HOW TO WRITE EXPOSITION
The Problem
All writing--except mere exercise and what the author intends for
himself alone--is a problem in strategy. The successful author will
always regard his writing as a problem of manipulation of material
wisely chosen to accomplish an objective against the enemy. The enemy is
the reader. He is armed with two terrible weapons, lack of interest and
lack of comprehension. Sometimes one weapon is stronger than the other,
but a wise author always has an eye for both. The strategic problem is,
then, so to choose material, and so to order and express it, that the
reader will be forced to become interested, to comprehend, to arrive,
in other words, at the point in his feeling and thinking to which the
author wishes to lead him. The author's objective is always an effect
in the reader's mind. In so far as the author creates this effect he is
successful. And the time to consider the effect, to make sure of its
accomplishment, is before the pen touches the paper.
Sometimes the author makes a mistake in his planning, as did the
composer Handel when he wrote the oratorio of "The Messiah." He placed
the "Hallelujah Chorus" at the end of the oratorio. But when, toward the
end of the second section, he saw from his place on the stage that the
audience was not so enthusiastic as he had expected it to be at that
point, he changed his plan, with practical shrewdness rushed to the
front and shifted the famous chorus from the end of the third section to
the end of the second, and had the satisfaction of seeing the audience
so moved that first the King rose, and then, of course, the audience
with him. The chorus has stood at the end of the second part to this
day; that is the place for it--it brings about the effect that Handel
desired much better there than if it were saved for the end of the
oratorio. The oratorio is, in other words, a greater work than it would
have been had not the author kept a keen eye for the audience, for the
effect, and a willingness to change his plans whenever the gaining of
the effect required a change. Just so the writer should constantly scan
the horizon of the reader's mind for signs of interest and for shafts of
intelligence.
The effect that the writer desires in the reader's mind may be of
different natures. In Baedeker's Guide-Book the aim is largely to
satisfy the understanding, to meet the reader's desire for compact
information. In some of Poe's tales the effect is of horror. Patrick
Henry aimed primarily to rouse to vigorous action. Shakespeare wished to
shed light upon the great truths of existence, to satisfy the reader's
groping curiosity, and also to thrill the reader with pity and terror or
with high good humor or the unrestrained laughter of roaring delight.
In so far as the author accomplishes his purpose, in just so far he is
successful. When friends complimented Cicero, telling him that he was
the greatest orator, he replied somewhat as follows: "Not so, for when I
give an oration in the Forum people say, 'How well he speaks!' but when
Demosthenes addressed the people they rose and shouted, 'Come, let us
up and fight the Macedonians!'" If Cicero was correct in his estimate,
Demosthenes was the greater orator--of that there can be no doubt--for
he gained his effect. President Wilson's great war messages had as one
of their objects, certainly, the rousing in American hearts of a high
thrill to the lofty object for which they fought, the overcoming of
might with right. The remarkable success of the messages attests the
author's power.
Now the author will accomplish this effect in the reader's mind only
if his writing "takes hold," and it will "take hold" only if it is
weighty, that is, only if it bears toward the desired end in every part
and in every implication. This is as true in writings that aim at light,
frivolous effects as in those that stir the deeper emotions, in writing
that aims at the understanding almost alone as in that which strives not
only to make clear but to infuse with deathless appeal to the heart.
A treatise on the fourth dimension must bear, in every stroke, toward
the complete satisfaction of the reader's intellectual curiosity; a
comedy must lay down each word in the intention of liberating the
silver laughter of humor; a tragedy must leave us in every implication
serious, even in its introduction of comical material to heighten the
tragic nature of the whole. To make every word bear in the one general
direction--that is the writer's task. In no other way can he move the
reader's mind and heart as he wishes to.
An author finds, however, that to gain the desired effect requires
skillful manipulation on his part. He confronts a mass of refractory
material, often full of contradictions, in which any potential effect
seems almost as difficult to discover as the proverbial needle in the
well-known haystack. For example, when a historian sits down, one
hundred years hence, to the task of explaining the Great War, he will
be confronted with an amazing welter of endless facts, tendencies,
personal, national, and racial ambitions, enmities, competitions in
trade, language, customs, indiscretions of diplomats, inscrutable
moves of controlling powers, checks and counter checks, assertion
and denial, accusation and assurance of innocence, bribery and plots
and spy systems, amateur comment in newspaper and magazine, defenses
by people who have retained their poise and other defenses by those
whose faculties have been unseated by the awful strain of war--and
everywhere he will find the endless array of events and detailed facts
of organization of civil and military life to mold somehow into a
consistent, intelligible whole. Well may he say that the task is too
great for mortal man. Yet somehow the history is to be written, somehow
the effect that he wishes is to be gained. Obviously the great prime
task is to unify, to bring order out of chaos, to create from formless
material a real edifice of thought. Exactly the same task awaits the
writer of any kind of literature; in a short theme no less, the first
great duty is to find some principle whereby the author can exclude the
useless and include what is of value.
The first question to ask is--and it is also the last and the
intervening question--"What am I trying to accomplish?" At first
thought this question may seem the most obvious, the most elementary,
and the least helpful query possible. But upon its being successfully
met depends the whole success of the writing, whether of choosing or
ordering or proportioning the material, or of expressing the selected
ideas. For, since the chief task before the writer is to make his
thoughts and his expression drive in one direction, so that the whole
composition is simplified in the reader's mind, is unified and given an
organic existence, even the choice of words, upon which depends so much
of the tone of the composition, is largely settled by the answer to this
question of what the author hopes to accomplish.
In Exposition, the explaining the relations among things and ideas, we
are commonly told that we must "cover the ground," must "stick to the
subject," must "include whatever is valuable and reject the rest." But
such directions are insufficient. Until I have some touchstone, some
applicable standard, I cannot tell whether material is valuable or not.
It is as if one were brought into the presence of multifarious building
material,--wood both hard and soft, cement and the other ingredients
of concrete, bricks, stucco, and steel beams, and terra cotta
tiles,--and then were requested to build a house, using whatever of the
material might be of value, and removing the rest. The builder would
be nonplussed. He cannot build, now with wood, now with stone, and
again with tile; if he did, the saying would be all too true, "There's
no place like home!" He can do nothing reasonable until he has been
informed as to the kind of house desired, until he is given a principle
of selection. Then, if he has been bidden to make a brick house, he
at once knows what his object is, and can then reject whatever does
not help him, in the accomplishment. In the same way, if I am asked to
write five thousand words about Horticulture, I am at a loss to choose
from the history of the science, or the present status, or the still
unsolved problems, or the relative advancement in different countries,
or the possibility of the pursuit of horticulture as a profession, or
the poetic, the imaginative stimulus of working among apple blossoms,
or the value to health of working in the open air. Perhaps any one
of these divisions of the total subject would require five thousand
words; certainly with so limited an amount of material of expression
I cannot cover all; and if I choose a bit of each, the result will
hopelessly confuse the reader as to the science, for I shall perforce
write a series of mere _disjuncta membra_. I must, then, choose at once
some guiding principle of selection that will make clear whether, for
instance, the poetic appeal of the science has anything to do with my
object. Then, and only then, shall I be able to write an article that
will "take hold," that will bear in every part toward some definite
goal, that will leave my reader with a well-organized, easily understood
piece of writing. Only thus can I escape making a mere enumeration about
as sensible as to add potatoes and church steeples and treasurers'
reports and feather boas and card parties and library paste in the
hope of making an integral whole. This guiding idea, which avoids such
selections, may perhaps best be called the "controlling purpose" of the
theme or article or book.
The Controlling Purpose
_What, then, is the controlling purpose? It is the answer to the
question, "What am I trying to accomplish?" It is the intelligent
determination on the writer's part to make the material of his writing
march straight toward a definite goal which he wishes the reader to
perceive. It is the actively operating point of view of the writer,
the positive angle of vision that he takes toward the subject._ The
controlling purpose in Lincoln's mind as he rode up to Gettysburg
must have been to bring home to the civilians of the country, with a
great humble thrill toward accomplishment, the fact that after the
soldiers had done all they could, the civilians must reverently take
up the fight for freedom and union. His address is immortal. But
suppose, for a moment, that he had ascended the platform with the vague
idea of "saying something about America, the war, you know, and the
soldiers, and liberty,--oh, yes, Liberty, of course,--and, oh, things
in general." Though he had thundered for hours his words would likely
have been ineffective. Only an intense realization of the purpose in
one's mind, and a consistent bending of one's efforts to gain this end,
bring simplicity, weightiness, and the powerful effect in the reader's
mind. From the reader's point of view, in fact, we might say that
the controlling purpose is the means of making writing interesting,
since nothing so holds a reader's mind as to feel that he is getting
somewhere, that he is accomplishing something by his efforts. In no
other way can he be made so clearly to see his progress, for only thus
can he be prevented from undirected wandering.
Source of the Controlling Purpose
_a._ _The Subject itself_
When we ask how we shall find and choose the controlling purpose, we
discover that it is determined by three things; the subject itself, the
personality of the writer, and the character of the reader. Just how
these three operate to determine the cast of the writing we shall now
attempt to discover.
The first thing for the writer to do is to look at the subject itself
and learn what it is, really understand it. He must know its exact
nature before he can be allowed to proceed with the development. Now
this often requires much honesty, for it is necessary to put aside
prejudice and bias of all kinds and to look at the subject just as it
is, with a passionate desire to learn its exact nature. For example, if
you are to write about the value of a college education, and you are an
idealist, you may be tempted to overlook the fact that such a training
does actually help a man to earn more money than he otherwise would. You
may think that such a consideration is beneath your dignity. But you
must put aside your prejudice for the time being and must look the fact
honestly in the face. And, if you are a hard-headed, practical person,
you must nevertheless admit that a college education is broadening,
chastening, in its influence. In either case you will not stop until
you have looked at all possible sides of the subject. You will amass
such facts, then, as that a college education is broadening, that it
increases earning capacity, that it puts a person in touch with the
world, that it makes him more able to be a useful citizen. Other facts
also will occur to you, but let us suppose that these are the most
important. If you carefully examine them you will perhaps come to the
conclusion that a college education is valuable in that it helps a
person to realize his best possibilities in every way, as a citizen,
a friend, a personality. Or, if you are to write about the aeroplane,
you will discover that it is heavier than air, that it is propelled
by motor-power, that it attains certain speeds, that it has definite
lifting power, that it is self-stabilizing to a remarkable degree, that
it is made of certain kinds of material, of certain weight, and that
it has one, or two, or even three planes. In addition you will note
the qualities of efficiency, of triumphing over winds, of beautiful
poise, and smoothness of execution. In both these cases you have been
seeking the core of your subject, the real meaning of it, its essence.
You must, before you begin to write a word, be able to say what all the
noticed facts amount to, to say, "All told, this subject, this machine,
or whatever it is, means so-and-so." Perhaps of the aeroplane you would
say, "This machine stands for wonderful potential efficiency, not yet
completely understood." In the same way we say of people and things, "He
is a bore," or "a tyrant," or, "That is a great social menace," or some
other such comment. In each case we have tagged the person or thing with
what we think it is at its heart, with its total significance. And not
until we have done this are we at all ready to begin writing.
_b._ _The Writer's Attitude_
The second influence in determining the controlling purpose is the
reaction of the writer to the subject. In the following estimate of Lord
Morley, the great English statesman, you will notice that, though the
treatment seems to be, at first, purely objective, quite impersonal,
the author cannot keep himself out: he enters with the fifth word,
"thrilling," in which he shows where he stands himself in regard to
truth, and he appears more at length in the last two clauses of the
selection, where he definitely set the approval of his own heart upon
Lord Morley's attitude. The third influence, that of the reader, appears
also, for when you consider that the article was written for Englishmen
to read, you see the molding for the national temper, different of
necessity from that which would have been made for Frenchmen, for
example. The author relies upon a knowledge of Morley among his readers,
and upon a certain definite attitude among them toward the truth.
You will catch that thrilling note in the oratory of Lord
Morley at all times, for he touches politics with a certain
spiritual emotion that makes it less a business or a game than a
religion. He lifts it out of the street on to the high lands where
the view is wide and the air pure and where the voices heard are
the voices that do not bewilder or betray. He is the conscience of
the political world--the barometer of our corporate soul. Tap him
and you will see whether we are at "foul" or "fair." He has often
been on the losing side: sometimes perhaps on the wrong side: never
on the side of wrong. He is
True as a dial to the sun,
Although it be not shined upon.
There is about him a sense of the splendid austerity of
truth--cold but exhilarating. It is not merely that he does not
lie. There are some other politicians of whom that may be said. It
is that he does not trifle with truth. It is sacred and inviolate.
He would not admit with Erasmus that "there are seasons when we
must even conceal truth," still less with Fouché that "les paroles
sont faites pour cacher nos pensées."[2] His regard for the truth
is expressed in the motto to the essay "On Compromise": "It makes
all the difference in the world whether we put truth in the first
place or in the second." This inflexible veracity is the rarest
and the most precious virtue in politics. It made him, if not, as
Trevelyan says of Macaulay, "the worst popular candidate since
Coriolanus," at least a severe test of a constituency's attachment.
It is Lord Morley's contribution to the common stock. Truth and
Justice--these are the fixed stars by which he steers his barque,
and even the Prayer Book places Religion and Piety after them, for
indeed they are the true foundation of religion and piety.[3]
[2] Words were made to conceal our thoughts.
[3] A. G. Gardiner: _Prophets, Priests, and Kings_. By permission of
the publishers, E. P. Dutton & Co., New York City.
The second consideration, then, is, "What does this subject mean to
me?" Of course there are subjects in which this question is of slight
importance: in writing a treatise on mathematics, for instance, one
might be quite indifferent to any personal reaction, though in even such
a piece of writing there might appear a thrill at the neat marshaling
of forces for the inevitable waiting answer to the problem. In general,
however, this question is of great importance. Stevenson goes so far as
even to say that the author's attitude is more important than the facts
themselves. Certainly a writer cannot tell what is the truth for himself
unless he expresses his ideas in the light of his own personality.
Suppose that in the case of the aeroplane, though you believe the
central fact as we expressed it above, you are primarily appealed to by
the fact that the motor is of the utmost importance, and that at present
it is not so highly developed as it should be for perfect flying. You
are, in other words, impressed with the problem that confronts engineers
of making the motor more efficient. Your controlling purpose would now
be modified, then, and would perhaps read, "The aeroplane is a machine
of wonderful potential efficiency not yet completely understood,
_especially as regards the driving power_." In the same way you would
modify the purpose of the treatment of college education and might say,
"A college education is valuable in that it helps a person to realize
his best possibilities in every way, but _especially as an heir of all
the wisdom of the ages gone_."
The relative importance of this second consideration depends on whether
the subject is much or little affected by personal interpretation. In
the personal essay, as written by Lamb, for example, we may care more
for the man than for the facts, or more for the facts as seen by the man
than for the mere facts alone. In questions of society, of morality, of
taste, in which the answer is not absolute in any case, in all matters
that affect the well-being of humanity and in which there is a shifting
standard, the attitude of the writer is important. The writer who wishes
to have a voice of authority must cling to the fact as to a priceless
jewel, but he must also remember that if, for example, he is writing
on Feminism, or Socialism, or Church Attendance, or The Short Ballot,
or The New Poetry, or The Value of Social Clubs in the Country, or
any such subject, we, the readers, eagerly wait on his words as being
primarily an expression of his personal reaction to the matter. And the
final value of the treatment will depend on whether the personality is
well-poised, largely sympathetic, able to take an elastic view of the
subject and to bring it home to the reader as a piece of warmly felt and
honestly stated conviction. In exposition, as well as in argument, we
must ask the witness,--that is, the writer,--whether he is prejudiced
or not. Especially must we do this when we happen to be the author
ourselves. Violent condemnation of Capital by a man who has become
embittered by mistreatment at the hands of employers must be taken with
somewhat of caution, just as sweeping arraignment of Socialism by an
arrogant capitalist must be eyed askance.
It might not be amiss to remark here that the writer in a college class
who declares that he has no reaction to his subject, that he is quite
indifferent to it, should do one of two things, either choose a new
subject, or drop from college and go to work at some vitalizing effort
with other people which will bring home realities to him in such a way
that he cannot fail to react.
In the following brief incident it is interesting to note how the author
shows his own personality. Another would have thought of the problem
of dietetics involved, or of the absence of coffee or "parritch" or
the rasher of bacon, or of the austerity of the meal. To Gissing[4]
the incident was significant as showing a national characteristic both
admirable and amusing.
[4] George Gissing: _The Private Papers of Henry Ryecroft_, "Summer,"
XXI. By permission of the publishers, E. P. Dutton & Co., New York
City.
At an inn in the north I once heard three men talking at their
breakfast on the question of diet. They agreed that most people ate
too much meat, and one of them went so far as to declare that,
for his part, he rather preferred vegetables and fruit. "Why," he
said, "will you believe me that I sometimes make a breakfast of
apples?" This announcement was received in silence; evidently the
two listeners didn't quite know what to think of it. Thereupon the
speaker, in rather a blustering tone, cried out, "Yes, I can make a
very good breakfast on _two or three pounds of apples_."
Wasn't it amusing? And wasn't it characteristic? This honest Briton
had gone too far in frankness. 'T is all very well to like vegetables
and fruit up to a certain point; but to breakfast on apples! His
companions' silence proved that they were just a little ashamed of him;
his confession savoured of poverty or meanness; to right himself in
their opinion, nothing better occurred to the man than to protest that
he ate apples, yes, but not merely one or two; he ate them largely,
_by the pound_! I laughed at the fellow, but I thoroughly understood
him; so would every Englishman; for at the root of our being is a
hatred of parsimony. This manifests itself in all manner of ludicrous
or contemptible forms, but no less is it the source of our finest
qualities. An Englishman desires, above all, to live largely; on
that account he not only dreads but hates and despises poverty. His
virtues are those of the free-handed and warm-hearted opulent man; his
weaknesses come of the sense of inferiority (intensely painful and
humiliating) which attaches in his mind to one who cannot spend and
give; his vices, for the most part, originate in loss of self-respect
due to loss of secure position.
_c._ _The Reader_
The third consideration is, "Who is my reader, and what are his
characteristics?" The counter-question, "What difference does it
make who my reader is?" can be summarily answered with the statement
that it makes a great deal of difference. As soon as you note what a
large part temperament plays in the forming of opinions in politics
and religion and social questions, and remember that no two people
ever react to any truth in exactly the same way--that what seems to
one sensible person monstrous will appear to another equally sensible
person as highly virtuous--you will see that in all writing, where
either the understanding or the emotions are involved, this question
assumes importance. If we believe the theory with which we set out,
that all writing is done to accomplish an object, that is, a certain
effect in the reader's mind, and then remember that different readers
take different trails to the same objective, and that some must be even
coaxed back from one trail into another, we shall see that it is vital
that the reader do not select the wrong way, and, like a futile dog,
"bark up the wrong tree." A hasty glance at current magazines will at
once show how operative this consideration is in practical writing:
_The Atlantic Monthly_ uses a different set of subjects and a different
style of expression from that of _The Scientific American_ or _The Black
Cat_ or _The Parisienne_. The editors, in other words, are remembering
who their readers are and are trying to meet them with gifts, not with
weapons of offense. After all, the reader is always the destination of
all writing; the place where the effect will be made is the reader's
mind.
To apply this third consideration to our two subjects, the value of a
college education and the aeroplane, let us see how the treatment should
differ according to the differing readers. If, in the treatment of the
first subject, we are presenting our statements to a body of educators,
even though the facts of college education remain unmoved, and though
our personal leaning toward the supreme value in dowering the student
with the wisdom of the past is unchanged, we shall yet see that these
educators have already thought as we have about the matter, that merely
to repeat to them will be futile and wearying; and we shall, if we are
wise, change the point of attack and develop the value as enabling the
student _to apply to practical problems the wisdom of the past_. Or, if
the readers are to be politicians whom we wish to enlist in sympathy
with larger endowments, we shall perhaps treat the subject as being
_increased political insight and sympathy with all people_. In the
treatment of the aeroplane, if we are presenting our words to engineers,
we shall probably analyze the present lack of proper engine power and
try to suggest means of correction. And we shall make our presentation
in language that has not been stripped of its technicalities but has
been allowed to stand in engineering terms. But if we address a body of
benevolent women who are trying to organize an "Airmen's Relief Fund,"
and who look upon the machine with horror as a potential destroyer
of life, we shall simply show that _accidents may be caused through
faulty engines which may often result in loss of life_. The original
controlling purpose will now appear, "The value of a college education
lies in its offering the best chance for personal development through
showing to the student his heirship to all the wisdom of the ages
past, especially as this is applied to present-day problems," or, "The
aeroplane is a machine of great potential efficiency not yet completely
understood, especially as regards the driving power, through which lack
of understanding grave accidents may occur."
Now if we scan these two statements carefully, I believe that we shall
be persuaded of their inadequacy. To explain to the benevolent women
who are interested in saving lives the fact that we do not yet fully
understand the aeroplane, is like attempting to persuade a man from the
path of an oncoming thunderous locomotive by telling him of the lack of
laws to regulate public safety. In other words, we have forgotten that a
wedge makes the easiest entrance, and we have attacked on far too broad
a front, have failed to whittle away the chips that are of no value to
the reader. Perhaps we need a complete restatement of the controlling
purpose, occasioned by the nature of the reader. We may say that the
value of a college education is in enabling a student to be of service
to the state by applying the wisdom of the past, or that the aeroplane,
partly through our ignorance of it, is causing terrible accidents.
These purposes are far different from those with which we started out.
All are perfectly true; these are better adapted to our particular
readers, are more useful in helping to accomplish our selected aim. The
gist of the matter is this: wisdom in writing demands that we discover
the special loophole through which our readers regard the subject and
then bring our material within the view from that loophole, bearing
in mind always the training and the prejudices of the reader, and
conforming material to suit the special needs.
One large reason why college themes are liable to dullness is the fact
that few students write for any one in particular. They merely put down
colorless facts which do not stir a reader in the slightest. They forget
that facts exist, really, only as they relate to people, individual
people, and that they must be clothed attractively, as is virtue for
a child's consumption, or the reader will have none of them. Even
the patient writer of themes should regard a specially chosen reader
as at the same time his best friend and his potentially worst enemy:
friend in the sense of recipient of literary gifts, and enemy in the
sense of possible foiler of all the author's good intentions. As enemy
the reader must be conquered, must be made to read and understand; as
friend he is to be sympathetically met and smiled upon. And if there
be no reader determined by the circumstances, the writer should choose
some well-known friend and adapt his material to that friend, or should
select any ordinarily intelligent being and use the widest appeal that
he can.
_d._ _Relative Value of Sources_
Now the relative value of these three sources of the controlling purpose
is variable. In an article for the encyclopædia the writer's reaction
should be subordinated, since the reader comes to the encyclopædia for
facts and not for opinion. Likewise the reader, in such an article,
will be of minor importance, for the article is addressed to general
ordinary intelligence that desires a straightforward statement. But as
we have seen, an article on Feminism must with the greatest care watch
the reader and the writer--the reader because the subject rouses both
assent and opposition; the writer because the subject is of the kind
that depend largely on opinion. So a theme on the problem of the hired
man, or Tennyson's attitude toward science, or the reasons for attending
one university rather than another, or the value of mechanical stokers,
or the application of Mendel's Law to human beings will vary its purpose
according to the varying importance of the three sources. Only one great
caution needs to be made. Never falsify or mistreat the facts: they are
the supreme thing. It is for this fault that the newspapers are most
blameable: they consider their readers and their own points of view, but
all too often they treat the facts cavalierly. A high reverence for the
truth, and an unflinching determination to tell it are prime essentials.
The Controlling Purpose and the Emotional Reaction
So far we have been concerned with the problem of placing the _facts_
before the reader, of appealing to his intelligence. But writing
consists of vastly more than that alone. After the understanding,
sometimes before, must be considered the emotions. We have the facts, we
know what we think of them, and we are reasonably sure of the reader's
attitude. Now we must discover how to set the reader's emotions afire
in so far as we desire such an effect. In listening to a great tragedy
we perceive the cold analysis of a great truth of life; but that is
not all: far out beyond the bounds of understanding our emotions are
profoundly stirred and we _feel_ pity and terror. So in the account of
a tremendous battle, of a fire, of anything that touches human life
at all nearly and with power, our emotions are called into play. Now
different pieces of writing, just like different subjects, call for
different degrees of emotional reaction. Drama always rouses us, lyric
poems depend upon their emotional quality, the informal essay has much
emotional appeal, fiction of any sort stirs our feelings, and the more
powerful the writing is, the more sure the appeal.
At first thought most expository writing might be considered to make
slight appeal, if any, to emotions. That is not necessarily true; the
more effective the exposition, the more real is usually the call to
feeling. Often this call is subtle, usually it is subordinate to the
appeal to the understanding, but in most effective expository writing
it will be found. In an explanation of the Panama Canal certainly there
would be roused the reader's admiration and wonder at the magnitude
of the operation. The mere analysis of the facts in a criminal trial
often settles the case, so great is the emotional appeal. In didactic
writing the call to emotion is less strong, though such a writer as
Jonathan Edwards could explain the writhing of man like a spider before
the Almighty in a profoundly moving way. In axiomatic mathematical
propositions we find perhaps the least strong appeal: that the sum of
the angles of a triangle is equal to two right angles might seem to be
divorced from all excitement. But in most exposition when emotional
appeal is overlooked the writing suffers.
In an account of the American Civil War, for example, the writer
might set out to show that the conflict was the culmination of the
struggle between yeoman and cavalier begun long since in England. But
the war meant more than that. The author will then see the emotional
significance of the fight and will add to his purpose the intention
to thrill the reader at the magnificent exhibition, on both sides, of
devotion to an idea. So Emerson, in his essay on "Fate" in _The Conduct
of Life_, fills the reader with gloom for page after page, detailing how
thoroughly the individual is bound down by conditions of birth, sex,
breeding, wealth--and then in two wonderful sentences he turns the
whole course of thought and emotion by saying, "Intellect annuls fate.
So far as a man thinks, he is free," and the reader is stirred as with a
trumpet call to renewed courage, which, to use Emerson's words, "neither
brandy, nor nectar, nor sulphuric ether, nor hell-fire, nor ichor, nor
poetry, nor genius" can overcome. And the historian Greene, in his
well-known account of Queen Elizabeth, states his controlling purpose
in the words, "Elizabeth was at once the daughter of Henry and of Anne
Boleyn." But these words are not the whole of his purpose; he intends,
besides the intellectual grasping of the Queen's character, an intense
admiration and wonder at the resourcefulness, the shrewd judgment, and a
reaction of amusement to the strange outbreaks of unwomanly freaks or of
feminine wiles.
The controlling purpose, then, is almost always of a dual nature; it
aims at both the understanding and the emotions. Whenever there is any
real possibility of making it thus double the writer should so express
it to himself.
In the following magazine article such a double purpose obviously
exists. First of all there are the facts of the marching of American
troops through London. These facts are unchangeable. Baldly stated, the
significance of the fact is that the New World is coming to the help
of the Old World against the monster of unrestrained militarism. To a
person who regards life coldly, as the mere interplay of calculable
forces, one whose emotions are not concerned, this would be a sufficient
statement of the whole truth, of the total significance. But such
writing would miss the chance of power, would be forever less valuable
than it ought to be, for a great warming of the heart answers those
footfalls in London streets. In other words, just as we have seen that
there are two kinds of exposition--mere noting of facts and interpreting
of facts--so we now see that interpretation can be either lifeless,
or moving, charged with power. It is the old difference between the
drama and a sermon: the play thrills and the sermon convinces. Either
may add the other quality--a fine drama or a well-made sermon does. In
this account of American soldiers in London the truth is made clear, but
far more than that it is made alive, pulsating with emotion of national
pride, of racial solidarity, of high moral purpose. In so far as the
writer succeeds in stirring us, in just so far he is more likely to make
the truth take hold upon us and bind us firmly in its grasp. It is the
writing that both convinces and moves us that is lasting, that is really
powerful.
"SOLEMN-LOOKING BLOKES"[5]
[5] Stacy Aumonier, in _The Century Magazine_, December, 1917. By
courtesy of the publisher, The Century Company, New York City.
At midday on August 15 I stood on the pavement in Cockspur
Street and watched the first contingent of American troops pass
through London.
I had been attracted thither by the lure of a public "show,"
by the blare of a band, and by a subconscious desire to pay tribute
in my small way to a great people. It was a good day for London,
intermittently bright, with great scurrying masses of cumuli
overhead, and a characteristic threat of rain, which fortunately
held off. Cockspur Street, as you know, is a turning off Trafalgar
Square, and I chose it because the crowd was less dense there than
in the square itself. By getting behind a group of shortish people
and by standing on tiptoe I caught a fleeting view of the faces of
nearly every one of the passing soldiers.
London is schooled to shows of this kind. The people gather
and wait patiently on the line of route. And then some genial
policemen appear and mother the people back into some sort of line,
an action performed with little fuss or trouble. Then mounted
police appear, headed by some fat official in a cockade hat and
with many ribbons on his chest. And some one in the crowd calls out:
"Hullo, Percy! Mind you don't fall off yer 'orse!"
Then the hearers laugh and begin to be on good terms with
themselves, for they know that the "show" is coming. Then follows
the inevitable band, and we begin to cheer.
It is very easy and natural for a London crowd to cheer. I
have heard Kaiser William II cheered in the streets of London!
We always cheer our guests, and we love a band and a "show"
almost as much as our republican friends across the channel. I
have seen royal funerals and weddings, processions in honor of
visiting presidents and kings, the return of victorious generals,
processions of Canadian, Australian, Indian, French and Italian
troops and bands. I wouldn't miss these things for worlds. They
give color to our social life and accent to our everyday emotions.
It is, moreover, peculiarly interesting to observe national traits
on a march: the French, with their exuberant élan, throwing kisses
to the women as they pass; our own Tommies, who have surprised the
world with their gayety, and keep up a constant ragging intercourse
with the crowd and cannot cease from singing; the Indians, who
pass like a splendidly carved frieze; the Canadians, who move
with a free and independent swing and grin in a friendly way; the
Scotch, who carry it off better than any one. But I had never seen
American troops, and I was anxious to see how they behaved. I said
to myself, "The American is volatile and impressionable, like a
child." I had met Americans who within an hour's acquaintance
had told me their life-story, given me their views on religion,
politics, and art, and invited me to go out to Iowa or Wisconsin or
California, and spend the summer with them. Moreover, the American
is above all things emotional and--may I say it?--sentimental. It
would therefore be extremely interesting to see how he came through
this ordeal.
The first band passed, and the people were waving flags and
handkerchiefs from the windows. We could hear the cheers go up from
the great throng in the square. And there at last, sure enough, was
Old Glory, with its silken tassels floating in the London breeze,
carried by a solemn giant, with another on either side.
And then they came, marching in fours, with their rifles at
the slope, the vanguard of Uncle Sam's army. And we in Cockspur
Street raised a mighty cheer. They were solemn, bronzed men, loose
of limb, hard, and strong, with a curious set expression of purpose
about them.
_Tramp, tramp, tramp, tramp._
And they looked neither to the right nor the left; nor did
they look up or smile or apparently take any notice of the cheers
we raised. We strained forward to see their faces, and we cried out
to them our welcome.
_Tramp, tramp, tramp, tramp._
They were not all tall; some were short and wiry. Some of the
officers were rather elderly and wore horn spectacles. But they did
not look at us or raise a smile of response. They held themselves
very erect, but their eyes were cast down or fixed upon the back
of the man in front of them. There came an interval, and another
band, and then Old Glory once more, and we cheered the flag even
more than the men. Fully a thousand men passed in this solemn
procession, not one of them smiling or looking up. It became almost
disconcerting. It was a thing we were not used to. A fellow-cockney
near me murmured:
"They're solemn-looking blokes, ain't they?"
_Tramp, tramp, tramp, tramp._
The band blared forth once more, a drum-and-fife corps with
a vibrant thrill behind it. We strained forward more eagerly to
see the faces of our friends from the New World. We loved it best
when the sound of the band had died away and the only music was
the steady throb of those friendly boots upon our London streets.
And still they did not smile. I had a brief moment of some vague
apprehension, as though something could not be quite right. Some
such wave, I think, was passing through the crowd. What did it mean?
_Tramp, tramp, tramp, tramp._
The cheers died away for a few moments in an exhausted
diminuendo. Among those people, racked by three years of strain and
suffering, there probably was not one who had not lost some one
dear to them. Even the best nerves have their limit of endurance.
Suddenly the ready voice of a woman from the pavement called out:
"God bless you, Sammy!"
And then we cheered again in a different key, and I noticed
a boy in the ranks throw back his head and look up. On his face
was the expression we see only on the faces of those who know the
finer sensibilities--a fierce, exultant joy that is very near akin
to tears. And gradually I became aware that on the faces of these
grim men was written an emotion almost too deep for expression.
As they passed it was easy to detect their ethnological
heritage. There was the Anglo-Saxon type, perhaps predominant; the
Celt; the Slav; the Latin; and in many cases definitely the Teuton:
and yet there was not one of them that had not something else, who
was not preëminently a good "United States man." It was as though
upon the anvil of the New World all the troubles of the Old, after
being passed through a white-hot furnace, had been forged into
something clear and splendid. And they were hurrying on to get this
accomplished. For once and all the matter must be settled.
_Tramp, tramp, tramp, tramp._
There was a slight congestion, and the body of men near me
halted and marked time. A diminutive officer with a pointed beard
was walking alone. A woman in the crowd leaned forward and waved an
American flag in his face. He saluted, made some kindly remark, and
then passed on.
_Tramp, tramp, tramp, tramp._
The world must be made safe for democracy.
And I thought inevitably of the story of the Titan myth, of
Prometheus, the first real democrat, who held out against the gods
because they despised humanity. And they nailed him to a rock, and
cut off his eyelids, and a vulture fed upon his entrails.
But Prometheus held on, his line of reasoning being:
"After Uranus came Cronus. After Cronus came Zeus. After Zeus
will come other gods."
It is the finest epic in human life, and all the great
teachers and reformers who came after told the same story--Christ,
Vishnu, Confucius, Mohammed, Luther, Shakespeare. The fundamental
basis of their teaching was love and faith in humanity. And
whenever humanity is threatened, the fires which Prometheus stole
from the gods will burn more brightly in the heart of man, and they
will come from all quarters of the world.
He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored;
He hath loosed the fateful lightning of his terrible, swift sword.
There is no quarter, no mercy, to the enemies of humanity.
There is no longer a war; it is a crusade. And as I stood on the
flags of Cockspur Street, I think I understood the silence of those
grim men. They seemed to epitomize not merely a nation, not merely
a flag, but the unbreakable sanctity of human rights and human
life. And I knew that whatever might happen, whatever the powers
of darkness might devise, whatever cunning schemes or diabolical
plans, or whatever temporary successes they might attain, they
would ultimately go down into the dust before "the fateful
lightning." "After Zeus will come other gods."
_Tramp, tramp, tramp, tramp._
Nothing could live and endure against that steady and
irresistible progression. And we know how you can do things,
America. We have seen your workshops, your factories, and your
engines of peace. And we have seen those young men of yours at the
Olympic Games, with their loose, supple limbs, their square, strong
faces. When the Spartans, lightly clad, but girt for war, ran
across the hills to Athens and, finding the Persian hosts defeated,
laughed, and congratulated the Athenians, and ran back again--since
those days there never were such runners, such athletes, as these
boys of yours from Yale and Harvard, Princeton and Cornell.
And so on that day, if we cheered the flag more than we
cheered the men, it was because the flag was the symbol of the
men's hearts, which were too charged with the fires of Prometheus
to trust themselves expression.
At least that is how it appeared to me on that forenoon in
Cockspur Street, and I know that later in the day, when I met a
casual friend, and he addressed me with the usual formula of the
day:
"Any news?"
I was able to say:
"Yes, the best news in the world."
And when he replied:
"What news?"
I could say with all sincerity:
"I have seen a portent. The world is safe for democracy."
Proper Use of the Controlling Purpose
Despite whatever of good has been said here about the controlling
purpose, there may lurk the suspicion that it is, after all, dangerous,
that perhaps it gives to a piece of writing a tendency toward bias,
partial interpretation, even unfairness, and that it makes toward
incompleteness. In the first place, in answering this charge, we must
remember that facts _as related to people_ are eternally subject to
different interpretations according to shifting significance, which is
determined largely by the individual to whom the facts are related. In
the second place we have to remind ourselves that seldom does a writer
try to say all that can be said about his subject. Much is always either
implied or left to another piece of writing. And finally, even when
an author attempts perfect completeness and objectivity, he usually
addresses his work to some one in particular, even though the "some
one" is as vague as the general reading public; and that some one has a
particular attitude that must be borne in mind.
In "Solemn-Looking Blokes" not everything about the subject is said.
From one point of view the tramp of American feet in London streets
signified that the United States had emerged from its traditional
aloofness and had joined the main current of the world; from another,
that a tremendous military preparation was going on in America, the
first fruits of which were those solemn ringing steps; from another,
that however Europe had professed to despise American power, she
was now willing, eager, to accept American aid; from another, that
the old enmity between England and America has been forgotten in
the common bond of like ideals and racial traditions. Each of these
possible meanings--and there are more not listed here--is implied in
the treatment actually given to the subject. No one of them is really
developed. Instead, we have flowering before us the idea that the world
is to be made safe for democracy. No one would presume to declare that
the total possibilities of the subject are here met and explained; yet
no one can rightly say that the chosen treatment is unfair. Considering
the facts, the author, and the people who would read the article, and
their emotional connection with the facts, we see that the author chose
the purpose that seemed most useful--to make American hearts warm to
the fact that their country was helping to make the world safer for all
men everywhere. In other words, facts are useful only in so far as they
accomplish some definite end, which, in writing, is to make the reader
see the truth as the author thinks that he should try to make the reader
see it.
Now, of course, if the writer makes an unfair analysis, if he blindly
or willfully falsifies in seeing or expressing his subject, his writing
is not only useless but actually vicious. The analysis must be correct.
Every subject has its center of truth, which can be discovered by
patient clear thinking; if the thinking be either unclear or impatient,
the interpretation will be false. If the author of "Solemn-Looking
Blokes" has made an incorrect estimate, his writing is futile. There is
no more challenging quest than the search for the real truth at the core
of a chosen subject. Perhaps the very difficulty of attaining success is
what has stayed many minds in floundering, timid, fogginess.
As to the charge that infusion of emotional quality into the writing
produces bias, first of all it must be said that if the subject contains
no emotion, none should be attempted in the writing. In a report, for
example, of the relative value of different woods for shingles, an
author will hardly try to infuse emotion, for the reader wishes to
learn, quickly and easily, just what kind of wood is the best. But most
subjects are not thus aloof; even the report about shingles becomes
of vast significance to the owner of extensive timber lands which are
suddenly found to be of high value. All subjects which concern the
prosperity and happiness of humanity are charged with emotion; the
nearer to the great facts of life, such as birth, marriage, death,
food, shelter, love, hatred, the keener the emotion. Who shall write of
problems of heredity and leave us unstirred? Who shall treat of our
vast irrigation projects, which turn the deserts into fair gardens and
give food to millions of people, without firing the imagination? The
writer's task is to look so clearly at his subject that he discovers its
true value to both brain and heart.
As a matter of fact, in writing of such subjects a writer finds that
words _will be_ emotional, whether he will have them so or not, that
they take sides, are charged with tendency and fly toward or away from
an emotional quality with all the power of electricity. Now, this
emotional quality, when it is uncontrolled, is dangerous. Words that
show tendency must be guided with the firm hand lest they lead the
reader into wrong impressions and into the confusion that comes from
counter emotions, the strong impression of disunion. It is only by
relating these cross-tendencies to a guiding idea that they can be made
to serve the author's purpose. To choose wisely a controlling purpose
that recognizes and handles the inherent emotions of words is merely to
organize inescapable material. In the following selection from Emerson's
"Fate" we find the emotional quality both high and well-organized.
Such a paragraph might easily be made to confuse a reader hopelessly,
but Emerson drives the chargers of his thought straight to his goal,
intellectual and emotional, and holds tight his reins:
Nature is no sentimentalist,--does not cosset or pamper us.
We must see that the world is rough and surly, and will not mind
drowning a man or a woman, but swallows your ship like a grain
of dust. The cold, inconsiderate of persons, tingles your blood,
benumbs your feet, freezes a man like an apple. The diseases, the
elements, fortune, gravity, lightning, respect no persons. The way
of Providence is a little rude. The habit of snake and spider, the
snap of the tiger and other leapers and bloody jumpers, the crackle
of the bones of his prey in the coil of the anaconda,--these are
in the system, and our habits are like theirs. You have just
dined, and however the slaughter-house is concealed in the graceful
distance of miles, there is complicity, expensive races--race
living at the expense of race. The planet is liable to shocks from
comets, perturbations from planets, rendings from earthquake and
volcano, alterations of climate, precessions of equinoxes. Rivers
dry up by opening of the forest. The sea changes its bed. Towns
and counties fall into it. At Lisbon an earthquake killed men like
flies. At Naples three years ago ten thousand persons were crushed
in a few minutes. The scurvy at sea, the sword of the climate in
the west of Africa, at Cayenne, at Panama, at New Orleans, cut off
men like a massacre. Our western prairies shake with fever and
ague. The cholera, the small-pox, have proved as mortal to some
tribes as a frost to crickets, which, having filled the summer with
noise, are silenced by the fall of the temperature of one night.
Without uncovering what does not concern us, or counting how many
species of parasites hang on a bombyx, or groping after intestinal
parasites or infusory biters, or the obscurities of alternate
generation,--the forms of the shark, the _labrus_, the jaw of the
sea-wolf paved with crushing teeth, the weapons of the grampus,
and other warriors hidden in the sea, are hints of ferocity in the
interior of nature. Let us not deny it up and down. Providence has
a wild, rough, incalculable road to its end, and it is of no use to
try to whitewash its huge, mixed instrumentalities, or to dress up
that terrific benefactor in a clean shirt and white neck-cloth of a
student in divinity.[6]
[6] Ralph Waldo Emerson: "Fate," _The Conduct of Life_. Houghton
Mifflin Company, publishers, Boston.
Now this controlling purpose, including both the appeal to the
understanding and that to the emotions, should be stated, clearly,
before the author begins his actual writing, in one sentence. The value
of this is at once apparent: our minds tend all too much to wander from
subject to subject, browsing here and there, without any really directed
feeding. Now such procedure, though difficult to avoid, is nevertheless
harmful to our writing. The edge of the writing is never so keen, the
telling of the message, whatever it may be, is never so well done,
until we thoroughly organize and direct all that we are to say. In
phrasing the controlling purpose in one sentence, we make just such an
organization. And we have one which is most easily handled, most easily
remembered, least likely to allow us to escape into empty wandering.
Even in a long work this should be done, this unifying knot should be
tied in the writer's mind. Those readers who rise from the last pages
of a long historical work, covering several volumes and hundreds or
thousands of pages, with a clear central conception of the whole work
are profoundly grateful to the author. It is safe to say that such a
conception could not have been given to the reader had not the writer,
before he wrote a word, formulated in a few words the goal, the aim of
his writing. This sentence should include the emotional appeal either as
stated in a separate clause or phrase, or as expressed in the choice of
words to present the facts.
The amount of machinery that seems to be required for using the
controlling purpose may appear too much for practical purposes in one
short lifetime. The truth is that the actual finding of the purpose will
require much less time, often, than the explanation of the process here
has needed. In a short theme you will often be able to scan the subject
itself, to estimate your own reaction to the subject, and to determine
upon your reader with remarkable quickness. More frequently you will
find difficulty in determining the emotional quality of the material
and your desires. But a little practice will enable you to do the
preliminary thinking with rapidity and comfort. But if your subject is
difficult, and if the effect is of great importance, by no means allow
yourself to be swerved from determination to find the real object which
you are seeking, but even at the expense of time and trouble state the
center of your intentions as related to the subject, yourself, and your
reader.
Practical Use of the Controlling Purpose
We have yet to answer the practical question: when I sit down to
write, of just what value will the controlling purpose be to me in the
actual task of expressing my ideas? How can it really serve me in my
writing? The answer is clear: the controlling purpose is of the utmost
strategic value in helping to select and arrange material for attack
upon the objective, which is the effect to be created in the reader's
mind. Now the best strategy always combines the line of greatest
advantage to the writer, the line of least resistance from the reader,
and the necessities of the subject. In other words, what point can
I attack easiest, where is my opponent weakest, what demands of the
ground--gullies, hills, swamps, etc.--must I allow for? Sometimes these
three are more or less mutually antagonistic; sometimes they unite with
the greatest helpfulness, as we shall see.
_Selection of Material_
The first question is, What, and how many, forces shall I choose for
the attack? Remember, we do not now merely attack in general, wherever
we find an enemy. Instead, we decide that our objective is, perhaps,
a hill ten miles across the enemy's frontier. The taking of that hill
is our controlling purpose. It would be easiest for us to use several
regiments of fresh young troops. But the terrain is strewn with gullies
and hillocks, with boulders and tangled timber. So we shall use two
regiments of veteran troops who are accustomed to rough country, and
follow these with some fresh youngsters who are endowed with sense and
a desire to outdo the veterans. Since the enemy has a strong battery,
we shall use heavy artillery. And since the enemy lacks machine guns,
we shall use many of them and catch him where he is weak and may be
terrified. We could easily send thirty camp kitchens to the fighting
lines, but strategy demands that they be kept back.
In exactly the same way Mr. Burroughs plans the essay which follows this
discussion. His controlling purpose is obviously to make the reader
understand the process of bee-hunting in such a way as to be attracted
to it as a delightful sport. The nature of the subject demands that
the several steps in the process be explained. Well, that suits Mr.
Burroughs, because he knows these steps. The easiest method for him
is to narrate his own experiences. Of course he could investigate the
authorities on bee-hunting, and write a treatise, but that would be more
difficult, and moreover, it would not meet the line of least resistance
from the reader. To be successful, the essay must overcome the reader's
inertia and make him feel that he is actually sharing in things that he
enjoys. The selection is thus determined. From his personal experience,
as giving the writer the greatest advantage, Mr. Burroughs chooses.
He selects details about the beauty of nature because a reader would
prefer to have fine surroundings. He mentions traits of the bee that are
interesting or necessary to know. He narrates two special experiences
of his own for added attractiveness. And all the while, lest inertia
raise its head, he lures the reader with the glimpses of pails full of
rich golden honey. In other words, keeping his eye for his controlling
purpose, Mr. Burroughs can easily select the things that will accomplish
that purpose to his own greatest advantage, the reader's greatest ease,
and according to the demands of the subject.
You do not find in the essay a discussion of the lucrative value of
bees, nor of the complicated life of the hive, nor of the present
standing of the science of bee-keeping. These topics, however
interesting, are not useful to the controlling purpose. The standard
is, not connection, but usefulness. "Any road," says Carlyle, "this
simple Entepfuhl road, will lead you to the end of the world," and if
you follow mere connection with your subjects, you will find yourself
at the end of the world. The practical helpfulness of the controlling
purpose is seen when you ask yourself the question, "Does the matter
that I am putting in this paragraph, this sentence, actually advance my
reader in thought or emotion or both, nearer the point to which I wish
to lead him?" Thus the question of selection is answered.
_The Ordering of the Material_
If we could have our own sweet will in attacking the hill ten miles
beyond the border, we should ask the enemy to stack his arms, and then,
with trumpet and drum and flag we should sweep in and take possession.
But our sweet will must give way to necessity. Since unscalable crags
lie ahead, we shall have to go round to the rear of the hill. Since we
must cross a swamp, engineers must precede and build a road. Though we
should like to crawl up a wide valley on the other side, we must choose
a smaller one, because the enemy could wither us away in the larger one.
And, to trick the enemy, we shall perhaps open fire far off on the left,
while we are stealing out to the right, and thus we may take him off his
guard. Our purpose of securing that hill makes these things necessary.
Similarly, in writing, we may sometimes employ the order of greatest
advantage, but more often we must modify this order to meet the
requirements of the subject and to rouse the least resistance from
the reader. In Stevenson's essay, "Pulvis et Umbra," part of which
follows the essay by Mr. Burroughs, the author used the method of
greatest advantage. His object is to thrill the reader at the thought
that mankind constantly strives in spite of all his failures. Several
orders are possible: he could treat of the striving alone, neglecting
the failure; he could treat the striving first and then the failure, or
vice versa, and so on. He saw that he would gain his purpose best if he
treated failure first, until he had fairly overwhelmed the reader, and
then suddenly shifted and showed that in spite of all this failure man
still strives. He had to run the risk of offending the reader at the
beginning by his insistence upon failure, and thus rousing the reader's
possible great resistance. For we do not like to read unpleasant things.
But he took the chance, knowing that if, by skillful use of words he
could persuade the reader through the first part, he could easily thrill
him with the reaction. For it makes a great difference whether we say,
"In spite of striving, man always fails," or "In spite of failure, man
always strives." The selection from the essay which appears here is
taken from the middle. It is interesting to note that the first two
sentences of the essay read: "We look for some reward of our endeavors
and are disappointed; not success, not happiness, not even peace of
conscience, crowns our ineffectual efforts to do well. Our frailties
are invincible, our virtues barren; the battle goes sore against us to
the going down of the sun." And the words of the final sentence of the
essay are: "Let it be enough for faith, that the whole creation groans
in mortal frailty, strives with unconquerable constancy: surely not all
in vain."
In the essay by Mr. Burroughs the author's advantage and the reader's
acquiescence largely coincide, so that the author can at once begin
with remarks about the attractiveness of the hunt, the delights of its
successful conclusion. To discuss at once the possibility of being stung
would have been unwise, because unpleasant, and the controlling purpose
of the essay is to attract. Later, this topic can safely be tucked in.
Mr. Wilson's war messages showed a combination of the lines of greatest
advantage and of least resistance with the nature of the historical
events. These messages began with a series of facts which, obviously
true, would rouse no resistance and would at the same time insert some
resentment against Germany, the very thing that the author wished to
do. Then they followed the strict chronological order, as if the author
were pursuing a course already mapped for him--which, of course, he
was not doing. With the controlling purpose of showing that America's
entrance into the war was occasioned entirely by Germany's actions, he
then proceeded to base the proposals of the messages upon the very facts
that the readers had already accepted in accordance with his ultimate
point of view. Such skillful manipulation deserved the success that the
messages met.
All three of these examples gain their point, their objective. They do
this largely because the authors knew exactly what they wished to do,
what their controlling purposes were, and then marshaled their material
so as to accomplish this end. Some of the topics that are subordinated,
such, for example, as the possibility of being stung, are as important
as others which are magnified, such as the beauty of nature--that is,
they are as important in an impersonal way. As soon as the controlling
purpose is known, however, they immediately become dangerous unless so
placed as to bring the reader nearer the goal and not to push him from
it. The point is that knowing the controlling purpose, that is, having
thought out beforehand exactly what you wish to do with subject and
reader, you are at once aware of both helps and obstacles, and can make
use of the one, avoid the other.
Thus you will consider both the reader's ease and his prejudices. If
you are to write of abstruse matters, of some question in philosophy
or ethics or religion, in order to carry your reader with you you will
begin with things that he can understand, and thus pave a highway into
the misty lands where you desire to take him. Failure of some eminent
philosophers to receive recognition has been due to their lack of a
comprehensive controlling purpose, to their restricting attention to the
subject alone regardless of the reader. In setting forth the principle
of the machinery that digs tunnels under rivers Mr. Brooks in _The
Web-foot Engineer_ first shows how a boy digs a tunnel into a sand
bank, and then proceeds, with the reader's understanding assured, to the
more complex but still similar operation under the river. In explaining
inductive reasoning, with the controlling purpose of making it seem both
frequent and natural, Huxley showed first how we reason practically
about the nature of apples in a basket at the grocer's. The reader's
resistance is thus avoided and the writer's advantage is increased.
A shrewd controlling purpose also makes allowance for the reader's
prejudices. You ought to take as much care to cajole your reader into
following you as the cook does to make us happy to the final morsel.
After ices and cakes and coffee a roast or a soup is positively
offensive; the cook wisely wins the battle of the spit and the dripping
pan while the epicure is still receptive. So, if you are to explain
democracy in a state where the recall of judges is practiced to an
aristocrat who distrusts the "common herd" and is easily ruffled, you
will do well to preface discussion of this recall with words about the
general excellence of life in the state and then, when your reader is
in a mood of acceptance, pass to the possibly offensive topic. Without
knowing just what you wish to accomplish, you are likely to write in
what may seem a dogged, defiant mood that intends to strike right and
left, hoping to wallow through to victory.
If between us and the enemy's fort is a stream which needs pontoons for
crossing, and we blindly start out marching up toward victory with no
pontoons, we shall perhaps sail away to sea, but shall also probably
not win the fort. If we insist upon keeping our platoon as rigidly
straight, even while we climb hills through the woods, as ever a line
was kept at West Point, we shall come to grief. So, if the logic of the
subject has imperious demands, the controlling purpose must make count
of them. William James in his essay, "The Moral Equivalent of War,"
saw that before a reader could understand how civic work could be a
moral equivalent, he must see what the morality of war is. The subject
demands this. In an account of the United States Government it might be
logically necessary to state and explain first the theory of checks and
balances before the relations of executive, legislative, and judicial
branches could be properly estimated. Wisely chosen, the controlling
purpose of such an account would make this fact at once evident.