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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The essayist then turns from the man to his work, pointing out the merits of his novels, comedies, and letters. About twenty-three hundred words are given to this,—rather more than an eighth of the paper. Some eighteen hundred follow on his public services. His struggles to establish a regular army are emphasized, both because here he appears to the best advantage, and because this line of thought is artfully made to lead up to and to suggest the view of “The Prince” which is put forward immediately after: the view that the book was really designed to forward the substitution of a regular army for the mercenary troops which had demoralized all Italy. The proportion is here admirably judged. Enough space is given to the matter to make the point seem one of dignity and weight, yet not so much as to let it appear as if the author were insisting upon it too much. The economy of effect is observed throughout; enough is always done, but never too much.

We have now, roughly speaking, thirteen thousand out of the not much over sixteen thousand words in the essay; and the author has practically done his work. He has pretty well developed his theory, and the remainder of the monograph is given to making it more clear and to enforcing it. To the personal merit of Machiavelli is devoted about a quarter of the entire essay; to the immorality of the age and its influence upon him, nearly one half; to the admirable way in which he played his part in public life, nearly an eighth. To the hatred and abhorrence of Machiavelli which the essayist desires to overcome, he gives directly but three or four hundred words in the whole sixteen thousand. Proportion so careful and so effective as this can only be the result of studied and accurate design.

A word of caution may not be amiss. Proportion is to be determined not by the interest of the writer or by his ease in writing upon particular points, but by the relation of the parts to the whole. The reason for saying this is that almost any author is liable to be led away by the facility with which it is possible for him to enlarge upon certain points. An opportunity presents itself for the introduction of a charming episode; there is a temptation to develop a thought, a sentiment, a seductively favorite theory; and the result of yielding to this is apt to be a violation of unity. What the old-fashioned writers—as if confession were an excuse—were accustomed to confess by saying, “But this is a digression,” hopelessly injured the effect of a composition as a whole. Only the clever and cunning artificer of style can introduce digressions without marring the fair proportions of the complete work.

Proportion, here as elsewhere, is emotional as well as mechanical. One must bear in mind the fact that a few emphatic words are of more account than many mild and commonplace ones. Consider not only the space given to particular portions of a work, but the stress laid upon them.

And here it is well to consider a feature of human frailty. Such is man’s weakness that blame always counts for more than praise. If I were to say to you that looked at from a purely literary standpoint “The Heavenly Twins” is morbid and unhealthy rubbish; that “Trilby” is a pleasant transient excitement; but that “The Return of the Native” seems to me the most notable English novel since Thackeray—you would have no difficulty in remembering that I condemned “The Heavenly Twins;” you would have a fairly clear idea that I had been less enthusiastic than is the general public about “Trilby;” and you would perhaps recall vaguely that there was something else—really it is astonishing how quickly a name slips from the memory!—which I praised.[4] The point is one to be remembered when one is dealing with delicate shades of emphasis.

As I have more than once used Carlyle in warning, it is no more than fair to mention him here as one of the masters of emotional emphasis. He had an instinct for the proportion of stress, and used it with the greatest success. It is an excellent lesson in the study of this quality to analyze the cumulative and unified effect of the stronger chapters of the “French Revolution.”

I have spoken of progression as being one of the important matters to be considered in connection with Exposition. Perhaps a better name for what I mean would be continuity. It is necessary to arrange ideas in a logical order which is not only unbroken, but which is perfectly obvious. It is not enough that the author is aware how one thought logically follows another; he must make it evident to all who read. He must remember that so long as the connection of ideas is clear and inevitable the reader is led on unconsciously; while every pause which the reader is forced to make to see how one statement follows from another leaves him less fully in the author’s control. So great a thinker and so great a writer as Emerson materially lessened the circle of his readers by a lack of this very quality. The ordinary student often finds it hard to supply the thoughts which make the sequence of ideas complete. Emerson stalks like a giant from mountain peak of thought to mountain peak, while the reader is often sorely puzzled to know how to cross the deep gullies between. Emerson was a genius, and prophesied so gloriously on his mountain-tops, that we struggle forward after him despite all difficulties. Those who are not geniuses cannot hope that readers will follow their lead unless the road is shown and the chasms bridged.

One may go farther than this in insisting upon the need of continuousness in literature. The present age is impatient of being called upon to take trouble in apprehension, so that it is necessary to use every art—whether of connectives, of arrangement of thought, of sequence of ideas or incidents—to make more inevitably evident the connection of parts. Indeed, this must be not only plain but easy and attractive. To blaze out a path through the woods avails in pioneer life and in the beginnings of literature; but when civilization has advanced, the way must be graded until it is comfortable to the foot accustomed to smooth pavements and velvet carpets. Sequence in expository writing should usually be so complete that the reader goes forward so glidingly that the mere progress itself shall be a pleasure.

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