinitely and beautifully sure, the music of 
 perfect accomplishment! This little girl is the very 
 finest flower, and the culminating point of Mr. Whis- 
 tler's art. The eye travels over the canvas seeking a 
 fault. In vain; nothing has been omitted that might 
 have been included, nothing has been included that 
 might have been omitted. There is much in Velasquez 
 that is stronger, but nothing in this world seemed to me 
 to be so perfect as this picture. 
 
ADDITIONAL ASSIGNMENTS 219 
 
 EAETH-WOEMS AND THEIR FUNCTION ^ 
 Chaeles Daewin 
 
 Worms have played a more important part in the 
 history of the world than most persons would at first 
 suppose. In almost all humid countries they are ex- 
 traordinarily numerous, and for their size possess great 
 muscular power. In many parts of England a weight 
 of more than ten tons (10,516 kilogrammes) of dry 
 earth annually passes through their bodies and is 
 brought to the surface on each acre of land ; so that the 
 whole superficial bed of vegetable mould passes through 
 their bodies in the course of every few years. From 
 the collapsing of the old burrows the mould is in con- 
 stant though slow movement, and the particles com- 
 posing it are thus rubbed together. By these means 
 fresh surfaces are continually exposed to the action of 
 the carbonic acid in the soil, and of the humus-acids 
 which appear to be still more efiicient in the decompo- 
 sition of rocks. The generation of the humus-acids is 
 probably hastened during the digestion of the many 
 half-decayed leaves which worms consume. Thus the 
 particles of earth, forming the superficial mould, are 
 subjected to conditions eminently favourable for their 
 decomposition and disintegration. Moreover, the par- 
 ticles of the softer rocks suffer some amount of 
 mechanical trituration in the muscular gizzards of 
 worms, in which small stones serve as mill-stones. 
 
 The finely levigated castings, when brought to the 
 
 1 From The Formation of Vegetable Mould, etc., published by 
 J. Murray, London. 
 
220 THE METHOD AND PEACTICE OF EXPOSITIOIT 
 
 surface in a moist .condition, flow during rainy 
 weather down any moderate slope; and the smaller 
 particles are washed far down even a gently inclined 
 surface. Castings when dry often crumble into small 
 pellets and these are apt to roll down any sloping 
 surface. Where the land is quite level and is covered 
 with herbage, and where the climate is htimid so that 
 much dust cannot be blown away, it appears at first 
 sight impossible that there should be any appreciable 
 amount of subaerial denudation ; but worm castings are 
 blown, especially whilst moist and viscid, in one uni- 
 form direction by the prevalent winds which are accom- 
 panied by rain. By these several means the superficial 
 mould is prevented from accumulating to a great thick- 
 ness ; and a thick bed of mould checks in many ways the 
 disintegration of the underlying rocks and fragments 
 of rock. 
 
 The removal of worm castings by the above means 
 leads to results which are far from insignificant. It 
 has been shown that a layer of earth, .2 of an inch 
 in thickness, is in many places annually brought to the 
 surface per acre; and if a small part of this amount 
 flows, or rolls, or is washed, even for a short distance 
 down every inclined surface, or is repeatedly blown in 
 one direction, a great effect will be produced in the 
 course of ages. It was found by measurements and cal- 
 culations that on a surface with a mean inclination of 
 9° 26', 2.4 cubic inches of earth which had been ejected 
 by worms crossed, in the course of a year, a horizontal 
 line one yard in length ; so that 240 cubic inches would 
 cross a line 100 yards in length. This latter amount in 
 
ADDITIONAL ASSIGNMENTS 221 
 
 a damp state would weigh 11% pounds. Thus a con- 
 siderable weight of earth is continually moving down 
 each side of every valley, and will in time reach its 
 bed. Finally this earth will be transported by the 
 streams flowing in the valleys into the ocean, the great 
 receptacle for all matter denuded from the land. It is 
 knovsTi from the amount of sediment annually delivered 
 into the sea by the Mississippi, that its enormous drain- 
 age-area must on an average be lowered .00263 of an 
 inch each year; and this would suffice in four and a 
 half million years to lower the whole drainage-area 
 to the level of the sea-shore. So that, if a small fraction 
 of the layer of fine earth, .2 of an inch in thickness, 
 which is annually brought to the surface by worms, is 
 carried away, a great result cannot fail to be produced 
 within a period which no geologist considers extremely 
 long. 
 
 Archseologists ought to be grateful to worms, as they 
 protect and preserve for an indefinitely long period 
 every object, not liable to decay, which is dropped on 
 the surface of the land, by burying it beneath their cast- 
 ings. Thus, also, many elegant and curious tessellated 
 pavements and other ancient remains have been pre- 
 served; though no doubt the worms have in these cases 
 been largely aided by earth washed and blown from the 
 adjoining land, especially when cultivated. The old 
 tessellated pavements have, however, often suffered by 
 having subsided unequally from being unequally un- 
 dermined by the worms. Even old massive walls may 
 be undermined and subside ; and no building is in this 
 
222 THE METHOD AND PRACTICE OF EXPOSITION 
 
 respect safe, unless the foundatioiis lie 6 or 7 feet be- 
 neath the surface, at a depth at which worms cannot 
 work. It is probable that many monoliths and some old 
 walls have fallen down from having been undermined 
 by worms. 
 
 Worms prepare the ground in an excellent maimer 
 for the growth of fibrous-rooted plants and for seedlings 
 of all kinds. They periodically expose the mould to the 
 air, and sift it so that no stones larger than the particles 
 which they can swallow are left in it. They mingle the 
 whole intimately together, like a gardener who prepares 
 fine soil for his choicest plants. In this state it is well 
 fitted to retain moisture and to absorb all soluble sub- 
 stances, as well as for the process of nitrification. The 
 bones of dead animals, the harder parts of insects, the 
 shells of land moUusks, leaves, twigs, etc., are before 
 long all buried beneath the accumulated castings of 
 worms, and are thus brought in a more or less decayed 
 state within reach of the roots of plants. Worms like- 
 wise drag an infinite number of dead leaves and other 
 parts of plants into their burrows, partly for the sake 
 of plugging them up and partly as food. 
 
 The leaves which are dragged into the burrows as 
 food, after being torn into the finest shreds, partially 
 digested, and saturated vsdth the intestinal and urinary 
 secretions, are commingled with much earth. This 
 earth forms the dark-coloured, rich humus which al- 
 most everywhere covers the surface of the land with a 
 fairly well-defined layer or mantle. Von Hansen * 
 
 1 " Zeitschrift fUr wissenschaft. Zoolog., B. xxviii., 1S77, p. 
 360. 
 
ADDITIONAL ASSIGNMENTS 223 
 
 placed two worms in a vessel 18 inches in diameter, 
 which was filled with sand, on which fallen leaves were 
 strewed; and these were soon dragged into their bur- 
 rows to a depth of 3 inches. After about 6 weeks an 
 almost uniform layer of sand, a centimetre (.4 inch) in 
 thickness, was converted into humus by having passed 
 through the alimentary canals of these two worms. It 
 is believed by some persons that worm-burrows, which 
 often penetrate the ground almost perpendicularly to 
 a depth of 5 or 6 feet, materially aid in its drainage; 
 notwithstanding that the viscid castings piled over the 
 mouths of the burrows prevent or check the rain-water 
 directly entering them. They allow the air to pene- 
 trate deeply into the ground. They also greatly facili- 
 tate the downward passage of roots of moderate size; 
 and these will be nourished by the humus with which 
 the burrows are lined. Many seeds owe their germina- 
 tion to having been covered by castings; and others 
 buried to a considerable depth beneath accumulated 
 castings lie dormant, until at some future time they are 
 accidentally uncovered and germinate. 
 
 Worms are poorly provided with sense-organs, for 
 they cannot be said to see, although they can just dis- 
 tinguish between light and darkness; they are com- 
 pletely deaf, and have only a feeble power of smell ; the 
 sense of touch alone is well developed. They can there- 
 fore learn little about the outside world, and it is sur- 
 prising that they should exhibit some skill in lining 
 their burrows with their castings and with leaves, and 
 in the case of some species in piling up their castings 
 
224 THE METHOD AND PEACTICE OF EXPOSITION 
 
 into tower-like constructions. But it is far more sur- 
 prising that they should apparently exhibit some degree 
 of intelligence instead of a mere blind instinctive im- 
 pulse, in their manner of plugging up the mouths of 
 their burrows. They act in nearly the same manner 
 as would a man, who had to close a cylindrical tube 
 with different kinds of leaves, petioles, triangles of 
 paper, etc., for they commonly seize such objects by 
 their pointed ends. But with thin objects a certain 
 number are dravTn in by their broader ends. They do 
 not act in the same unvarying manner in all cases, as 
 do most of the lower animals ; for instance, they do not 
 drag in leaves by their foot-stalks, unless the basal 
 part of the blade is as narrow as the apex, or narrower 
 than it. 
 
 When we behold a wide, turf-covered expanse, we 
 should remember that its smoothness, on which so much 
 of its beauty depends, is mainly due to all the ine- 
 qualities having been slowly levelled by worms. It is 
 a marvellous reflection that the whole of the superficial 
 mould over any such expanse has passed, and will pass 
 again, every few years through the bodies of worms. 
 The plough is the most ancient and most valuable of 
 man's inventions; but long before he existed the land 
 was in fact regularly ploughed by earth-worms. It may 
 be doubted whether there are many other animals which 
 have played so important a part in the history of the 
 world, as have these lowly organised creatures. Some 
 other animals, however, still more lowly organised, 
 namely, corals, have done far more conspicuous work 
 
ADDITIONAL ASSIGNMENTS 225 
 
 in having constructed innumerable reefs and islands in 
 the great oceans; but these are almost confined to the 
 tropical zones. 
 
 THE OKIGIN" OF CHIVALEY ^ 
 
 SiK Edwaed Steachet 
 
 St. Augustine replied to the enquiry, What is time ? 
 by saying, " I know when you do not ask me : " and a 
 like answer suggests itself to us if we try to find an ade- 
 quate reply to the question, What is Chivalry? For 
 chivalry is one of those words, like love, duty, patriot- 
 ism, loyalty, which make us feel their meaning, and 
 the reality of what they mean, though their ideal and 
 comprehensive character hinders us from readily put- 
 ting it into the forms of a definition. When the al- 
 chemist in the Eastern tale compounds, with all the re- 
 sources of his art, the universal solvent before the ex- 
 pectant eyes of his pupil, the pupil, seeing the mysteri- 
 ous fluid lie quietly in the crucible, exclaims, with not 
 unreasonable doubt, " O sage, be not deceived : how can 
 that which' dissolves all things be itself contained in a 
 ladle ? " And how shall chivalry, sparkling and flash- 
 ing everywhere as it runs through that great compli- 
 cated tissue of human life which we call modem civili- 
 sation, — how shall chivalry, the humaniser of society, 
 be brought within the limits of a definition ? 
 
 1 Prom " An Essay on Chivalry," in tlie introduction to an edi- 
 tion of Malory's Le Morte D' Arthur, published by Macmillan and 
 Company. 
 
226 THE METHOD AND PEACTICE OF EXPOSITION 
 
 Chivalry, indeed, exists for us in spirit rather than 
 in outward and visible form. It no longer comes to us 
 v^ith the outward symbols of war-horse, and armour, 
 and noble birth, and strength of arm, and high-flown 
 protestations of love and gallantry; yet we never fail 
 to know and feel its presence, silent and unobtrusive as 
 it now is : we recognise the lady and the gentleman not 
 less surely now than they did in old times; and we 
 acknowledge their rights and their power over us now 
 no less than then. And if the spirit of chivalry does 
 live among us still, we may read its past history by its 
 present light, and say in Spenser's words, — 
 
 " By infusion sweete 
 Of thine own spirit which doth in me survive, 
 I follow still the footing of thy feete, 
 That with thy meaning so I may the rather meete." 
 
 Let us then look back to those times when chivalry 
 had an outward, visible form, and was embodied in its 
 own proper institutions, vsdth orders, and statutes, and 
 courts of its own jurisdiction, and rituals, and customs, 
 like those of other great social institutions and members 
 of the body politic. 
 
 The deluge of the Teutonic nations which broke up 
 the old Roman civilisation threatened for some cen- 
 turies to overwhelm Europe with mere barbarism. "We 
 know now that the germs of a far higher and better 
 civilisation were everywhere ready to open into life as 
 soon as the fury of that deluge had spent itself ; but for 
 a long period the evil seemed mightier than the good. 
 From time to time the clear head, the noble heart and 
 conscience, and the strong arm of an Alfred, a Char- 
 
ADDITIONAL ASSIGNMENTS 227 
 
 lemagne, or an Otho, might bring a temporary calm 
 and order into the storm; but when the personal in- 
 fluences of such great men were withdrawn, society re- 
 lapsed again and again into ever new anarchy, and 
 war — at once the effect and the cause of anarchy — 
 savage, cruel war became the business of all men 
 throughout Europe. The selfish, the rapacious, and 
 the unscrupulous fought for power, and plunder, and 
 love of fighting; and while violence could only be re- 
 sisted by violence, and each man had to defend himself, 
 his family, and his possessions as best he could, with 
 no effectual aid from law and government, there was a 
 constant tendency to increasing barbarism and brutish, 
 or worse than brutish, instead of human, existence. 
 
 But man differs from the brutes in this, that while 
 he can fall lower than they, he can also rise higher, and 
 that even the passions and the impulses which he has 
 in common with them may be subdued, and refined, 
 and modified, till they become the servants and instru- 
 ments of his human life, and the means by which all 
 that is properly spiritual in his being may be reflected 
 and symbolised upon this earth in outward visible form. 
 The nobler races of men — the historical races, as they 
 have been called — constantly show this aptitude for 
 contending with these downward tendencies of our na- 
 ture, and for advancing, through the conquest of them, 
 to new and higher life. 
 
 And so it was in the Middle Ages. The Church 
 was, no doubt, the great civiliser of the nations: still, 
 whatever aid the State derived from the Church, it then, 
 no less than now, had a position and processes of its 
 
228 THE METHOD AND PEACTICE OF EXPOSITION 
 
 ovra, by which it did its own work of civilisation too. 
 And its first great work for controlling the universal 
 anarchy of which I have spoken was the extension and 
 firm establishment of that half-patriarchal, haK-mili- 
 tary organisation which we call the Feudal System. 
 Every man who was not rich and powerful enough to 
 be a lord became — willingly or unwillingly — a vas- 
 sal ; and all men, from the king downwards, were bound 
 to each other for reciprocal service and protection — 
 a service and protection partly military, but partly pa- 
 triarchal, since they were rendered not by men stran- 
 gers to each other except for what Mr. Carlyle calls 
 " the nexus of cash payment," but united by ties of fam- 
 ily, and neighbourhood, and clanship, and by the in- 
 terests and sympathies that grow out of these. But the 
 protector of his own vassals easily became the invader 
 of the rights and ravager of the possessions of his 
 neighbour and his vassals; and so the old evils of an- 
 archy and violence grew afresh out of the remedy which 
 had been devised to meet them. The " monarchies sank 
 into impotence; petty, lawless tyrants trampled all 
 social order under foot," says a recent historian of this 
 period, " and all attempts after scientific instruction 
 and artistic pleasures were as effectually crushed by this 
 state of general insecurity as the external well-being 
 and material life of the people. This was a dark and 
 stormy period for Europe, merciless, arbitrary, and 
 violent. It is a sign of the prevailing feeling of mis- 
 ery and hopelessness that, when the first thousand years 
 of our era were drawing to their close, the people in 
 every country in Europe looked with certainty for the 
 
ADDITIONAL ASSIGNMENTS 229 
 
 destruction of the world. Some squandered their wealth 
 in riotous living, others bestowed it for the good of 
 their souls on churches and convents; weeping multi- 
 tudes lay day and night around the altars; some 
 looked forward with dread, but most with secret hope, 
 towards the burning of the earth and the falling in of 
 heaven. Their actual condition was so miserable that 
 the idea of destruction was relief, spite of all its hor- 
 rors." 
 
 The palliatives with which men tried to meet the 
 evils of the times indicate the greatness of the evils, 
 but also the moral feeling which was the promise of 
 better things. Such was the so-called " Peace of the 
 King," by which private wars were not to be entered 
 on till forty days after the committal of the alleged 
 crime which was to be avenged; and the " Truce of 
 God," by which all these acts of private hostility were 
 suspended from Thursday to Monday in each week. And 
 at the Council of Cleremont, held by Urban II in No- 
 vember, 1095, a severe censure was pronounced against 
 the license of private war; the Truce of God was con- 
 firmed ; women and priests were placed under the safe- 
 guard of the Church; and a protection of three years 
 was extended to husbandmen and merchants, the de- 
 fenceless victims of military rapine. We are reminded 
 of the law of Moses, which provided Cities of Refuge 
 for the man who accidentally and without malice killed 
 his neighbour, but who could not look for protection 
 -from the vengeance of the family of the slain man ex- 
 cept within those special safeguards. In each case 
 there is the same unreasoning rage of the half-civilised 
 
230 THE METHOD AND PEACTICE OF EXPOSITIOM 
 
 man brought face to face with the demands of religion 
 and civil law; and each is obliged to yield something 
 to the other till the better cause has had time to prepare 
 and strengthen itself for a more complete triumph. 
 
 Chivalry, then, was the offspring of the same spirit 
 which dictated the Peace of the King, the Truce of God, 
 and the decrees of the Council of Cleremont. Chivalry 
 has another name — KJiighthood — and the two are 
 wanted to express all that we mean by either. The 
 Chevalier was the soldier who rode the war-horse: he 
 whose birth entitled him, and whose wealth gave him 
 the means, to ride at the head of his vassals and retain- 
 ers to the war : all ideas of lordship, and mastery, and 
 outward dignity and power, are here embodied before 
 us. But this " chevalier," this " ritter," or rider of the 
 war-horse, was also to be a " knecht," or servant : " He 
 that will be chief among you, let him be your servant." 
 The knight was to obey, no less than to command; he 
 was to exert his strength and power, not for selfish ends, 
 but in the service of others ; and especially in the serv- 
 ice of the poor, the weak, and the oppressed, who could 
 not help or defend themselves. It was, indeed, no new 
 discovery in the world, that such are the duties of him 
 who possesses power, and above all the power of the 
 sword; and they who have tried to trace the origin of 
 chivalry to some particular place and time have had to 
 go to the Germans of Tacitus, to the Crusaders, to the 
 Saracens, to the Eomans, the Greeks, the Trojans, the 
 Hebrews, only to come to the conclusion that chivalry 
 belongs in its spirit to man as man ; though the form in 
 which that spirit was clothed in Europe in the Middle 
 
ADDITIONAL ASSIGNMENTS 231 
 
 Ages has an individuality of which some of the sources 
 may be ascertained, and though from that time forward 
 its power has been established, and extended, in a man- 
 ner, and with a greatness unknown to the ancients. 
 
 In those days society was essentially military. In 
 this our own time the main offices, interests, and occu- 
 pations of the great body politic are non-military, and 
 the army is but a small portion of the nation, specially 
 trained for a minor, though indispensable, function 
 therein. Peace, for its own sake, and for the sake of the 
 objects which can only be obtained by the arts and with 
 the opportunities of peace, is the end and aim of every 
 civilised nation now; and war is only an occasional 
 means to secure that end. But in the Middle Ages war 
 was, or seemed to be, the chief end of life to the greater 
 part of every nation, and especially to all who possessed 
 rank, and wealth, and power, and were in fact the lead- 
 ers of the nation. And therefore chivalry, the spirit 
 which was to humanise those warriors, needed to be war- 
 like too, and thus to sympathise with those to whom 
 it addressed itself. 
 
 Much, too, of its special form it no doubt owed to 
 that wonderful race of heroes, the Normans. The ro- 
 mantic love of adventure ; the religious and the martial 
 enthusiasm; the desire to revenge injuries, and to win 
 wealth and power ; the delight in arms and horses, in the 
 luxury of dress, and in the exercises of hunting and 
 hawking; the eloquence and sagacity in council; the 
 patience with which when need was they could endure 
 the inclemency of every climate, and the toil and absti- 
 nence of a military life; and the gentleness, the affa- 
 
232 THE METHOD AND PEACTICE OF EXPOSITION 
 
 bility and the gallantry, which were the characteristics 
 of the Norman race ; these must have been more or less 
 impressed on men's minds wherever the Norman sway 
 or influence extended, from England to Sicily, and must 
 have reproduced something of themselves in the social 
 habits and manners of the times. When we read the 
 description of William of the Iron Arm, the first Nor- 
 man count of Apulia, so strong, so brave, so affable, so 
 generous, and so sage above other men — a lion in battle, 
 a lamb in society, and an angel in council — we are re- 
 minded of the heroes of chivalry in the days of its great- 
 est refinement, the Black Prince, Sir John Chandos, 
 and Sir Walter of Manny, as they still live in the pages 
 of Froissart; or their counterparts in romance, King 
 Arthur, Sir Lancelot, Amadis of Gaul, or Palmerin of 
 England. 
 
 The Normans, the latest of the Teutonic races who 
 descended, full of wild life, from their mountains and 
 forests, upon the comparatively civilised plains of 
 Europe, may have brought a newer and fresher feeling 
 for those old manners and customs which Tacitus de- 
 scribes as characterising the Germans of his time, and 
 which are with so much probability connected with the 
 chivalry of the Middle Ages. In ancient Germany and 
 in Scandinavia, it was the custom for each youth, when 
 he was of an age to bear arms, to be presented with a 
 sword, a shield, and a lance, by his father, or some near 
 relation, in an assembly of the chiefs of the nation ; and 
 from that time he became a member of the common- 
 wealth, and ranked as a citizen. He then entered the 
 train of some chief, of whom he and his brother youths 
 
ADDITIOKAL ASSIGNMENTS 233 
 
 became the followers and companions, forming one 
 brotherhood, though not without ranks and degrees, 
 while a generous spirit of equality ran through all. 
 
 In ancient Germany, too, women were held in a 
 peculiar reverence, beyond what was known in the other 
 — and otherwise more civilised — nations of antiquity ; 
 and the presence of women in the hour of battle, with 
 their husbands, brothers, and fathers, was regarded by 
 those warriors as an incentive to courage, and a pledge 
 of victory, which (as they boasted) their Koman foes 
 were unable to appeal to for themselves. And this old 
 Teutonic reverence for women conspired with the new 
 Christian reverence for the Virgin Mary as the type 
 and representative at once of her sex and of the Church, 
 to supply the purer and nobler elements of the gallantry 
 which forms so large a part, not only of the romance, 
 but of the actual history, of chivalry. 
 
 But Christianity exercised not only an indirect, but 
 also a direct and avowed action upon the forms of chiv^ 
 airy, as they attained to their full proportions. Knight- 
 hood was certainly a feature as a distinction of society 
 before the days of Charlemagne, who in permitting the 
 governor of Friesland to make knights by girding them 
 with a sword, and giving them a blow, adds, " as is the 
 custom." But no ritual of the Church as yet conse- 
 crated that custom. Charlemagne girt the sword on his 
 son Louis the Good without religious ceremonies ; and a 
 century later the Saxon king of England, Edward the 
 Elder, clothed Athelstan in a soldier's dress of scarlet, 
 and girded him with a girdle ornamented with precious 
 stones and a sword with sheath of gold, but without re- 
 
234 THE METHOD AND PEACTICE OF EXPOSITION 
 
 ligious rites. But in the next century, in the reign of 
 Edward the Confessor, we read that Hereward, a noble 
 Anglo-Saxon youth, was knighted by the Abbot of Peter- 
 borough, with confession, absolution, and prayer that 
 he might be a true knight. And this the historian de- 
 scribes as the custom of the English, as indeed it was, 
 or soon became, that of all Europe; the Normans re- 
 sisting the innovation longest, but at last adopting it 
 with their wonted ardour. The candidate for knight- 
 hood confessed his sins on the eve of his consecration 
 (for such it now was), and passed the night in prayer 
 and fasting in the church : the godfathers, the bath, the 
 white garment, and the tonsure (sometimes limited in- 
 deed to a single lock) were the symbols of the new and 
 holy state of life to which he was now called : next morn- 
 ing he heard mass, offered his sword on the altar, where 
 it was blessed by the priest; and he was created a 
 knight — either by the priest of highest rank present, or 
 by some knight, who, in virtue of his knighthood, was 
 qualified to confer the sacred office he had himself re- 
 ceived — in the name of God, of St. George, and of St. 
 Michael the Archangel. He swore, and received the 
 holy communion in confirmation of his oath, to fulfil 
 the duties of his profession; to speak the truth; to 
 maintain the right; to protect women, the poor, and 
 the distressed; to practise courtesy; to pursue the in- 
 fidels; to despise the allurements of ease and safety, 
 and to maintain his honour in every perilous adventure. 
 And the Council of Cleremont, of which I have already 
 spoken — as if in order to give the sanction of the 
 Church in a still more formal and comprehensive man- 
 
ADDITIONAIi ASSIGNMENTS 235 
 
 ner to the whole system of chivalry — decreed that every 
 person of noble birth, on attaining the age of twelve 
 years, should take a solemn oath before the bishop of 
 his diocese to defend to the uttermost the oppressed, the 
 widow, and the orphans ; that women of noble birth, both 
 married and single, should enjoy his especial care; and 
 that nothing should be wanting in him to render travel- 
 ling safe, and to destroy tyranny. 
 
 Thus, as has been justly observed, all the humanities 
 of chivalry were sanctioned by legal and ecclesiastical 
 power; it was intended that they should be spread over 
 the whole face of Christendom, in order to check the bar- 
 barism and ferocity of the times. While the form of 
 chivalry was martial, its objects became to a great ex- 
 tent religious and social: from a mere military array 
 chivalry obtained the name of the Order, the Holy Or- 
 der, and a character of seriousness and solemnity was 
 given to it; and it was accounted an honourable office 
 above all offices, orders, and acts of the world, except the 
 order of priesthood. 
 
 THE PKOVINCES OF THE SEVEEAL ARTS ^ 
 John Addington Symonds 
 
 " Art," said Goethe, " is but form-giving." We 
 
 might vary this definition, and say, " Art is a method 
 
 of expression or presentation." Then comes the ques- 
 
 1 From Essays, Speculative and Suggestive, published by Chap- 
 man and Hall, London, England. 
 
236 THE METHOD AND PKACTICE OF EXPOSITION 
 
 tion : If art gives form, if it is a method of expression 
 or presentation, to what does it give form, what does it 
 express or present? The answer certainly must be: 
 Art gives form to human consciousness; expresses or 
 presents the feeling or the thought of man. Whatever 
 else art may do by the way, in the communication of 
 innocent pleasures, in the adornment of life and the 
 softening of manners, in the creation of beautiful shapes 
 and sounds, this, at all events, is its prime function. 
 
 While investing thought and sentiment, the spiritual 
 subject-matter of all art, with form, or finding for it 
 proper modes of presentation, each of the arts employs 
 a special medium, obeying the laws of beauty proper to 
 that medium. The vehicles of the arts, roughly speak- 
 ing, are solid substances (like ivory, stone, wood, metal), 
 pigments, sounds, and words. The masterly handling 
 of these vehicles and the realisation of their character- 
 istic types of beauty have come to be regarded as the 
 craftsman's paramount concern. And in a certain sense 
 this is a right conclusion; for dexterity in the manipu- 
 lation of the chosen vehicle and power to create a beau- 
 tiful object, distinguish the successful artist from the 
 man who may have had like thoughts and feelings. This 
 dexterity, this power, are the properties of the artist, 
 qua artist. Yet we must not forget that the form cre- 
 ated by the artist for the expression of a thought or 
 feeling is not the final end of art itself. That form, 
 after all, is but the mode of presentation through which 
 the spiritual content manifests itself. Beauty, in like 
 manner, is not the final end of art, but is the indispensa- 
 ble condition under which the artistic manifestation of 
 
ADBITIONAL ASSIGNMENTS 237 
 
 the spiritual content must be made. It is the business 
 of art to create an ideal world, in which perception, emo- 
 tion, understanding, action, all elements of human life 
 sublimed by thought, shall reappear in concrete forms as 
 beauty. This being so, the logical criticism of art de- 
 mands that we should not only estimate the technical 
 skill of an artist and his faculty for presenting beauty 
 to the aesthetic sense, but that we should also ask our- 
 selves what portion of the human spirit he has chosen to 
 invest with form, and how he has conceived his sub- 
 ject. It is not necessary that the ideas embodied in a 
 work of art should be the artist's own. They may be 
 common to the race and age: as, for instance, the con- 
 ception of sovereign deity expressed in the Olympian 
 Zeus of Pheidias, or the conception of divine maternity 
 expressed in Raphael's Madonna di San Sisto. Still the 
 personality of the artist, his own intellectual and moral 
 nature, his peculiar way of thinking and feeling, his in- 
 dividual attitude toward the material given to him in 
 ideas of human consciousness, will modify his choice 
 of subject and of form, and will determine his specific 
 type of beauty. To take an example : supposing that an 
 idea, common to his race and age, is given the artist for 
 treatment; this will be the final end of the work of art 
 which he produces. But his personal qualities and tech- 
 nical performance determine the degree of success or 
 failure to which he attains in seizing that idea and in 
 presenting it with beauty. Signorelli fails where Per- 
 ugino excels, in giving adequate and lovely form to the 
 religious sentiment. Michelangelo is sure of the sub- 
 lime, and Raphael of the beautiful. 
 
238 THE METHOD AND PEACTICE OF EXPOSITION 
 
 Art is thus the expression of the human spirit by the 
 artist to his fellow-men. The subject-matter of the arts 
 is commensurate with what man thinks and feels and 
 does. It is as deep as religion, as wide as life. But 
 what distinguishes art from religion or from life is, that 
 this subject-matter must assume beautiful form, and 
 must be presented directly or indirectly to the senses. 
 Art is not the school or the cathedral, but the play- 
 ground, the paradise of humanity. It does not teach, 
 it does not preach. Nothing abstract enters into art's 
 domain. Truth and goodness are transmuted into 
 beauty there, just as in science beauty and goodness 
 assume the shape of truth, and in religion truth and 
 beauty become goodness. The rigid definitions, the un- 
 mistakable laws of science, are not to be found in art. 
 Whatever art has touched acquires a concrete sensuous 
 embodiment, and thus ideas presented to the mind in 
 art have lost a portion of their pure thought-essence. It 
 is on this account that the religious conceptions of the 
 Greeks were so admirably fitted for the art of sculpture, 
 and certain portions of the mediaeval Christian mythol- 
 ogy lent themselves so well to painting. For the same 
 reason the metaphysics of ecclesiastical dogma defy the 
 artist's plastic faculty. Art, in a word, is a middle term 
 between reason and the senses. Its secondary aim, after 
 the prime end of manifesting the human spirit in beau- 
 tiful form has been accomplished, is to give tranquil and 
 innocent enjoyment. 
 
ADDITIONAL, ASSIGNMENTS 239 
 
 II 
 
 rrom what has gone before, it will be seen that no 
 human being can make or mould a beautiful form with- 
 out incorporating in that form some portion of the 
 human mind, however crude, however elementary. In 
 other words, there is no work of art without a theme, 
 without a motive, without a subject. The presentation 
 of that theme, that motive, that subject is the final end 
 of art. The art is good or bad according as the subject 
 has been well or ill presented, consistently with the laws 
 of beauty special to the art itself. Thus we obtain two 
 standards for sesthetic criticism. We judge .a statue, for 
 example, both by the sculptor's intellectual grasp upon 
 his subject, and also by his technical skill and sense of 
 beauty. In a picture of the Last Judgment of Fra An- 
 gelico we say that the bliss of the righteous has been 
 more successfully treated than the torments of the 
 wicked, because the former has been better understood, 
 although the painter's skill in each is equal. 
 
 In the Perseus of Cellini we admire the sculptor's 
 spirit, finish of execution, and originality of design, 
 while we deplore that want of sympathy with the heroic 
 character which makes his type of physical beauty 
 slightly vulgar and his facial expression vacuous. 
 
 If the phrase " Art for art's sake " has any meaning, 
 this meaning is simply that the artist, having chosen a 
 theme, thinks exclusively in working at it of technical 
 dexterity or the quality of beauty. There are many 
 inducements for the artist thus to narrow his function, 
 and for the critic to assist him by applying the canons 
 
240 THE METHOD AND PEACTICE OF EXPOSITION 
 
 of a soulless connoisseurship to his work; for the con- 
 ception of the subject is but the starting-point in art- 
 production, and the artist's difficulties and triumphs as 
 a craftsman lie in the region of technicalities. He 
 knows, moreover, that however deep or noble his idea 
 may be, his work of art will be worthless if it fail in 
 skill or be devoid of beauty. What converts a thought 
 into a statue or a picture, is the form found for it ; and 
 so the form itself seems all-important. The artist, 
 therefore, too easily imagines that he may neglect his 
 theme; that a fine piece of colouring, a well-balanced 
 composition, or, as Cellini put it, " un hel corpo ig- 
 nudo" is enough. And this is especially easy in an age 
 which reflects much upon the arts, and pursues them 
 with enthusiasm, while its deeper thoughts and senti- 
 ments are not of the kind which translate themselves 
 readily into artistic form. But, after all, a fine piece of 
 colouring, a well-balanced composition, a sonorous 
 stanza, a learned essay in counterpoint, are not enough. 
 They are all excellent good things, yielding delight to the 
 artistic sense and instruction to the student. Yet when 
 we think of the really great statues, pictures, poems, 
 music of the world, we find that these are great because 
 of something more — and that more is their theme, their 
 presentation of a noble portion of the human soul. Art- 
 ists and art students may be satisfied with perfect speci- 
 mens of a craftsman's skill, independent of his theme; 
 but the mass of men will not be satisfied ; and it is as 
 wrong to suppose that art exists for artists and art-stu- 
 dents, as to talk of art for art's sake. Art exists for hu- 
 manity. Art transmutes thought and feeling into terms 
 
ADDITIOISrAL ASSIGNMENTS 241 
 
 of beautiful form. Art is great and lasting in propor- 
 tion as it appeals to the human consciousness at large, 
 presenting to it portions of itself in adequate and lovely 
 form. 
 
 Ill 
 
 It was necessary in the first place firmly to apprehend 
 the truth that the final end of all art is the presentation 
 of a spiritual content; it is necessary in the next place 
 to remove confusions by considering the special cir- 
 cumstances of the several arts. 
 
 Each art has its own vehicle of expression. "What it 
 can present and how it can present it, depends upon the 
 nature of this vehicle. Thus, though architecture, 
 sculpture, painting, music, poetry, meet upon the com- 
 mon ground of spiritualised experience — though the 
 works of art produced by the architect, sculptor, painter, 
 musician, poet, emanate from the spiritual nature of the 
 race, are coloured by the spiritual nature of the men who 
 make them, and express what is spiritual in humanity 
 under concrete forms invented for them by the artist — 
 yet it is certain that all of these arts do not deal ex- 
 actly with the same portions of this common material in 
 the same way or with the same results. Each has its 
 own department. Each exhibits qualities of strength 
 and weakness special to itself. To define these sev- 
 eral departments, to explain the relation of these several 
 vehicles of presentation to the common subject-matter, is 
 the next step in criticism. 
 
242 THE METHOD AND PEACTICB OP EXPOSITION 
 
 IV 
 
 Of the fine arts, architecture alone subserves utility. 
 We build for use. But the geometrical proportions 
 which the architect ohservea, contain the element of 
 beauty and powerfully influence the soul. Into the lan- 
 guage of arch and aisle and colonnade, of cupola and 
 fagade and pediment, of spire and vault, the architect 
 translates emotion, vague perhaps but deep, mute but 
 unmistakable. 
 
 When we say that a building is sublime or graceful, 
 we mean that sublimity or grace, frivolity or sternness, 
 is inherent in it. The emotions connected with these 
 qualities are inspired in us when we contemplate it, and 
 are presented to us by its form. Whether the architect 
 deliberately aimed at the sublime or graceful — whether 
 the dignified serenity of the Athenian genius sought to 
 express itself in the Parthenon, and the mysticism of 
 mediaeval Christianity in the gloom of Chartres Cathe- 
 dral — whether it was Kenaissance paganism which gave 
 its mundane pomp and glory to St. Peter's, and the 
 refined selfishness of royalty its specious splendour to 
 the palace of Versailles — need not be curiously ques- 
 tioned. The fact that we are impelled to raise these 
 points, that architecture more almost than any otlier 
 art connects itself indissolubly with the life, the charac 
 ter, the moral being of a nation and an epoch, proves 
 that we are justified in bringing it beneath our general 
 definition of the arts. In a great measure because it 
 subserves utility, and is therefore dependent upon the 
 
ADDITIONAL ASSIGNMENTS 243 
 
 necessities of life, does architecture present to us through 
 form the human spirit. Comparing the palace built by 
 Giulio Romano for the Dukes of Mantua with the con- 
 temporary castle of a German prince, we can not fail 
 at once to comprehend the difference of spiritual con- 
 ditions, as these displayed themselves in daily life, 
 which then separated Italy from the Teutonic nations. 
 But this is not all. Spiritual quality in the architect 
 himself finds clear expression in his work- Coldness 
 combined with violence marks Brunelleschi's churches; 
 a certain suavity and well-bred taste the work of Bra- 
 mante; while Michelangelo exhibits wayward energy 
 in his Library of S. Lorenzo, and Amadeo self-abandon- 
 ment to fancy in his Lombard chapels. I have chosen 
 examples from one nation and one epoch in order that 
 the point I seek to make, the demonstration of a spiritual 
 quality in buildings, may be fairly stated. 
 
 Sculpture and painting distinguish themselves from 
 the other fine arts by the imitation of concrete existence 
 in nature. They copy the bodies of men and animals, 
 the aspects of the world around us, and the handiwork 
 of mankind. Yet, in so far as they are rightly arts, 
 they do not make imitation an object in itself. The 
 grapes of Zeuxis at which birds pecked, the painted 
 dog at which a cat's hair bristles — if such grapes or 
 such a dog were ever put upon canvas — are but evi- 
 dences of the artist's skill, not of his faculty as artist. 
 These two plastic, or, as I prefer to call them, figurative 
 
244 THE METHOD AND PEACTICE OF EXPOSITION' 
 
 arts, use their imitation of the external world for the 
 expression, the presentation of internal, spiritual things. 
 The human form is for them the outward symbol of the 
 inner human spirit, and their power of presenting spirit 
 is limited by the means at their disposal. 
 
 Sculpture employs stone, wood, clay, the precious met- 
 als to model forms, detached and independent, or raised 
 upon a flat surface in relief. Its domain is the whole 
 range of human character and consciousness, in so far as 
 these can be indicated by fixed facial expression, by 
 physical type, and by attitude. If we dwell for an in- 
 stant on the greatest historical epoch of sculpture, we 
 shall understand the domain of this art in its range and 
 limitation. At a certain point of Greek development the 
 Hellenic Pantheon began to be translated by the sculp- 
 tors into statues: and when the genius of the Greeks 
 expired in Rome, the cycle of their psychological con- 
 ceptions had been exhaustively presented through this 
 medium. During that long period of time, the most 
 delicate gradations of human personality, divinised, 
 idealised, were submitted to the contemplation of the 
 consciousness which gave them being, in appropriate 
 types. Strength and swiftness, massive force and airy 
 lightness, contemplative repose, and active energy, vo- 
 luptuous softness and refined grace, intellectual sublim- 
 ity and lascivious seductiveness — the whole rhythm of 
 qualities which can be typified by bodily foi*m — were 
 analysed, selected, combined in various degrees, to in- 
 carnate the religious conceptions of Zeus, Aphrodite, 
 Herakles, Dionysus, Pallas, Fauns and Satyrs, Nymphs 
 of woods and waves, Tritons, the genius of Death, heroes 
 
ADDITIONAL ASSIGNMENTS 245 
 
 and hunters, law-givers and poets, presiding deities of 
 minor functions, man's lustful appetites and sensual 
 needs. All that men think, or do, or are, or wish for, 
 or imagine in this world, had found exact corporeal 
 equivalents. Not physiognomy alone, but all the por- 
 tions of the body upon which the habits of the animating 
 soul are wont to stamp themselves, were studied and 
 employed as symbolism. Uranian Aphrodite was dis- 
 tinguished from her Pandemic sister by chastened, lust- 
 repelling loveliness. The muscles of Herakles were 
 more ponderous than the tense sinews of Achilles. The 
 Hermes of the palsestra bore a torso of majestic depth ; 
 the Hermes who carried messages from heaven had 
 limbs alert for movement. The brows of Zeus inspired 
 awe; the breasts of Dionysus breathed delight. 
 
 A race accustomed, as the Greeks were, to read this 
 symbolism, accustomed, as the Greeks were, to note the 
 individuality of naked form, had no difficulty in inter- 
 preting the language of sculpture. Nor is there even 
 now much difficulty in the task. Our surest guide to 
 the subject of a bas-relief or statue is study of the physi- 
 cal type considered as symbolical of spiritual quality. 
 From the fragment of a torso the true critic can say 
 whether it belongs to the athletic or the erotic species. 
 A limb of Bacchus differs from a limb of Poseidon. 
 The whole psychological conception of Aphrodite Pan- 
 demos enters into every muscle, every joint, no less than 
 into her physiognomy, her hair, her attitude. 
 
 There is, however, a limit to the domain of sculpture. 
 This art deals most successfully with personified gener- 
 alities. It is also strong in the presentation of incarnate 
 
246 THE METHOD AND PBACTICE OF EXPOSITION 
 
 character. But when it attempts to tell a story, we 
 often seek in vain its meaning. Battles of Amazons or 
 Centaurs upon bas-reliefs, indeed, are unmistakable. 
 The subject is indicated here by some external sign. 
 The group Laocoon appeals at once to a reader of Virgil, 
 and the divine vengeance of Leto's children upon !Niobe 
 is manifest in the Uffizi marbles. But who are the 
 several heroes of the iEginetan pediment, and what was 
 the subject of the Pheidian statues on the Parthenon ? 
 Do the three graceful figures of a bas-relief which exists 
 at Naples and in the Villa Albani, represent Orpheus, 
 Hermes, and Eurydiee, or Antiope and her two sons? 
 Was the winged and sworded genius upon the Ephesus 
 column meant for a genius of Death or a genius of Love ? 
 This dimness of significance indicates the limitations 
 of sculpture, and inclines some of those who feel its 
 charm to assert that the sculptor seeks to convey no in- 
 tellectual meaning, that he is satisfied with the creation 
 of beautiful form. There is an element of good sense in 
 this revolt against the faith which holds that art is noth- 
 ing but a mode of spiritual presentation. Truly the 
 artist aims at producing beauty, is satisfied if he conveys 
 delight. But it is impossible to escape from the cer- 
 tainty that, while he is creating forms of beauty, he 
 means something, feels something; and that something, 
 that theme for which he finds the form, is part of the 
 world's spiritual heritage. Only the crudest works of 
 figurative art, capricci and arabesques, have no intellec- 
 tual content ; and even these are good in so far as they 
 convey the playfulness of fancy. 
 
ADDITIONAL ASSIGNMENTS 247 
 
 yi 
 
 Painting employs colours upon surfaces — walls, pan- 
 els, canvas. What has been said about sculpture will 
 apply in a great measure to this art. The human form, 
 the world around us, the works of man's hands, are 
 represented in painting, not for their own sake merely, 
 but with view of bringing thought, feeling, action, home 
 to the consciousness of the spectator from the artist's 
 consciousness on which they have been impressed. 
 Painting can tell a story better than sculpture, can repre- 
 sent more complicated feelings, can suggest thoughts of 
 a subtler intricacy. Through colour, it can play, like 
 music, directly on powerful but vague emotion. It is 
 deficient in the fulness and roundness of concrete real- 
 ity. A statue stands before us, the soul incarnate in pal- 
 pable form, fixed and frozen for eternity. The picture 
 is a reflection cast upon a magic glass ; not less perma- 
 nent, but reduced to a shadow of palpable reality. To 
 follow these distinctions farther would be alien from the 
 present purpose. It is enough to repeat that, within 
 their several spheres, according to .their several strengths 
 and weaknesses, both sculpture and painting present the 
 spirit to us only as the spirit shows itself immersed in 
 things of sense. The light of a lamp enclosed within an 
 alabaster vase is still lamp-light, though shorn of lustre 
 and toned to coloured softness. Even thus the spirit, 
 immersed in things of sense presented to us by the figura- 
 tive arts, is still spirit, though diminished in its intel- 
 lectual clearness and invested with hues not its ovm. To 
 fashion that alabaster form of art vtdth utmost skill, to 
 
248 THE METHOD AND PRACTICE OF EXPOSITION 
 
 make it beautiful, to render it transparent, is the art- 
 ist's function. But he will have failed of the highest 
 if the light within burns dim, or if he gives the world 
 a lamp in which no spiritual flame is lighted. 
 
 VII 
 
 Music transports us to a different region. Like archi- 
 tecture, it imitates nothing. It uses pure sound, and 
 sound of the most wholly artificial kind — so artificial 
 that the musical sounds of one race are unmusical, and 
 therefore unintelligible to another. Like architecture, 
 music relies upon mathematical proportions. Unlike 
 architecture, music serves no utility. It is the purest 
 art of pleasure — the truest paradise and playground of 
 the spirit. It has less power than painting, even less 
 power than sculpture, to tell a story or to communicate 
 an idea. For we must remember that when music is 
 married to words, the words, and not the music, reach 
 our thinking faculty. And yet, in spite of all this, 
 music presents man's spirit to itself through form. The 
 domain of the spirit over which music reigns, is emo- 
 tion — not defined emotion, not feeling even so generally 
 defined as jealousy or anger — but those broad bases of 
 man's being out of which emotions spring, defining them- 
 selves through action into this or that set type of feeling. 
 Architecture, we have noticed, is so connected with spe- 
 cific modes of human existence, that from its main ex- 
 amples we can reconstruct the life of men who used it. 
 Sculpture and painting, by limiting their presentation 
 to the imitation of external things, have aU the help 
 
ADDITIONAL ASSIGNMENTS 249 
 
 which experience and association render. The mere 
 artificiality of music's vehicle separates it from life and 
 makes its message untranslatable. Nevertheless, this 
 very disability under which it labours is the secret of its 
 extraordinary potency. 
 
 To expect clear definition from music — the definition 
 which belongs to poetry — would be absurd. The 
 sphere of music is in sensuous perception ; the sphere of 
 poetry is in intelligence. Music, dealing with pure 
 sound, must always be vaguer in significance than poetry, 
 which deals with words. ISTevertheless its effect upon 
 the sentinel subject may be more intense and penetrat- 
 ing for this very reason. We cannot fail to understand 
 what words are intended to convey ; we may very easily 
 interpret in a hundred difi^erent ways the message of 
 sound. But this is not because words are wider in 
 their reach and more alive; rather because they are 
 more limited, more stereotyped, more dead. They sym- 
 bolise something precise and unmistakable; but this 
 precision is itself attenuation of the something sym- 
 bolised. The exact value of the counter is better under- 
 stood when it is a word than when it is a chord, because 
 all that a word conveys has already become a thought, 
 while all that musical sounds convey remains within the 
 region of emotion which has not been intellectualised.^ 
 Poetry touches emotion through the thinking faculty. 
 If music reaches the thinking faculty at all, it is through 
 fibres of emotion. But emotion, when it has become 
 thought, has already lost a portion of its force, and has 
 
 1 " Thought," said Novalis somewhere, " is only a pale, desiccated 
 emotion." 
 
250 THE METHOD AND PEACTICE OF EXPOSITION 
 
 taken to itself a something alien to its nature. There- 
 fore the message of music can never rightly be trans- 
 lated into words. It is the very largeness and vividness 
 of the sphere of simple feeling which makes its symboli- 
 cal counterpart in sound so seeming vague. But in 
 spite of this incontestable defect of seeming vagueness, 
 an emotion expressed by music is nearer to our sen- 
 tient self if we have ears to take it in, than the same 
 emotion limited by language. It is intenser, it is more 
 immediate, as compensation for being less intelligible, 
 less unmistakable in meaning. It is an infinite, an in- 
 distinct, where each consciousness defines and sets a 
 limitary form. 
 
 Nothing intervenes between the musical work of art 
 and the fibres of the sentient being it immediately 
 thrills. We do not seek to say what music means. We 
 feel the music. And if a man should pretend that the 
 music has not passed beyond his ears, he simply tells us 
 that he has not felt music. The ancients on this point 
 were wiser than some moderns when, without pretending 
 to assign an intellectual significance to music, they held 
 it for an axiom that one type of music bred one type of 
 character, another type another. A change in the music 
 of a state, wrote Plato, will be followed by changes in its 
 constitution. It is of the utmost importance, said Aris- 
 totle, to provide in education for the use of the ennobling 
 and the fortifying moods. These philosophers knew 
 that music creates a spiritual world, in which the spirit 
 cannot live and move without contracting habits of emo- 
 tion. In this vagueness of significance but intensity of 
 feeling lies the magic of music. A melody occurs to 
 
ADDITIONAL ASSIGNMENTS 251 
 
 the composer, which he certainly connects with no act 
 of reason, which he is probably unconscious of connect- 
 ing with any movement of his feeling, but which never- 
 theless is the form in sound of an emotional mood. 
 When he reflects upon the melody secreted thus im- 
 promptu, he is aware, as we learn from his own lips, 
 that this work has correspondence with emotion. Bee- 
 thoven calls one symphony Heroic, another Pastoral; 
 of the opening of another he says, " Fate knocks at the 
 door." Mozart sets comic words to the mass-music of a 
 friend, in order to mark his sense of its inaptitude for 
 religious sentiment. All composers use phrases like 
 Maestoso, Pomposo, Allegro, Lagrimoso, Con Puoco, to 
 express the general complexion of the mood their music 
 ought to represent. 
 
 VIII 
 
 Before passing to poetry, it may be well to turn aside 
 and consider two subordinate arts, which deserve a place 
 in any system of aesthetics. These are dancing and act- 
 ing. Dancing uses the living human form, and presents 
 feeling or action, the passions and the deeds of men, 
 in artificially educated movements of the body. The 
 element of beauty it possesses, independently of the 
 beauty of the dancer, is rhythm. Acting or the art of 
 mimicry presents the same subject-matter, no longer 
 under the conditions of fixed rhythm, but as an ideal 
 reproduction of reality. The actor is what he repre- 
 sents, and the element of beauty in his art is perfection 
 of realisation. It is his duty as an artist to show us 
 
252 THE METHOD AND PEACTICE OF EXPOSITION 
 
 Orestes or Othello, not perhaps exactly as Othello and 
 Orestes were, but as the essence of their tragedies, ideally 
 incorporate in action, ought to be. The actor can do this 
 in dumb show. Some of the greatest actors of the 
 ancient world were mimes. But he usually interprets 
 a poet's thought, and attempts to present an artistic con- 
 ception in a secondary form of art, which has for its 
 advantage his own personality in play. 
 
 IX 
 
 The last of the fine arts is literature ; or, in the nar- 
 rower sphere of which it will he well to speat here only, 
 is poetry. Poetry employs words in fixed rhythms, 
 which we call metres. Only a small portion of its effect 
 is derived from the beauty of its sound. It appeals to 
 the sense of hearing far less immediately than music 
 does. It makes no appeal to the eyesight, and takes no 
 help from the beauty of colour. It produces no pal- 
 pable, tangible object. But language being the store- 
 house of all human experience, language being the me- 
 dium whereby spirit communicates with spirit in affairs 
 of life, the vehicle which transmits to us the thoughts 
 and feelings of the past, and on which we rely for con- 
 tinuing our present to the future, it follows that, of all 
 the arts, poetry soars highest, flies widest, and is most 
 at home in the region of the spirit. What poetry lacks 
 of sensuous fulness, it more than balances by intellectual 
 intensity. Its significance is . unmistakable, because it 
 employs the very material men use in their exchange of 
 thoughts and correspondence of emotions. To the 
 
ADDITIONAL ASSIGNMENTS 253 
 
 bounds of its empire there is no end. It embraces in 
 its own more abstract being all the arts. By words 
 it does the work in turn of architecture, sculpture, paint- 
 ing, music. It is the metaphysic of the fine arts. Phi- 
 losophy finds place in poetry ; and life itself, refined to 
 its last utterance, hangs trembling on this thread which 
 joins our earth to heaven, this bridge between experience 
 and the realms where unattainable and imperceptible 
 will have no meaning. 
 
 If we are right in defining art as the manifestation of 
 the human spirit to man by man in beautiful form, 
 poetry, more incontestably than any other art, fulfils 
 this definition and enables us to gauge its accuracy. For 
 words are the spirit, manifested to itself in symbols with 
 no sensual alloy. Poetry is therefore the presentation, 
 through words, of life and all that life implies. Per- 
 ception, emotion, thought, action, find in descriptive, 
 lyrical, reflective, dramatic, and epical poetry their im- 
 mediate apocalypse. In poetry we are no longer puz- 
 zled with problems as to whether art has or has not 
 of necessity a spiritual content. There cannot be any 
 poetry whatsoever without a spiritual meaning of some 
 sort : good or bad, moral, immoral, or non-moral, obscure 
 or lucid, noble or ignoble, slight or weighty — such dis- 
 tinctions do not signify. In poetry we are not met by 
 questions whether the poet intended to convey a mean- 
 ing when he made it. Quite meaningless poetry (as 
 some critics would fain find melody quite meaningless, 
 or a statue meaningless, or a Venetian picture mean- 
 ingless) is a contradiction in terms. In poetry, life, 
 or a portion of life, lives again, resuscitated and pre- 
 
254 THE METHOD AND PEACTICE OF EXPOSITION 
 
 sented to our mental faculty through art. The best 
 poetry is that which reproduces the most of life, or its 
 intensest moments. Therefore the extensive species of 
 the drama and the epic, the intensive species of the 
 lyric, have been ever held in highest esteem. Only a 
 paradoxical critic maintains the thesis that poetry is 
 excellent in so far as it assimilates the vagueness of 
 music, or estimates a poet by his power of translating 
 sense upon the border-land of nonsense into melodious 
 words. Where poetry falls short in comparison with 
 other arts, is in the quality of form-giving, in the quality 
 of sensuous concreteness. Poetry can only present 
 forms to the mental eye and to the intellectual sense, 
 stimulate the physical senses by indirect suggestion. 
 Therefore dramatic poetry, the most complicated kind 
 of poetry, relies upon the actor ; and lyrical poetry, the 
 intensest kind of poetry, seeks the aid of music. But 
 these comparative deficiencies are overbalanced, for all 
 the highest purposes of art, by the width and depth, the 
 intelligibility and power, the flexibility and multitudi- 
 nous associations of language. The other arts are lim- 
 ited in what they utter. There is nothing which has 
 entered into the life of man which poetry cannot ex- 
 press. Poetry says everything in man's own language 
 to the mind. The other arts appeal imperatively, each 
 in its own region, to man's senses; and the mind re- 
 ceives art's message by the help of symbols from the 
 world of sense. Poetry lacks this immediate appeal to 
 sense. But the elixir which it offers to the mind, its 
 quintessence extracted from all things of sense, reacts 
 
ADDITIONAL ASSIGNMENTS 255 
 
 through intellectual perception upon all the faculties 
 that make men what they are. 
 
 I used a metaphor in one of the foregoing paragraphs 
 to indicate the presence of the vital spirit, the essential 
 element of thought or feeling, in the work of art. I said 
 it radiated through the form, as lamplight through an 
 alabaster vase. Now the skill of the artist is displayed 
 in modelling that vase, in giving it shape, rich and rare, 
 and fashioning its curves with subtlest workmanship. 
 In so far as he is a craftsman, the artist's pains must be 
 bestowed upon this precious vessel of the animating 
 theme. In so far as he has power over beauty, he must 
 exert it in this plastic act. It is here that he displays 
 dexterity; here that he creates; here that he separates 
 himself from other men who think and feel. The poet, 
 more perhaps than any other artist, needs to keep this 
 steadily in view ; for words being our daily vehicle of ut- 
 terance, it may well chance that the alabaster vase of 
 language should be hastily or trivially modelled. This is 
 the true reason why " neither gods nor men nor the col- 
 umns either suffer mediocrity in singers." Upon the 
 poet it is specially incumbent to see that he has some- 
 thing rare to say and some rich mode of saying it. The 
 figurative arts need hardly be so cautioned. They run 
 their risk in quite a different direction. For sculptor 
 and for painter, the danger is lest he should think that 
 alabaster vase his final task. He may too easily be sat- 
 isfied with moulding a beautiful but empty form. 
 
256 THE METHOD AND PRACTICE OF EXPOSITION 
 
 NATIOISTAL CHAEACTEEISTICS AS 
 MOULDIl^G PUBLIC OPINION ^ 
 James Betce 
 
 As the public opinion of a people is even more di- 
 rectly than its political institutions the reflection and 
 expression of its character, we may begin the analysis 
 of opinion in America by noting some of those general 
 features of national character which give tone and 
 colour to the people's thoughts and feelings on politics. 
 There are, of course, varieties proper to different 
 classes, and to different parts of the vast territory of 
 the Union; but it is well to consider first such char- 
 acteristics as belong to the nation as a whole, and after- 
 wards to examine the various classes and districts of 
 the country. And when I speak of the nation, I mean 
 the native Americans. What follows is not applicable 
 to the recent immigrants from Europe, and, of course, 
 even less applicable to the Southern negroes. 
 
 The Americans are a good-natured people, kindly, 
 
 helpful to one another, disposed to take a charitable 
 
 view even of wrongdoers. Their anger sometimes flames 
 
 up, but the fire is soon extinct. Nowhere is cruelty 
 
 more abhorred. Even a mob lynching a horse thief 
 
 in the West has consideration for the criminal, and 
 
 will give him a good drink of whiskey before he is 
 
 strung up. Cruelty to slaves was unusual while 
 
 slavery lasted, the best proof of which is the quietness 
 
 of the slaves, during the war when all the men and 
 
 many of the boys of the South were serving in the Cou- 
 
 1 From The American Commonwealth, published by the Mae- 
 millan Company. 
 
ADDITIONAL ASSIGNMENTS 257 
 
 federate armies. As everybody knows, juries are more 
 lenient to offences of all kinds but one, offences against 
 women, than tbey are anywhere in Europe. The 
 Southern "-rebels" were soon forgiven; and though 
 civil wars are proverbially bitter, there have been few 
 struggles in which the combatants did so many little 
 friendly acts for one another, few in which even the 
 vanquished have so quickly buried their resentments. 
 It is true that newspapers and public speakers say 
 hard things of their opponents ; but this is a part of the 
 game, and is besides a way of relieving their feelings: 
 the bark is sometimes the louder in order that a bite may 
 not follow. Vindictiveness shown by a public man ex- 
 cites general disapproval, and the maxim of letting by- 
 gones be bygones is pushed so far that an offender's 
 misdeeds are often forgotten when they ought to be 
 remembered against him. 
 
 All the world knows that they are a humorous people. 
 They are as conspicuously the purveyors of himiour to 
 the nineteenth century as the Erench were the purvey- 
 ors of wit to the eighteenth. Nor is this sense of the 
 ludicrous side of things confined to a few brilliant 
 writers. It is diffused among the whole people; it 
 colours their ordinary life, and gives to their talk that 
 distinctively new flavour which a European palate en- 
 joys. Their capacity for enjoying a joke against 
 themselves was oddly illustrated at the outset of the 
 Civil War, a time of stern excitement, by the merri- 
 ment which arose over the hasty retreat of the Federal 
 troops at the battle of Bull Eun. When William M. 
 Tweed was ruling and robbing New York, and had set 
 
258 THE METHOD AND PRACTICE OF EXPOSITION 
 
 on the bench men who were openly prostituting justice, 
 the citizens found the situation so amusing that they 
 almost forgot to be angry. Much of President Lin- 
 coln's popularity, and much also of the gift he showed 
 for restoring confidence to the North at the darkest mo- 
 ments of the war, was due to the humorous way he used 
 to turn things, conveying the impression of not being 
 himself uneasy, even when he was most so. 
 
 That indulgent view of mankind which I have al- 
 ready mentioned, a view odd in a people whose an- 
 cestors were penetrated with the belief in original sin, 
 is strengthened by this wish to get amusement out of 
 everything. The want of seriousness which it pro- 
 duces may be more apparent than real. Yet it has its 
 significance; for people become affected by the lan- 
 guage they use, as we see men grow into cynics when 
 they have acquired the habit of talking cynicism for 
 the sake of effect. 
 
 They are a hopeful people. Whether or no they are 
 right in calling themselves a new people, they certainly 
 seem to feel in their veins the bounding pulse of youth. 
 They see a long vista of years stretching out before them, 
 in which they will have time enough to cure all their 
 faults, to overcome all the obstacles that block their 
 path. They look at their enormous territory with its 
 still only half-explored sources of wealth, they reckon 
 up the growth of their population and their products, 
 they contrast the comfort and intelligence of their 
 labouring classes with the condition of the masses in 
 the Old World. They remember the dangers that so 
 long threatened the Union from the slave power, and 
 
ADDITIONAL ASSIGNMENTS 259 
 
 the rebellion it raised, and see peace and harmony 
 now restored, the South more prosperous and contented 
 than at any previous epoch, perfect good feeling be- 
 tween all sections of the country. It is natural for 
 them to believe in their star. And this sanguine tem- 
 per makes them tolerant of evils which they regard as 
 transitory, removable as soon as time can be found to 
 root them up. 
 
 They have unbounded faith in what they call the 
 People and in a democratic system of government'. 
 The great States of the European continent are dis- 
 tracted by the contests of Eepublicans and Monarchists, 
 and of rich and poor, — contests which go down to the 
 foundations of government, and in France are further 
 embittered by religious passions. Even in England the 
 ancient Constitution is always under repair, and while 
 some think it is being ruined by changes, others hold 
 that further changes are needed to make it tolerable. 
 No such questions trouble native American minds, for 
 nearly everybody believes, and everybody declares, that 
 the frame of government is in its main lines so excel- 
 lent that such reforms as seem called for need not touch 
 those lines, but are required only to protect the Con- 
 stitution from being perverted by the parties. Hence 
 a further confidence that the people are sure to decide 
 right in the long run, a confidence inevitable and essen- 
 tial in a government which refers every question to 
 the arbitrament of numbers. There have, of course, 
 been instances where the once insignificant minority 
 proved to have been wiser than the majority of the 
 moment. Such was eminently the case in the great 
 
260 THE METHOD AND PEACTICE OF EXPOSITIOIT 
 
 slavery struggle. But here the minority prevailed by 
 gro Vising into a majority as events developed the real 
 issues, so that this also has been deemed a ground for 
 holding that all minorities which have right on their 
 side -win. bring round their antagonists, and in the long 
 run win by voting power. If you ask an intelligent 
 citizen why he so holds, he will answer that truth and 
 justice are sure to make their way into the minds and 
 consciences of the majority. This is deemed an axiom, 
 and the more readily so deemed because truth is iden- 
 tified with common sense, the quality which the aver- 
 age citizen is most confidently proud of possessing. 
 
 This feeling shades off into another, externally like 
 it, but at bottom distinct — the feeling not only that 
 the majority, be it right or wrong, will and must pre- 
 vail, but that its being the majority proves it to be 
 right. This idea, which appears in the guise sometimes 
 of piety and sometimes of fatalism, seems to be no 
 contemptible factor in the present character of the peo- 
 ple. It will be more fully dealt with in a later chapter. 
 
 The native Americans axe an educated people, com- 
 pared with the whole mass of the population in any 
 European country except Switzerland, parts of Ger- 
 many, Norway, Iceland, and Scotland; that is to say, 
 the average of knowledge is higher, the habit of read- 
 ing and thinking more generally diffused, than in any 
 other country. They know the Constitution of their 
 own country, they follow public affairs, they join in 
 local government and learn from it how government 
 must be carried on, and in particular how discussion 
 must be conducted in meetings, and its result tested at 
 
ADDITIONAL ASSIGNMENTS 261 
 
 elections. The Town Meeting was for New England 
 the most perfect school of self-government in any mod- 
 em country. In villages, men used to exercise their 
 minds on theological questions, debating points of Chris- 
 tian doctrine with no small acuteness. Women in par- 
 ticular, pick up at the public schools and from the 
 popular magazines far more miscellaneous information 
 than the women of any European country possess, and 
 this naturally tells on the intelligence of the men. Al- 
 most everywhere one finds women's clubs in which 
 literary, artistic, and social questions are discussed, and 
 to which men of mark are brought to deliver lectures. 
 That the education of the masses is nevertheless a 
 superficial education goes without saying. It is sufii- 
 cient to enable them to think they know something about 
 the great problems of politics : insuQicient to show them 
 how little they know. The public elementary school 
 gives everybody the key to knowledge in making read- 
 ing and writing familiar, but it has not time to teach 
 him how to use the key, whose use is in fact, by the 
 pressure of daily work, almost confined to the news- 
 paper and the magazine. So we may say that if the 
 political education of the average American voter be 
 compared with that of the average voter in Europe, it 
 stands high; but if it be compared with the functions 
 which the theory of the American government lays on 
 him, which its spirit implies, which the methods of its 
 party organisation assume, its inadequacy is manifest. 
 This observation, however, is not so much a reproach 
 to the schools, which generally do what English schools 
 omit — instruct the child in the principles of the Con- 
 
262 THE METHOD AND PBACTICE OF EXPOSITION 
 
 stitution — as a tribute to the height of the ideal which 
 the American conception of popular rule sets up. 
 
 For the functions of the citizen are not, as has hith- 
 erto been the case in Europe, confined to the choosing 
 of legislators, who are then left to settle issues of policy 
 and select executive rulers. The American citizen is 
 one of the governors of the Eepublic. Issues are de- 
 cided and rulers selected by the direct popular vote. 
 Elections are so frequent that to do his duty at them a 
 citizen ought to be constantly watching public affairs 
 with a full comprehension of the principles involved in 
 them, and a judgment of the candidates derived from 
 a criticism of their arguments as well as a recollection 
 of their past careers. The instruction received in the 
 common schools and from the newspapers, and sup- 
 posed to be developed by the practice of primaries and 
 conventions, while it makes the voter deem himself ca- 
 pable of governing, does not fit him to weigh the real 
 merits of statesmen, to discern the true grounds on 
 which questions ought to be decided, to note the drift 
 of events and discover the direction in which parties 
 are being carried. He is like a sailor who knows the 
 spars and ropes of the ship and is expert in working 
 her, but is ignorant of geography and navigation ; who 
 can perceive that some of the officers are smart and 
 others dull, but cannot judge which of them is qualified 
 to use the sextant or will best keep his head during a 
 hurricane. 
 
 They are a moral and well-conducted people. Set- 
 ting aside the colluvies gentium which one finds in 
 Western mining camps, now largely filled by recent 
 
ADDITIONAL, ASSIGNMENTS 263 
 
 immigrants, and which popular literature has presented 
 to Europeans as far larger than it really is, setting 
 aside also the rabble of a few great cities and the 
 negroes of the South, the average of temperance, 
 chastity, truthfulness, and general probity is some- 
 what higher than in any of the great nations of Eu- 
 rope. The instincts of the native farmer or artisan 
 are almost invariably kindly and charitable. He re- 
 spects the law; he is deferential to women and indul- 
 gent to children ; he attaches an almost excessive value 
 to the possession of a genial manner and the observance 
 of domestic duties. 
 
 They are also — and here again I mean the people of 
 native American stock, especially in the Eastern and 
 Middle States — on the whole, a religious people. It is 
 not merely that they respect religion and its ministers, 
 for that one might say of Russians or Sicilians, not 
 merely that they are assiduous church-goers and Sun- 
 day-school teachers, but that they have an intelligent 
 interest in the form of faith they profess, are pious 
 without superstition, and zealous without bigotry. 
 The importance which some still, though all much less 
 than formerly, attach to dogmatic propositions, does not 
 prevent them from feeling the moral side of their theol- 
 ogy. Christianity influences conduct, not indeed half 
 as much as in theory it ought, but probably more than 
 it does in any other modem country, and far more than 
 it did in the so-called ages of faith. 
 
 Nor do their moral and religious impulses remain in 
 the soft haze of self-complacent sentiment. The de- 
 sire to expunge or cure the visible evils of the world is 
 
264 THE METHOD AND PEACTICE OF EXPOSITION 
 
 strong. Nowhere are so many philanthropic and re- 
 formatory agencies at work. Zeal outruns discretion, 
 outruns the possibilities of the case, in not a few of the 
 efforts made, as well by legislation as by voluntary 
 action, to suppress vice, to prevent intemperance, to 
 purify popular literature. 
 
 Keligion apart, they are an unreverential people. I 
 do not mean irreverent, — far from it; nor do I mean 
 that they have not a great capacity for hero-worship, as 
 they have many a time shown. I mean that they are 
 little disposed, especially in public questions — politi- 
 cal, economical, or social — to defer to the opinions of 
 those who are wiser or better instructed than themselves. 
 Everything tends to make the individual independent 
 and self-reliant. He goes early into the world; he is 
 left to make his way alone; he tries one occupation 
 after another, if the first or second venture does not 
 prosper ; he gets to think that each man is his own best 
 helper and adviser. Thus he is led, I will not say to 
 form his own opinions, for few are those who do that, 
 but to fancy that he has formed them, and to feel little 
 need of aid from others towards correcting them. 
 There is, therefore, less disposition than in Europe to 
 expect light and leading on public affairs from speakers 
 or writers. Oratory is not directed towards instruc- 
 tion, but towards stimulation. Special knowledge, 
 which commands deference in applied science or in 
 finance, does not command it in politics, because that 
 is not deemed a special subject, but one within the 
 comprehension of every practical man. Politics is, to 
 be sure, a profession, and so far might seem to need 
 
ADDITIONAL ASSIGNMENTS 265 
 
 professional aptitudes. But the professional politician 
 is not the man who has studied statesmanship, but the 
 man who has practised the art of running conventions 
 and winning elections. 
 
 Even that strong point of America, the complete- 
 ness and highly popular character of local government, 
 contributes to lower the standard of attainment ex- 
 pected in a public man because the citizens judge of 
 all politics by the politics they see first and know best, 
 — those of their township or city, — and fancy that he 
 who is fit to be selectman, or county commissioner, or 
 alderman, is fit to sit in the great council of the na- 
 tion. Like the shepherd in Virgil, they think the only 
 difference between their town and Eome is in its size, 
 and believe that what does for Lafayetteville will do 
 well enough for Washington. Hence when a man of 
 statesmanlike gifts appears, he has little encourage- 
 ment to take a high and statesmanlike tone, for his 
 words do not necessarily receive weight from his posi- 
 tion. He fears to be instructive or hortatory, lest such 
 an attitude should expose him to ridicule ; and in Amer- 
 ica ridicule is a terrible power. Nothing escapes it. 
 Few have the courage to face it. In the indulgence of 
 it even this humane race can be unfeeling. 
 
 They are a busy people. I have already observed 
 that the leisured class is relatively small, is in fact 
 confined to a few Eastern cities. The citizen has little 
 time to think about political problems. Engrossing 
 all the working hours, his avocation leaves him only 
 stray moments for this fundamental duty. It is true 
 that he admits his responsibilities, considers himself a 
 
266 THE METHOD AND PRACTICE OP EXPOSITION 
 
 member of a party, takes some interest in current 
 events. But although he would reject the idea that his 
 thinking should be done for him, he has not leisure to 
 do it for himself, and must practically lean upon and 
 follow his party. It astonished me in 1870 and 1881 
 to find how small a part politics played in conversation 
 among the best educated classes and generally in the 
 cities. Since 1896 there has been a livelier and more 
 constant interest in public affairs; yet even now busi- 
 ness matters so occupy the mind of the financial and 
 commercial classes, and athletic competitions the minds 
 of the uneducated classes and of the younger sort in 
 all classes, that political questions are apt, except at 
 critical moments, to fall into the background.^ In a 
 presidential year, and especially during the months of a 
 presidential campaign, there is, of course, abundance 
 of private talk, as well as of public speaking, but even 
 then the issues raised are largely personal rather than 
 political in the European sense. But at other times the 
 visitor is apt to feel — more, I think, than he feels 
 anywhere in Britain — that his host has been heavily 
 pressed by his ovsm business concerns during the day, 
 and that when the hour of relaxation arrives he gladly 
 turns to lighter and more agreeable topics than the 
 state of the nation. This remark is less applicable to 
 the dwellers in villages. There is plenty of political 
 chat round the store at the cross roads, and though it is 
 
 I The increased space given to athletics and games of all sorts 
 in the newspapers marks a change in public taste no less striking 
 here than it is in Britain. As it is equally striking in the 
 British colonies, one may take it as a feature common to tlie 
 modern English-speaking world, and to that world only, for it 
 is scarcely discernible in Continental Europe. 
 
ADDITIONAL ASSIGNMENTS 267 
 
 rather in the nature of gossip than of debate, it seems, 
 along with the practice of local government, to sustain 
 the interest of ordinary folk in public affairs.^ 
 
 The want of serious and sustained thinking is not 
 confined to politics. One feels it even more as regards 
 economical and social questions. To it must be 
 ascribed the vitality of certain prejudices and fallacies 
 which could scarcely survive the continuous applica- 
 tion of such vigorous minds as one finds among the 
 Americans. Their quick perceptions serve them so 
 well in business and in the ordinary affairs of private 
 life that they do not feel the need for minute investiga- 
 tion and patient reflection on the underlying principles 
 of things. They are apt to ignore difficulties, and 
 when they can no longer ignore them, they will evade 
 them rather than lay siege to them according to the 
 rules of art. The sense that there is no time to spare 
 haunts an American even when he might find the time, 
 and would do best for himself by finding it. 
 
 Some one will say that an aversion to steady thinking 
 belongs to the average man everywhere. True. But 
 less is expected from the average man in other coun- 
 tries than from a people who have carried the doctrine 
 of popular sovereignty further than it has ever been 
 carried before. They are tried by the standard which 
 the theory of their government assumes. In other 
 
 1 The European country where the common people best under- 
 stand polities is Switzerland. That where they talk most about 
 politics is, I think, Greece. I remember, for instance, in cross- 
 ing the channel which divides Cephalonia from Ithaca, to have 
 heard the boatmen discuss a recent ministerial crisis at Athens, 
 during the wliole voyage, with the liveliest interest and ap- 
 parently some knowledge. 
 
268 THE METHOD AND PEACTICE OF EXPOSITION 
 
 countries statesmen or philosophers do, and are ex- 
 pected to do, the solid thinking for the bulk of the 
 people. Here the people are supposed to do it for 
 themselves. To say that they do it imperfectly is not 
 to deny them the credit of doing it better than a Eu- 
 ropean philosopher might have predicted. 
 
 They are a commercial people, whose point of view 
 is primarily that of persons accustomed to reckon profit 
 and loss. Their impulse is to apply a direct practical 
 test to men and measures, to assume that the men who 
 have got on fastest are the smartest men, and that a 
 scheme which seems to pay well deserves to be sup- 
 ported. Abstract reasonings they dislike, subtle rea- 
 sonings they suspect; they accept nothing as practical 
 which is not plain, downright, apprehensible by an 
 ordinary understanding. Although open-minded, so 
 far as willingness to listen goes, they are hard to con- 
 vince, because they have really made up their minds 
 on most subjects, having adopted the prevailing no- 
 tions of their locality or party as truths due to their 
 own reflection. 
 
 It may seem a contradiction to remark that with this 
 shrewdness and the sort of hardness it produces, they 
 are nevertheless an impressionable people. Yet this is 
 true. It is not their intellect, however, that is impres- 
 sionable, but their imagination and emotions, which 
 respond in unexpected ways to appeals made on behalf 
 of a cause which seems to have about it something noble 
 or pathetic. They are capable of an ideality surpass- 
 ing that of Englishmen or Frenchmen. 
 
 They are an unsettled people. In no State of the 
 
ADDITIONAL ASSIGTTMEITTS 269 
 
 Union is the bulk of the population so fixed in its resi- 
 dence as everywhere in Europe; in some it is almost 
 nomadic. Except in the more stagnant parts of the 
 South, nobody feels rooted to the soil. Here to-day and 
 gone to-morrow, he cannot readily contract habits of 
 trustful dependence on his neighbours. Community 
 of interest, or of belief in such a cause as temperance, 
 or protection for native industry, unites him for a time 
 with others similarly minded, but congenial spirits 
 seldom live long enough together to form a school or 
 type of local opinion which develops strength and be- 
 comes a proselytising force. Perhaps this tends to 
 prevent the growth of variety in opinion. When a 
 man arises with some power of original thought in 
 politics, he is feeble if isolated, and is depressed by his 
 insignificance, whereas if he grows up in favoiirable 
 soil with sympathetic minds around him, whom he can 
 in prolonged intercourse permeate with his ideas, he 
 learns to speak with confidence and soars on the wings 
 of his disciples. One who considers the variety of con- 
 ditions under which men live in America may cer- 
 tainly find ground for surprise that there should be 
 so few independent schools of opinion. 
 
 But even while an unsettled, they are nevertheless an 
 associative, because a sympathetic people. Although 
 the atoms are in constant motion, they have a strong 
 attraction for one another. Each man catches his 
 neighbour's sentiment more quickly and easily than 
 happens with the English. That sort of reserve and 
 isolation, that tendency rather to repel than to invite 
 confidence, which foreigners attribute to the English- 
 
270 THE METHOD AND PRACTICE OF EXPOSITION 
 
 man, though it belongs rather to the upper and mid- 
 dle class than to the nation generally, is, though not 
 absent, yet less marked in America.^ It seems to be 
 one of the notes of difference between the two branches 
 of the race. In the United States, since each man likes 
 to feel that his ideas raise in other minds the same 
 emotions as in his own, a sentiment or impulse is rap- 
 idly propagated and quickly conscious of its strength. 
 Add to this the aptitude for organisation which their 
 history and institutions have educed, and one sees how 
 the tendency to form and the talent to work combina- 
 tions for a political or any other object has become one 
 of the great features of the country. Hence, too, the 
 immense strength of party. It rests not only on in- 
 terest and habit and the sense of its value as a means 
 of working the government, but also on the sjTupathetic 
 element and instinct of combination ingrained in the 
 national character. 
 
 They are a changeful people. Not fickle, for they 
 are if anything too tenacious of ideas once adopted, too 
 fast bound by party ties, too willing to pardon the er- 
 rors of a cherished leader. But they have what chem- 
 ists call low specific heat; they grow warm suddenly 
 and cool as suddenly; they are liable to swift and ve- 
 hement outbursts of feeling which rush like wildfire 
 across the country, gaining glow, like the wheel of a 
 
 1 1 do not mean that Americans are more apt to unbosom 
 themselves to strangers, but that they have rather more adap- 
 tiveness than the English, and are less disposed to stand alone 
 and care nothing for the opinion of others. It is worth noticing 
 that Americans travelling abroad seem to get more easily into 
 touch with the inhabitants of the country than the English do; 
 nor have they the English habit of calling those inhabitants — 
 Frenchmen, for instance, or Germans — " the natives." 
 
ADDITIONAL ASSIGNMENTS 271 
 
 railway car, by the accelerated motion. The very sim- 
 ilarity of ideas and equality of conditions which 
 makes them hard to convince at first makes a convic- 
 tion once implanted run its course the more trium- 
 phantly. They seem all to take flame at once, because 
 what has told upon one, has told in the same way upon 
 all the rest, and the obstructing and separating bar- 
 riers which exist in Europe scarcely exist here. No- 
 where is the saying so applicable that nothing suc- 
 ceeds like success. The native American or so-called 
 Know-nothing party had in two years from its founda- 
 tion become a tremendous force, running, and seeming 
 for a time likely to carry, its own presidential candi- 
 date. In three years more it was dead without hope 
 of revival. 'Now and then as for instance in the elec- 
 tions of 1874-75, and again in those of 1890, there 
 comes a rush of feeling so sudden and tremendous, that 
 the name of Tidal Wave has been invented to describe 
 it. 
 
 After this it may seem a paradox to add that the 
 Americans are a conservative people. Yet any one 
 who observes the power of habit among them, the tenac- 
 ity with which old institutions and usages, legal and 
 theological formulas, have been clung to, will admit the 
 fact. Moreover, prosperity helps to make them con- 
 servative. They are satisfied with the world they live 
 in, for they have found it a good world, in which they 
 have grovsm rich and can sit under their own vine and 
 fig tree, none making them afraid. They are proud of 
 their history and of their Constitution, which has come 
 out of the furnace of civil war with scarcely the smell 
 
272 THE METHOD AND PRACTICE OF EXPOSITION 
 
 of fire upon it. It is little to say that they do not seek 
 change for the sake of change, because the nations that 
 do this exist only in the fancy of alarmist philosophers. 
 There are nations, however, whose impatience of exist- 
 ing evils, or whose proneness to be allured by visions 
 of a brighter future, makes them under-estimate the 
 risk of change, nations that will pull up the plant to see 
 whether it has begun to strike root. This is not the 
 way of the Americans. They are no doubt ready to 
 listen to suggestions from any quarter. They do not 
 consider that an institution is justified by its existence, 
 but admit everything to be matter for criticism. Their 
 keenly competitive spirit and pride in their own in- 
 genuity have made them quicker than any other people 
 to adopt and adapt inventions: telephones were in use 
 in every little tovra. over the West, while in the city of 
 London men were just beginning to wonder whether 
 they could be made to pay. The Americans have 
 doubtless of late years become, especially in the West, 
 an experimental people, so far as politics and social 
 legislation are concerned. Yet there is also a sense in 
 which they are at bottom a conservative people, in vir- 
 tue both of the deep instincts of their race and of that 
 practical shrewdness which recognises the value of 
 permanence and solidity in institutions. They are 
 conservative in their fundamental beliefs, in the struc- 
 ture of their governments, in their social and domestic 
 usages. They are like a tree whose pendulous shoots 
 quiver and rustle with the lightest breeze, while its 
 roots enfold the rock with a grasp which storms cannot 
 loosen. 
 
INDEX 
 
 Adaptation, 24, 62, 68 
 
 Affirmations, 22-23 
 
 American Commonwealth, The, 
 256 
 
 " American Magazine," The, 175 
 
 Analysis, 8, 10, 31, 32, 73-112 
 
 Analysis and Division, 79-84 
 
 Analysis and Order, 79-84 
 
 Analysis, Exercises in, 109-112 
 Relation to Definition, 75-79 
 Selections for, 211-272 
 
 Analytical Definition, 35, 52 
 
 Ajjhorisms, 28-30 
 
 Aristotle, 74, 118, 193 
 
 Arnold, Matthew, 38, 127, 190 
 
 Art, 156, 182 
 
 Art of Literature, The, 132 
 
 Assignments, 53-56, 71-72, 
 109-112, 145-154, 171-181, 
 205-211 
 
 Atlantic Monthly, The, 88 
 
 Austen, Jane, 18, 136 
 
 Austin, Alfred, 45 
 
 Autobiography (Of De Quin- 
 cey), 132 
 
 AioTcward Age, The, 111 
 
 Bacon, Sir Francis, 116 
 Balzac, Honors, 140 
 Barrie, James M., 110 
 Bible, The, 55, 144 
 Birrell, Augustine, 18 
 Bjornson, Bjornstjerne, 110 
 Biake, William, 164, 166 
 Bosanquet, Bernard, 6, 19, 60 
 Bradley, A. C, 104, 105 
 Bradley, F. H., 19 
 Brevity, 128-137 
 Brieux, Eugene, 109 
 Bronte, Charlotte, 127, 166, 
 167, 168 
 
 273 
 
 Brooke, Stopford, 103 
 Browning, Robert, 38, 45, 160, 
 
 172 
 Bruygre, Jean de la, 118 
 Bryce, James, 256 
 Buffon, Comte de, 117, 118, 125 
 Bunner, Henry Cuyler, 110 
 Burke, Edmund, 106 
 Butler, Samuel, 64 
 
 Ccesar; A Sketch, 65 
 
 Caird, Edward, 46 
 
 Carpenter, William Boyd, 115 
 
 Causality, 73 
 
 " Century Dictionary," The, 55 
 
 Cheshire Cat, 119 
 
 Chesterton, Gilbert Keith, 47 
 
 Cicero, 118 
 
 Clearness, 6, 7 
 
 Cleveland, Grover, 15 
 
 Climax, 75 
 
 Code of Signals, Language as 
 
 a, 58 
 Coleridge, Samuel Taylor, 133 
 Composition, Aristotle's Laws 
 
 of, 74 
 Complete Definition, 37, 41 
 Composition and Rhetoric, 
 
 ( Kavana and Beatty's ) , 
 
 111 
 Comus, 98 
 
 Concentration, 62-65 
 Conclusion, 93 
 Concreteness, 7, 113-117 
 Constitution of The United 
 
 States, The, 124 
 Constructional Definition, 35, 
 
 36, 52 
 Convincingness, 6 
 Contiguity, Law of, 158 
 Copernicans, 24 
 
274 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Critic, Characteristics of the, 
 
 183-184 
 Critioal Philosophy of Kant, 
 
 The, 47 
 Criticism, 182-204 
 Kinds of, 185-192 
 General questions of, 183, 
 
 192-195 
 Selections of, for Analysis, 
 
 192-204 
 Croce, Benedetto, 29 
 Crock of Gold, 136, 166 
 Crotchet Castle, 23 
 Crown of Wild Olive, The, 50 
 Culture, 36 
 Curtain- Raisers, 110 
 Curtis, George William, 200 
 
 Dante, 74 
 
 Darwin, Charles R., 17, 219 
 
 Deduction, 47, 66-67 
 
 Definition, of Exposition, 5, 6 
 as a process of Exposition, 
 
 8, 10, 31-56 
 Purpose of, 32-36 
 Kinds of, 32-48, 52, 53 
 for classification, 53-56 
 Relation to Analysis, 75-79 
 
 Definitions, Summary of, 52- 
 53 
 
 Deirdre of the Sorrows, 136 
 
 De Quincey, Life of, 90 
 
 De Quincey, Thomas, 132, 202 
 
 Description, 8, 9, 11, 73 
 
 Development, 93 
 
 Diction, 116, 124-140 
 
 Dictionaries, 77 
 
 Differentia, 47 
 
 Differentiation of Experience, 
 51-71 
 
 Direct Method in Exposition, 
 8, 9, 10, 48-52 
 
 Discoveries, 113 
 
 Discovery, 24 
 
 Disraeli, Benjamin, 186 
 
 Divine Fire, The, 98 
 
 Division, 79-84, 85-101 
 
 Dramatic Values, 161 
 
 Dryden, John, 30 
 
 Dunsany, Lord, 110 
 
 Earle, John, 29' 
 
 Editorials, 171 
 
 Edmund Burke, 159 
 
 Elements of Economics (Burch 
 
 and Nearing's), 111 
 Eliot, George, 98 
 Ely, Richard T., 109 
 Emerson, Ralph Waldo, 201 
 Emma, 136 
 English Literature (Brooke's), 
 
 103 
 "English Men of Letters" 
 
 Series, 90 
 Essays from the Easy Chair, 
 
 200 
 Essays, Speculative and Sug- 
 gestive, 235 
 Essays, Subjects for, 205-211 
 Essentials of Logic, 19 
 Estelle Ann Lewis, 199 
 Experience, 10, 20 
 
 Panoramas of, 19-28 
 
 Relation of Composition to, 
 73-75 
 
 Simplifying of, 73-75 
 
 Interpretation of, 58 
 
 Enlargement of, 59 
 
 Concentration upon, 62-63 
 Experience and Imagination, 66 
 Exposition as an Art, 6 
 
 as Ethics, 6 
 
 as picture, 73 
 
 as Science, 6 
 
 Function of, 26 
 
 Face, A, 158 
 
 Faith and Reasoning, 81 
 
 Farnol, Jeffery, 111 
 
 Federalist, The, 124 
 
 Fiske, John, 72 
 
 Five Plays, 110 
 
 Flandrau, Charles Macomb, 120 
 
 Formation of Vegetable Mould, 
 
 219 
 Form, Definition of, 141 
 
 Unity of, 78 
 
 Vitality of, 98 
 Francke, Kuno, 88, 89 
 Freytag, Gustave, 109 
 Froude, James Anthony, 65, 148 
 
INDEX 
 
 275 
 
 Function, Unity of, 78 
 Function of Exposition, 1-30 
 
 Galsworthy, John, 14, 109 
 Galton, Francis, 115 
 Generalisation, 162 
 Genus, 34, 37 
 German prose style, 132 
 Gibbon, Edward, 17, 150 
 Gladstone, William Ewart, 13 
 Goal in Exposition, The, 5, 6 
 Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von, 
 
 28, 29 
 Gorgias, 70 
 Green, John Richard, 17 
 
 Half -Hours, 110 
 
 Hamilton, Alexander, 124 
 
 Hardy, Thomas, 15, 71, 110 
 
 Harrison, Frederic, 127 
 
 Hawthorne, Nathaniel, 91, 111 
 
 Hazlitt, William, 132, 133 
 
 Hearn, Lafcadio, 168 
 
 Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Fried- 
 rich, 92 
 
 Herbert, Sir T., 42 
 
 Hewlett, Maurice, 72, 111 
 
 Heywood, Thomas, 99 
 
 History, 27, 188 
 
 History of Architecture, 43 
 
 Homer, 127 
 
 Honourable Mr. Tawnisk, The, 
 111 
 
 Howard, Bronson, 110 
 
 Huxley, Thomas Henry, 17, 33, 
 34, 35, 72, 102, 114, 119, 
 125, 146 
 
 Ibsen, Henrik, 14, 183 
 
 Ideas, Nature of, 58, 77, 78, 79 
 
 Ideas, Material of Exposition, 
 
 18 
 II Penseroso, 95, 109 
 Imagination, The, 24, 62, 65-68 
 
 156 
 Pictorial power of, 65, 66 
 Structure-making power of, 
 
 65, 66, 67 
 Imperfect Definition, 37, 42, 53 
 Incomplete Definition, 37, 42 
 
 Indirect Method in Exposition, 
 8, 9, 11-18, 31, 48-52 
 
 Induction, 66-67 
 
 Inn of Tranquillity, The, 14 
 
 Institutes (Of Quintilian), 101 
 
 Interest, 7 
 
 Interpretation, Function of, 
 161 
 
 Introduction, 93 
 
 Ion, 62 
 
 Irish Renaissance, 136 
 
 James, Henry, 111 
 James, William, 57, 72 
 Johnson, Samuel, 53 
 Jones, Henry Arthur, 70 
 Jonson, Ben, 54, 100, 113 
 Judgment, 22 
 
 Kant, Immanuel, 46, 72 
 Keats, John, 
 Kipling, Eudyard, 72 
 Eotto, 168 
 Krehbiel, H. E., 198 
 
 L'Allegro, 95-97, 109 
 
 Lamb, Charles, 164, 165, 166 
 
 Landor, Walter Savage, 136 
 
 Lang, Andrew, 13, 127 
 
 Language, as symbol, 57 
 as code of signals, 58 
 
 Lanier, Sidney, 25 
 
 Latin, 140 
 
 Laws of Composition, Aris- 
 totle's, 74 
 
 Law of Contiguity, 158 
 
 Le Morte D'Arthiir, 225 
 
 Length of a composition, 74 
 
 Les Caractires, 118 
 
 Life of Burns, 128 
 
 Ligeia, 109 
 
 Literature, 27 
 and Life, 195 
 
 Little Masterpieces of Science, 
 115 
 
 Lookhart, J. G., 128, 129 
 
 Logical Definition, 34, 52 
 
 Longinus, 29 
 
 Low, A. Maurice, 56 
 
276 
 
 IKDEX 
 
 Lowell, James Russell, 54, 55, 
 
 86, 87, 89, 143, 155 
 Lucifer, 45 
 Luria, 72 
 Lyell, Sir Charles, 17 
 
 Macaulay, Thomas Babington, 
 
 106 
 Madonna of the Peach Tree, 
 
 111 
 Maeterlinck, Maurice, 77, 164 
 Mannerism, 142, 143 
 MarUe Faun, The, 111 
 Mark Twain, 201 
 Marlowe, Christopher, 106 
 Mason, Walt, 201 
 Masson, David, 90 
 Material of Exposition, 18 
 Mather, Cotton, 139 
 Matter, subject-, 142-144 
 Maupassant, Guy de, 72, 110 
 Mazzini, Giuseppe, 89 
 Merchant of Venice, The, 14 
 Meredith, George, 13 
 " Method in Exposition, 8, 17, 
 
 48-52 
 Direct, 31 
 Indirect, 8, 9, 11-18, 31, 48- 
 
 52 
 Mastery of, 16 
 of Notation, 90-91 
 Methods of Analysis, 73-112 
 Militarism, division of, 84 
 Mill, John Stuart, 140 
 Milton, John, 33, 95, 99, 109 
 Mind and the Subject, The, 57- 
 
 72 
 Miscellanies, 211 
 "Mr. Trillo," 23 
 Modern Painters, 129, 132 
 Modern Painting, 215 
 Monopolies and Trusts, 109 
 Montague, C. E., 161 
 Moore, George, 215 
 Morley, John, 159 
 Mother Goose, 138 
 Motley, John Lothrop, 17 
 Muses, The, 141 
 Muziano, Girolamo, 66 
 
 Narrative. 9, 11-15 
 
 Nature, 24, 28 
 
 News, 171 
 
 Newton, Sir Isaac, 72 
 
 Notation, Method of, 90-91 
 
 Observation, 68 
 Odyssey, 127 
 Oratory, 80-83 
 
 Order, 2, 79-84, 116, 117-119 
 Organisation, 141. 142 
 of experience, 57-71 
 " 0. Henry," 2, 12, 13, 204 
 Othello, 72, 109 
 Outlining, 90-97 
 Oxford Dictionary, 43, 47 
 
 Paine, Albert Bigelow, 66 
 Panoramas of Experience, 18- 
 
 28 
 Paolo and Francesca, 166 
 Parkman. Francis, 17 
 Pater, Walter, 56, 88, 95, 127, 
 
 177 
 Peacock, Thomas Love, 23 
 Perfect definition, 37, 41, 53 
 Phaedrtis, 60 
 Phillips, Stephen, 166 
 Phillpotts, Eden, 110 
 Philosophy of Composition, 
 
 The, i09 
 Philosophy of Fine Art, 92 
 Philosophii of Style, 16 
 Plan. 90-97 
 Plato. 60. 6-2. 70 
 Plausibilitv, 163 
 Poe, Edgar Allan, 72, 100, 109, 
 
 110, 166, 199 
 Poem Outlines, 25 
 Poetry, 99, 70, 77. 78 
 Political Geography in the 
 
 United States. 85 
 Porter, William Sydney, 2, 12, 
 
 13, 204 
 Practice, 4 
 Praeferita, 51 
 Preliminaries, to Writing, 1-5, 
 
 64, 65 
 Probability, 163 
 Problem of Life, A, 110 
 
INDES 
 
 277 
 
 Proem, 101 
 Psychology, 190, 192 
 
 Quintilian, 101 
 
 Ealelgh, Professor Walter, 56 
 Raleigh, Sir Walter, 47 
 Readers, Kinds of, 10, 11 
 Reading, 3 
 Realism, 71 
 Reason and Faith, 81 
 Red Robe, The, 109 
 Renaissance, The, 177 
 Reply to Hayne, 94 
 Reporting, 100, 157, 161 
 Reporting and Interpreting, 
 
 155-181 
 Selections for the study of, 
 
 171-181 
 Revision, 140 
 Richardson, W. D., 103 
 Riders to the Sea, 136 
 Robey, George, 161 
 Romola, 98 
 Ruskin, John, 15, 40, 43, 48, 
 
 51, 54, 89, 124-130, 147 
 
 Saxon diction, 140 
 Schopenhauer, Arthur, 132 
 Science, 27, 32, 75, 156, 182, 
 
 183, 188 
 Science Magazine, 103 
 Selections for analysis, 211-272 
 
 (also see ends of chapters 
 
 II, V, VI, VII) 
 Sentence length, 128-136, 138, 
 
 139 
 Sentimental Journey through 
 
 France and Italy, A, 142, 
 
 143, 155 
 Shadow of the Glen, The, 136 
 Shakespeare, 14, 59, 60, 72, 106, 
 
 109 
 Shakespearean Tragedy, 104 
 Shaw, George Bernard, 35, 42 
 Shelley, Percy Bysshe, 141 
 Shirley, James, 38 
 Signals, Language as a code of, 
 
 58 
 
 Simplicity, of diction, 137 
 Sinclair, May, 98 
 Singular definition, 37, 53 
 Sisterly Scheme, A, 110 
 Sparks, Jared, 72 
 Speech-craft, 24 
 Spencer, Herbert, 16, 55, 72 
 Spinoza, Benedict, 1 
 Spontaneity, 3, 81 
 Stephens, James, 136, 166 
 Sterne, Laurence, 142-144, 155 
 Stevenson, Robert Louis, 184 
 Strachey, Sir Edward, 225 
 Strife, 14, 109 
 Structure, 90-97, 101 
 Struggle for Life, The, 110 
 Study of a Novel, The, 110 
 Study of Poetry, The, 190 
 Style, Essay on (Pater's), 88, 
 
 95 
 Style, Essay on (Schopen- 
 hauer's), 132 
 
 in Exposition, 113-154 
 
 Importance of, 140-142 
 
 and Matter, 142-144 
 
 Selections for study of, 145- 
 154 
 Subject, The Mind and the, 57- 
 
 72 
 Subject-matter, 142-144 
 Subjects for essays, 205-211 
 (Also see ends of chapters 
 III and IV) 
 Substance, Unity of, 78 
 Success in Writing, 7-10 
 Summary, The, 101-109 
 Sun, The New York, 175, 177 
 Sutro, Alfred, 62, 63 
 Symbol, Language as, 8, 57, 58 
 Symonds, John Addington, 235 
 Sympathy, 62, 68 
 Synge, John Millington, 136 
 Synthetic definition, 34, 52 
 
 Technical writing, 27 
 Technique, Defipition of, 141 
 Technique of the Drama, 109 
 Tennyson, Ruskin, Mill, and 
 
 Other Estimates, 127 
 Tess of the D'Urbervilles, 15 
 
2T8 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Teat of Truth, 24 
 
 Thackeray, William Makepeace, 
 
 15 
 Thimble, Thimble, 12 
 Thoreau, Henrv David, 154, 211 
 Thorndike, A. H., 91 
 Times, New York, 204 
 Tolstoi, Leo, 110 
 Tone, 116, 119-124 
 Triads of Poetry, 30 
 Triads of Wisdom. 30 
 Tribune, New York, 198 
 Tri-dimensional test of litera- 
 ture, 26 
 Truth, 18, 44 
 
 Definition of, 5 
 Twelfth \iqht, 160 
 Tyndall, John, 149 
 
 Unity, in Composition, 68 
 Principles of, 78 
 
 Universal definition, 37, 38, 53 
 Unto This Last, 48 
 
 Vanity Fair, 15 
 ViUette, 166 
 Virgil, 17, 75 
 Viva Mexico, 120 
 
 Wallace, Alfred Russell,. 107 
 Washington, George, 72 
 Way of All Flesh, The, 64 
 Webster, Daniel, 94 
 Wells, H. G., 173 
 Whitcomb, S., 110 
 White, William Allen, 15 
 Wild Duel; The, 14 
 Witchcraft, 88 
 
 Wonderful Century, The, 108 
 Wordsworth, William, 28 
 Work, Essay on, 89 
 
 PRINTED IN THE tTNITBD STATES OF AMERICA 
 
'HE following pages contain advertisements of a 
 few of the Macmillan books on kindred subjects. 
 
English Composition in Theory 
 and Practice 
 
 By Henry Seidel Canby, Ph.D. ; Frederick Erastus Pierce, 
 
 Ph.D.; Henry Noble MacCracken, Ph.D.; 
 
 Alfred Arundel May, M.A. ; Thomas 
 
 GoDDARD Wright, M.A. 
 
 oj the Department of English Composition in the Sheffield Scientific 
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 Cloth, i2mo, 4^5 pp.f $1.2^ 
 
 Extracts from the Preface to the New and Revised Edition 
 
 The purpose of the authors of this volume has been to combine in one book 
 a set of directions for good writing, based upon sound principles and written, 
 primarily, for the student, with ix varied and extensive collection of examples 
 drawn from afl the forms of discourse, and inclusive of both brief excerpts and 
 complete essays, arguments, and stories. We have added supplementary 
 material in the several appendices, and a selected list of books, which may be 
 used with this manual, or consulted for parallel discussions of the topics here 
 taken up. Exposition, Argument, Description, and Narrative present differing 
 problems in the teaching of English Composition, and vary in their degree of 
 usefulness with the individual, the course, and the institution. We have 
 endeavored to give to each the proportionate space and the kind of treatment 
 which the average student requires. The whole composition, the paragraph, 
 the sentence, and the word have been discussed in their relation to Exposition, 
 because, for the average student, it is the power to explain clearly which is of 
 primary importance. Thus Exposition has been given a predominant space. 
 The chapter on the Sentence goes into minute detail because the average 
 student, at present, does not understand the structure of the sentence ; the 
 chapter on Narrative deals with constructive problems mainly, because it is in 
 learning to construct a story that he can best make Narrative increase his 
 powers of expression ; the chapter on Description includes literary and esthetic 
 problems, because one variety of Description can only thus be taught. An 
 order of succession for these various topics has been chosen after experiment 
 with many classes. Nevertheless, except that Exposition must come first, the 
 teacher will find that the plan of this book permits any arrangement of subjects 
 which his own experience may have led him to desire. 
 
 THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 
 
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Handbook of Exposition 
 
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 College. 
 
 New York, 1914. Reprinted, 1915. 
 
 222 pp., i2mo., $.go. 
 
 After a brief introductory chapter dealing with exposition in 
 general, there are discussed the several types of exposition, such 
 as definition, analysis, expository description, the familiar essay, 
 criticism, etc., in such a manner that the student may acquire by 
 induction a broad comprehension of the subject as a whole. Each 
 chapter consists of a brief body of doctrine on the special ex- 
 pository form there treated, followed by a specimen of illustrative 
 and of intrinsic value. Designed for special courses in Exposition, 
 whether given in the freshman year or as advanced work. 
 
 Specimens of Exposition and 
 Argument 
 
 Compiled by Milton Percival, M.A., and R. A. Jelliffe, A.M., 
 
 Associate Professor of English in Oberlin College. 
 
 New York, 1908. Fifth reprint, 1914. 
 
 362 pp., 121110, $.90. 
 
 The specimens here presented have been chosen chiefly from 
 contemporary authors, men of affairs, statesmen, and educators, 
 with the result that they prove of much greater interest to the 
 student than do those in the ordinary collections made from stand- 
 ard authors. Furthermore, the style of contemporaries of this type 
 may be more readily imitated, and hence specimens from writings 
 of such authors are more adapted to model study. The order of 
 selections in the first half, illustrating exposition, proceeds from 
 those which have some narrative and descriptive features to those 
 which describe a process — Exposition by Definition and Exposition 
 by Analysis. The order of selections under Argument proceeds 
 logically from the simple to the complex. The selections in this 
 latter half are arranged under the following headings : Per- 
 suasion, A Brief, Introductions, Arguments, Refutation, Contro- 
 versy. 
 
 THE MACMILLAN COMPANY, 
 
 Publishers 64-66 Fifth Avenue New York 
 
College Readings in English Prose 
 
 By Franklin W. Scott, Assistant Professor of English, and 
 Jacob Zeitlin, Associate in English, in the University of Illinois. 
 
 New York, 1914. Fifth reprint, 1916. 
 
 635 PP; iimo, $1.40. 
 
 One of the most useful books of specimens for freshmen students 
 ever published and probably the most complete in range of sub- 
 ject matter, typical forms, and levels of style. That which the 
 editors have chiefly kept in mind is the needs of different classes 
 of students. In addition to those things which form a common 
 ground of interest to all students there are articles of special in- 
 terest to the engineering and agricultural student, though in no 
 case are these so technical as to be uninteresting to the general 
 student. The material under Exposition and Argumentation has 
 been chosen with a view to its timeliness, a good many of the selec- 
 tions being drawn from the literature of the last few years. There 
 is also, however, an ample representation of writers like Macaulay, 
 John Fiske, Huxley, Robert Louis Stevenson, whose usefulness as 
 class models has been satisfactorily tested. 
 
 An appendix of student themes offers models of a standard of 
 writing which the undergraduate might reasonably be expected 
 to attain, thus serving as an incentive and encouragement for the 
 student who believes the achievements of the masters to be im- 
 possible of his own attainment. A double scheme of classification 
 and brief notes for each specimen aid the instructor in using the 
 book in the classroom. 
 
 THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 
 
 Publishers 64^66 Fifth Avenue New York 
 
The Theory and Practice of 
 Argumentation and Debate 
 
 By V. A. Ketcham, Assistant Professor of English in the Ohio 
 State University. 
 
 New York, 1914. Second reprint, 1916. 
 
 366 pp., i2mo, $1.25. 
 
 This book is divided into two parts, the first dealing with the 
 practice and the second with the theory of argumentation and de- 
 bate. The author believes that better results are obtained by set- 
 ting the student immediately at the actual work of building up an 
 argument, for after he has had experience in constructing and 
 presenting arguments he is better fitted to make practical appUca- 
 tion of the theoretical principles presented in Part II. The book 
 is so arranged, however, that the old order of presentation may be 
 followed, if preferred. 
 
 The confusion resulting from an abundance of rules is avoided 
 by limiting the rules here presented to those which are strictly 
 essential and practical and by stating these clearly and simply. 
 Nevertheless, adequate provision is made for all contingencies. 
 Practical exercises are included and instructions are given for the 
 effective delivery of argument. The author shows the student 
 where to find and how to choose and express a proposition for 
 argument as well as how to analyze that proposition for the pur- 
 pose of discovering what must be done in order to establish its 
 truth or falsity. The sources of evidence and tlie method of col- 
 lecting evidence are pointed out. Directions for constructing a 
 brief from this evidence are given together with the method of 
 developing the finished argument. 
 
 The Lincoln-Douglas debates are included in the appendix. 
 
 THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 
 
 Publishers 64-66 Fifth Avenue New York