Practical English Composition Part 20

X. Suggested Reading

Rudyard Kipling's _The s.h.i.+p that Found Herself_.

XI. Memorize

CHARITY

Then gently scan your brother man, Still gentler sister woman; Though they may gang a kennin' wrang, To step aside is human.

One point must still be greatly dark, The moving why they do it, And just as lamely can ye mark How far perhaps they rue it.

Who made the heart 'tis he alone Decidedly can try us; He knows each chord--its various tone, Each spring--its various bias.

Then at the balance let's be mute; We never can adjust it; What's done we partly may compute, But know not what's resisted.

ROBERT BURNS.

CHAPTER XV

THE EXPOSITION OF IDEAS

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

LORD BYRON.

I. Introduction

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

II. Model I

PUFFERS

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

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

said the Brahmin, "either thou or I must be blind."

Just then one of the accomplices came up. "Praised be the G.o.ds,"

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

said the newcomer, "thou art drunk or mad!"

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

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

III. Topics for Discussion

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

2. Note the paragraph structure: (1) Introduction; (2) "Four W's,"

or Situation 1; (3) Climax, or Situation 2; (4) Denouement, Result, or Situation 3; (5) Moral, or Point.

3. Define and discuss the etymology of "antiquity," "apologue,"

"apology," "edition," "fable," "impostor," "accomplice,"

"confederate," "knave," "ghee," "caution," "puffers."

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

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

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

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

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

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

IV. Model II

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

[9] Reprinted by permission of _The Dial_.

V. Exercises

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

2. What is the moral of this fable?

3. Discuss the meaning and etymology of "Micromegas,"

"philosophers," "fantasy," "translation," "terrestrial,"

"intellectual," "Czar," "annihilate," "ridiculous," "rejoinder,"

"sedentary."

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

5. One loose and one periodic sentence.

6. Two ant.i.theses.

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