the objective is, makes even the individual paragraphs and sentences
more successful. If you will examine the paragraphs in "Pulvis et
Umbra," you will observe, pretty uniformly, at the beginning and end of
each, a strong statement of the message of the paragraph, sentences of
high emotional value. Each paragraph definitely advances the cause of
the controlling purpose. Even the sentences--an example of a sentence
uncontrolled occurs in Mr. Hamlin Garland's book, _A Son of the Middle
Border_: "It stood on the bank of a wide river and had all the value of
a seaport to me, for in summer-time great hoarsely bellowing steam-boats
came and went from its quay, and all about it rose high wooded hills."
The final item about the hills is in no way necessary, does not even
help to give the feeling of a seaport, which more often than not lacks
high hills. A sentence from Stevenson is in contrast: "The sun upon my
shoulders warmed me to the heart, and I stooped forward and plunged into
the sea." In this sentence facts, rhythm, even the sound of the words
drive in one direction.
Without being too dogmatic--for every problem in writing is new and
not infrequently a law to itself--you may be sure that if you have a
definite controlling purpose, and know well what it is, you will be more
likely to attain success with subject and with reader when you come to
the ordering of your material.
Finally, since strategy suggests that we attack the weakest places in
the enemy's defense, we shall do well, unless the logic of the subject
or the reader's prejudice demand otherwise, to make our strongest
blows when the enemy, the reader, is least prepared, that is, at the
beginning and the end. Success in writing depends so much upon the
freshness of the reader's mind, that an _attaque brusque_ at first to
insert important things, and a strong reinforcement at the end, when
the reader is pricking up his ears at the coming final period, form
a wise strategy. If, in order to understand one point, another is
necessary, or to avoid irritation, a roundabout method is advisable,
the path is plain. When these accidents do not obtain, the reader's
understanding will be most easily won at the beginning and the end. At
these points you must see to it that the reader is guided, with the
first word, toward the emotional tone that your controlling purpose
demands, and toward some important idea that bolsters this purpose, even
if, as we have seen Stevenson do, you seem to be at first flying away
from the purpose which we later discover. Thus Mr. Taft, in an article
entitled "Present Relations of the Learned Professions to Political
Government," places the ministry at the beginning and the law at the
end. His controlling purpose is to make the reader believe that every
profession offers large chance for the conscientious man to be of use to
the political government. Consequently he chooses the two that he thinks
most important, and of these places the less important at the beginning
and the more important at the end. In this way he succeeds at once in
turning the reader as he wishes, and leaves him also with the strongest
possible bias toward belief. And since these two professions offer the
greatest chance for victory for his controlling purpose, he gives them
much more space than to the others, almost three times as much to law,
for instance, as to teaching.
Moreover, since the emotions are affected in much writing, the skilled
strategist will instantly bear in mind just what emotion he wishes
to rouse, and will see that the ideas of greater moving value receive
larger development. Mr. Burroughs gives much more space to the sections
that deal with the excitement and the joy of bee-hunting than to those
that deal with the less pleasant side. To the difficulty of detecting
the flight of a bee he gives the single sentence: "Sometimes one's head
will swim following it, and often one's eyes are put out by the sun." To
the interesting actions of the bee when it is caught he gives at least
ten times as much space. In this way he guides the reader's emotions in
the way he wishes them to go--and makes successful writing.
The chief strategic problem in exposition, then, is that of so choosing
and arranging the material that the point of the writing is made
with the proper emphasis. For the accomplishment of this purpose the
writer must be able to answer the question, "_What do I wish to do
in this piece of writing?_" Then he must bring all the material and
its expression to bear upon the reader's mind so that the desired end
may be inevitable. To determine what his purpose is the writer must
consult the subject itself, his own personality, and the reader. He
must also bear in mind the reader's intellect and his emotions. And
he must unify the approach to both intellect and emotions. The firmly
held conception of what his purpose is will determine what material he
is to choose--what is useful and what is not--and also how to arrange
this material and how to proportion the space that different sections
shall have. He will arrange the material for the greatest advantage to
himself and the least resistance from the reader. In other words, to
make his writing successful in the sense of accomplishing its end, the
writer must, before he sets down a single word, decide upon what his
controlling purpose is to be and just how he intends to make material
and expression--even in the individual sentence--unite to drive in the
one direction of that controlling purpose.
AN IDYL OF THE HONEY-BEE[7]
_John Burroughs_
[7] John Burroughs: _Pepacton_. Houghton Mifflin Company, publishers,
Boston.
One looks upon the woods with a new interest when he suspects
they hold a colony of bees. What a pleasing secret it is; a tree
with a heart of comb-honey, a decayed oak or maple with a bit of
Sicily or Mount Hymettus stowed away in its trunk or branches;
secret chambers where lies hidden the wealth of ten thousand little
free-booters, great nuggets and wedges of precious ore gathered
with risk and labor from every field and wood about.
But if you would know the delights of bee-hunting, and how
many sweets such a trip yields beside honey, come with me some
bright, warm, late September or early October day. It is the golden
season of the year, and any errand or pursuit that takes us abroad
upon the hills or by the painted woods and along the amber colored
streams at such a time is enough. So, with haversacks filled with
grapes and peaches and apples and a bottle of milk,--for we shall
not be home to dinner,--and armed with a compass, a hatchet, a
pail, and a box with a piece of comb-honey neatly fitted into
it--any box the size of your hand with a lid will do nearly as
well as the elaborate and ingenious contrivance of the regular
bee-hunter--we sally forth. Our course at first lies along the
highway, under great chestnut-trees whose nuts are just dropping,
then through an orchard and across a little creek, thence gently
rising through a long series of cultivated fields toward some high,
uplying land, behind which rises a rugged wooded ridge or mountain,
the most sightly point in all this section. Behind this ridge for
several miles the country is wild, wooded, and rocky, and is no
doubt the home of many wild swarms of bees.
After a refreshing walk of a couple of miles we reach a point
where we will make our first trial--a high stone wall that runs
parallel with the wooded ridge referred to, and separated from it
by a broad field. There are bees at work there on that goldenrod,
and it requires but little manoeuvring to sweep one into our
box. Almost any other creature rudely and suddenly arrested in
its career and clapped into a cage in this way would show great
confusion and alarm. The bee is alarmed for a moment, but the bee
has a passion stronger than its love of life or fear of death,
namely, desire for honey, not simply to eat, but to carry home as
booty. "Such rage of honey in their bosom beats," says Virgil. It
is quick to catch the scent of honey in the box, and as quick to
fall to filling itself. We now set the box down upon the wall and
gently remove the cover. The bee is head and shoulders in one of
the half-filled cells, and is oblivious to everything else about
it. Come rack, come ruin, it will die at work. We step back a few
paces, and sit down upon the ground so as to bring the box against
the blue sky as a background. In two or three minutes the bee is
seen rising slowly and heavily from the box. It seems loath to
leave so much honey behind and it marks the place well. It mounts
aloft in a rapidly increasing spiral, surveying the near and minute
objects first, then the larger and more distant, till having
circled about the spot five or six times and taken all its bearings
it darts away for home. It is a good eye that holds fast to the bee
till it is fairly off. Sometimes one's head will swim following it,
and often one's eyes are put out by the sun. This bee gradually
drifts down the hill, then strikes away toward a farm-house half
a mile away, where I know bees are kept. Then we try another and
another, and the third bee, much to our satisfaction, goes straight
toward the woods. We could see the brown speck against the darker
background for many yards.
A bee will usually make three or four trips from the hunter's
box before it brings back a companion. I suspect the bee does not
tell its fellows what it has found, but that they smell out the
secret; it doubtless bears some evidence with it upon its feet or
proboscis that it has been upon honey-comb and not upon flowers,
and its companions take the hint and follow, arriving always many
seconds behind. Then the quantity and quality of the booty would
also betray it. No doubt, also, there are plenty of gossips about
a hive that note and tell everything. "Oh, did you see that?
Peggy Mel came in a few moments ago in great haste, and one of
the up-stairs packers says she was loaded till she groaned with
apple-blossom honey which she deposited, and then rushed off again
like mad. Apple blossom honey in October! Fee, fi, fo, fum! I smell
something! Let's after."
In about half an hour we have three well-defined lines of bees
established--two to farm-houses and one to the woods, and our box
is being rapidly depleted of its honey. About every fourth bee goes
to the woods, and now that they have learned the way thoroughly
they do not make the long preliminary whirl above the box, but
start directly from it. The woods are rough and dense and the hill
steep, and we do not like to follow the line of bees until we
have tried at least to settle the problem as to the distance they
go into the woods--whether the tree is on this side of the ridge
or in the depth of the forest on the other side. So we shut up
the box when it is full of bees and carry it about three hundred
yards along the wall from which we are operating. When liberated,
the bees, as they always will in such cases, go off in the same
directions they have been going; they do not seem to know that
they have been moved. But other bees have followed our scent,
and it is not many minutes before a second line to the woods is
established. This is called cross-lining the bees. The new line
makes a sharp angle with the other line, and we know at once that
the tree is only a few rods into the woods. The two lines we have
established form two sides of a triangle of which the wall is the
base; at the apex of the triangle, or where the two lines meet in
the woods, we are sure to find the trees. We quickly follow up
these lines, and where they cross each other on the side of the
hill we scan every tree closely. I pause at the foot of an oak and
examine a hole near the root; now the bees are in this tree and
their entrance is on the upper side near the ground, not two feet
from the hole I peer into, and yet so quiet and secret is their
going and coming that I fail to discover them and pass on up the
hill. Failing in this direction, I return to the oak again, and
then perceive the bees going out in a small crack in the tree. The
bees do not know they are found out and that the game is in our
hands, and are as oblivious of our presence as if we were ants
or crickets. The indications are that the swarm is a small one,
and the store of honey trifling. In "taking up" a bee-tree it is
usual first to kill or stupefy the bees with the fumes of burning
sulphur or with tobacco smoke. But this course is impracticable on
the present occasion, so we boldly and ruthlessly assault the tree
with an axe we have procured. At the first blow the bees set up
a loud buzzing, but we have no mercy, and the side of the cavity
is soon cut away and the interior with its white-yellow mass of
comb-honey is exposed, and not a bee strikes a blow in defense of
its all. This may seem singular, but it has nearly always been my
experience. When a swarm of bees are thus rudely assaulted with an
axe, they evidently think the end of the world has come, and, like
true misers as they are, each one seizes as much of the treasure as
it can hold; in other words, they all fall to and gorge themselves
with honey, and calmly await the issue. When in this condition they
make no defense and will not sting unless taken hold of. In fact
they are as harmless as flies. Bees are always to be managed with
boldness and decision.
Any halfway measures, any timid poking about, any feeble
attempts to reach their honey, are sure to be quickly resented. The
popular notion that bees have a special antipathy toward certain
persons and a liking for certain others has only this fact at the
bottom of it; they will sting a person who is afraid of them and
goes skulking and dodging about, and they will not sting a person
who faces them boldly and has no dread of them. They are like dogs.
The way to disarm a vicious dog is to show him you do not fear
him; it is his turn to be afraid then. I never had any dread of
bees and am seldom stung by them. I have climbed up into a large
chestnut that contained a swarm in one of its cavities and chopped
them out with an axe, being obliged at times to pause and brush the
bewildered bees from my hands and face, and not been stung once. I
have chopped a swarm out of an apple-tree in June and taken out the
cards of honey and arranged them in a hive, and then dipped out the
bees with a dipper, and taken the whole home with me in pretty good
condition, with scarcely any opposition on the part of the bees. In
reaching your hand into the cavity to detach and remove the comb
you are pretty sure to get stung, for when you touch the "business
end" of a bee, it will sting even though its head be off. But the
bee carries the antidote to its own poison. The best remedy for bee
sting is honey, and when your hands are besmeared with honey, as
they are sure to be on such occasions, the wound is scarcely more
painful than the prick of a pin.
When a bee-tree is thus "taken up" in the middle of the day,
of course a good many bees are away from home and have not heard
the news. When they return and find the ground flowing with honey,
and piles of bleeding combs lying about, they apparently do not
recognize the place, and their first instinct is to fall to and
fill themselves; this done, their next thought is to carry it home,
so they rise up slowly through the branches of the trees till they
have attained an altitude that enables them to survey the scene,
when they seem to say, "Why, _this_ is home" and down they come
again; beholding the wreck and ruins once more they still think
there is some mistake, and get up a second or a third time and
then drop back pitifully as before. It is the most pathetic sight
of all, the surviving and bewildered bees struggling to save a few
drops of their wasted treasures.
Presently, if there is another swarm in the woods, robber-bees
appear. You may know them by their saucy, chiding, devil-may-care
hum. It is an ill-wind that blows nobody good, and they make the
most of the misfortune of their neighbors; and thereby pave the way
for their own ruin. The hunter marks their course and the next day
looks them up. On this occasion the day was hot and the honey very
fragrant, and a line of bees was soon established S.S.W. Though
there was much refuse honey in the old stub, and though little
golden rills trickled down the hill from it, and the near branches
and saplings were besmeared with it where we wiped our murderous
hands, yet not a drop was wasted. It was a feast to which not only
honey-bees came, but bumble-bees, wasps, hornets, flies, ants. The
bumble-bees, which at this season are hungry vagrants with no fixed
place of abode, would gorge themselves, then creep beneath the bits
of empty comb or fragment of bark and pass the night, and renew the
feast next day. The bumble-bee is an insect of which the bee-hunter
sees much. There are all sorts and sizes of them. They are dull
and clumsy compared with the honey-bee. Attracted in the fields by
the bee-hunter's box, they will come up the wind on the scent and
blunder into it in the most stupid, lubberly fashion.
The honey-bee that licked up our leavings on the old stub
belonged to a swarm, as it proved, about half a mile farther down
the ridge, and a few days afterward fate overtook them, and their
stores in turn became the prey of another swarm in the vicinity,
which also tempted Providence and were overwhelmed. The first
mentioned swarm I had lined from several points, and was following
up the clue over rocks and through gulleys, when I came to where
a large hemlock had been felled a few years before and a swarm
taken from a cavity near the top of it; fragments of the old comb
were yet to be seen. A few yards away stood another short, squatty
hemlock, and I said my bees ought to be there. As I paused near it
I noticed where the tree had been wounded with an axe a couple of
feet from the ground many years before. The wound had partially
grown over, but there was an opening there that I did not see at
the first glance. I was about to pass on when a bee passed me
making that peculiar shrill, discordant hum that a bee makes when
besmeared with honey. I saw it alight in the partially closed
wound and crawl home; then came others and others, little bands
and squads of them heavily freighted with honey from the box. The
tree was about twenty inches through and hollow at the butt, or
from the axe mark down. This space the bees had completely filled
with honey. With an axe we cut away the outer ring of live wood and
exposed the treasure. Despite the utmost care, we wounded the comb
so that little rills of the golden liquid issued from the root of
the tree and trickled down the hill.
The other bee-tree in the vicinity, to which I have referred,
we found one warm November day in less than half an hour after
entering the woods. It also was a hemlock, that stood in a niche
in a wall of hoary, moss-covered rocks thirty feet high. The tree
hardly reached to the top of the precipice. The bees entered a
small hole at the root, which was seven or eight feet from the
ground. The position was a striking one. Never did apiary have a
finer outlook or more rugged surroundings. A black, wood-embraced
lake lay at our feet; the long panorama of the Catskills filled the
far distance, and the more broken outlines of the Shawangunk range
filled the near. On every hand were precipices and a wild confusion
of rocks and trees.
The cavity occupied by the bees was about three feet and a
half long and eight or ten inches in diameter. With an axe we cut
away one side of the tree and laid bare its curiously wrought
heart of honey. It was a most pleasing sight. What winding and
devious ways the bees had through their palace! What great masses
and blocks of snow-white comb there were! Where it was sealed up,
presenting that slightly dented, uneven surface, it looked like
some precious ore. When we carried a large pail of it out of the
woods, it seemed still more like ore.
In lining bees through the woods, the tactics of the hunter
are to pause every twenty or thirty rods, lop away the branches or
cut down the trees, and set the bees to work again. If they still
go forward, he goes forward also and repeats his observations till
the tree is found or till the bees turn and come back upon the
trail. Then he knows he has passed the tree, and he retraces his
steps to a convenient distance and tries again, and thus quickly
reduces the space to be looked over till the swarm is traced home.
On one occasion, in a wild rocky wood, where the surface alternated
between deep gulfs and chasms filled with thick, heavy growths of
timber and sharp, precipitous, rocky ridges like a tempest-tossed
sea, I carried my bees directly under their tree, and set them to
work from a high, exposed ledge of rocks not thirty feet distant.
One would have expected them under such circumstances to have gone
straight home, as there were but few branches intervening, but they
did not; they labored up through the trees and attained an altitude
above the woods as if they had miles to travel, and thus baffled
me for hours. Bees will always do this. They are acquainted with
the woods only from the top side, and from the air above; they
recognize home only by landmarks here, and in every instance they
rise aloft to take their bearings. Think how familiar to them the
topography of the forest summits must be--an umbrageous sea or
plain where every mark and point is known.
Another curious fact is that generally you will get track of a
bee-tree sooner when you are half a mile from it than when you are
only a few yards. Bees, like us human insects, have little faith in
the near at hand; they expect to make their fortune in a distant
field, they are lured by the remote and the difficult, and hence
overlook the flower and the sweet at their very door. On several
occasions I have unwittingly set my box within a few paces of a
bee-tree and waited long for bees without getting them, when, on
removing to a distant field or opening in the woods I have got a
clue at once.
Bees, like the milkman, like to be near a spring. They do
water their honey, especially in a dry time. The liquid is then
of course thicker and sweeter, and will bear diluting. Hence, old
bee-hunters look for bee-trees along creeks and near spring runs
in the woods. I once found a tree a long distance from any water,
and the honey had a peculiar bitter flavor imparted to it, I was
convinced, by rain water sucked from the decayed and spongy hemlock
tree, in which the swarm was found. In cutting into the tree,
the north side of it was found to be saturated with water like a
spring, which ran out in big drops, and had a bitter flavor. The
bees had thus found a spring or a cistern in their own house.
Wild honey is as near like tame as wild bees are like their
brothers in the hive. The only difference is that wild honey
is flavored with your adventure, which makes it a little more
delectable than the domestic article.
PULVIS ET UMBRA[8]
_Robert Louis Stevenson_
[8] R. L. Stevenson: _Across the Plains_. Copyright, 1892, by Charles
Scribner's Sons, New York City.
What a monstrous specter is this man, the disease of the
agglutinated dust, lifting alternate feet or lying drugged with
slumber; killing, feeding, growing, bringing forth small copies
of himself; grown upon with hair like grass, fitted with eyes
that move and glitter in his face; a thing to set children
screaming;--and yet looked at nearlier, known as his fellows
know him, how surprising are his attributes! Poor soul, here for
so little, cast among so many hardships, filled with desires so
incommensurate and so inconsistent, savagely surrounded, savagely
descended, irremediably condemned to prey upon his fellow lives:
who should have blamed him had he been of a piece with his destiny
and a being merely barbarous? And we look and behold him instead
filled with imperfect virtues, infinitely childish, often admirably
valiant, often touchingly kind; sitting down, amidst his momentary
life, to debate of right and wrong and the attributes of the deity;
rising up to do battle for an egg or die for an idea; singling out
his friends and his mate with cordial affection; bringing forth in
pain, rearing with long-suffering solicitude, his young. To touch
the heart of his mystery, we find in him one thought, strange to
the point of lunacy: the thought of duty; the thought of something
owing to himself, to his neighbor, to his God; an ideal of decency,
to which he would rise if it were possible; a limit of shame, below
which, if it be possible, he will not stoop. The design in most
men is one of conformity; here and there, in picked natures, it
transcends itself and soars on the other side, arming martyrs with
independence; but in all, in their degrees, it is a bosom thought.
It sways with so complete an empire that merely selfish things come
second, even with the selfish: that appetites are starved, fears
are conquered, pains supported; that almost the dullest shrinks
from the reproof of a glance, although it were a child's; and all
but the most cowardly stand amidst the risks of war; and the more
noble, having strongly conceived an act as due to their ideal,
affront and embrace death. Strange enough if, with their singular
origin and perverted practice, they think they are to be rewarded
in some future life: stranger still, if they are persuaded of the
contrary, and think this blow, which they solicit, will strike
them senseless for eternity. I shall be reminded what a tragedy of
misconception and misconduct man at large presents: of organized
injustice, cowardly violence, and treacherous crime; and of the
damning imperfections of the best. They cannot be too darkly drawn.
Man is indeed marked for failure in his efforts to do right. But
where the best consistently miscarry, how tenfold more remarkable
that all should continue to strive; and surely we should find it
both touching and inspiriting, that in a field from which success
is banished, our race should not cease to labor.
If the first view of this creature, stalking in his rotatory
isle, be a thing to shake the courage of the stoutest, on this
nearer sight he startles us with an admiring wonder. It matters
not where we look, under what climate we observe him, in what
stage of society, in what depth of ignorance, burthened with what
erroneous morality; by campfires in Assiniboia, the snow powdering
his shoulders, the wind plucking his blanket, as he sits, passing
the ceremonial calumet and uttering his grave opinions like a
Roman senator; in ships at sea, a man inured to hardship and vile
pleasures, his brightest hope a fiddle in a tavern and a bedizened
trull who sells herself to rob him, and he for all that simple,
innocent, cheerful, kindly like a child, constant to toil, brave to
drown, for others; in the slums of cities, moving among indifferent
millions to mechanical employments, without hope of change in the
future, with scarce a pleasure in the present, and yet true to his
virtues, honest up to his lights, kind to his neighbors, tempted
perhaps in vain by the bright gin-palace, perhaps long-suffering
with the drunken wife that ruins him; in India (a woman this time)
kneeling with broken cries and streaming tears as she drowns her
child in the sacred river; in the brothel, the discard of society,
living mainly on strong drink, fed with affronts, a fool, a thief,
the comrade of thieves, and even here keeping the point of honor
and the touch of pity, often repaying the world's scorn with
service, often standing firm upon a scruple, and at a certain cost,
rejecting riches: everywhere some virtue cherished or affected,
everywhere some decency of thought and carriage, everywhere the
ensign of man's ineffectual goodness:--ah! if I could show you
this! if I could show you these men and women, all the world over,
in every stage of history, under every abuse of error, under every
circumstance of failure, without hope, without help, without
thanks, still obscurely fighting the lost fight of virtue, still
clinging, in the brothel or on the scaffold, to some rag of honor,
the poor jewel of their souls!
OUTLINES
The Value of Outlines
It has been thought that the old Scotchman who said, "A man's years are
three score and ten, or maybe by good hap he'll get ten more, but _it's
a weary wrastle all the way through_!" came to his final words as the
result of writing outlines. If this be true, surely it is unfortunate,
for the writing of outlines brings exceeding great reward. An outline
is not an ancient form of blind discipline, but rather a helping hand
across the bogland of facts and ideas. It is a most useful instrument
toward good writing; its justification is its practical usefulness. This
usefulness, helpfulness, is double in its value--to the writer and to
the instructor, when there is one.
As to the value of an outline for the writer--without an outline you
face in your writing a complicated problem, more complicated, in
fact, than is justifiable. At one and the same time you must make
your thinking logical and your expression adequate--distinguished if
possible. Either of these tasks is sufficient to demand all your powers;
together, they offer a really overwhelming problem. Stevenson, to whom
style was of the greatest importance, as bone of the bone and blood of
the blood of the writing, wrote to a friend, "Problems of style are
(as yet) dirt under my feet; my problem is architectural, creative--to
get this stuff joined and moving." It was only after he had fitted his
material together that he felt able to devote himself to making the
beautiful prose that is so much admired. A noted Frenchman is quoted
as exclaiming, when first he beheld the famous Brooklyn Bridge, "How
beautiful it is!", then, "How well made it is!" and finally, after a
moment's reflection, "How well planned it is!" A good piece of writing
should have the same comments made; but they cannot be made, usually,
without the carefully planned outline.
You face the problem, without an outline, of answering the two questions
about every detail that presents itself for treatment: first, shall I
include or exclude this detail; and secondly, how shall I make this
detail help the general flow of my writing, and how shall I express it
so that it shall contribute to the proper tone of the work? And while
you thus judge each small detail, you must also keep your critical
faculties active to estimate your total course, whether you are cleaving
your way clearly, steadily, and with sufficient directness to your goal,
whether the work as a whole is answering your desires.
Now to ask the unaided brain, unless it has had long years of training,
to perform all this critical work during the actual process of
expression, is nothing short of cruel--and almost sure of failure. For
in any writing which enlists from you even a spark of interest the
fervor of creative work, the stimulating effect of seeing the work grow
under your pen, tends often to unseat the critical powers, to destroy
perspective, to make a detail seem more valuable or less valuable than
it should, on the whim of the momentary interest or repulsion. Thus the
logic of the writing is impaired, for details are included which should
not enter, and others are excluded which ought to be welcomed, and
proportions are bad. And the expression is so liable to unevenness as to
be less worthy than it should be. Bad logic and uneven expression beget
failure.
The outline helps to overcome these difficulties. In the first place,
it is not final, can be changed at will, and makes no extraordinary
demands on the powers of expression. In the second place, as regards
logic, the outline shows the relation of ideas to each other and to
the whole subject; you can estimate rather easily whether a detail is
of sufficient value to warrant inclusion, and, if so, how much space
it deserves. For in the outline you have the bare fact, succinctly
expressed, which enables you to focus your attention upon the thought.
But since logic is more than mere inclusion and order and spacing, and
deals also with the logic of attitude, the outline is again of service.
For it shows what should be the tone of the complete piece of writing,
and how this tone should be modified by the individual section of the
writing. Suppose that you are to write of the attitude of a politician
toward party principles. If a heading in your outline reads, "He never
_feared_ to _modify_ principles to meet inevitable conditions," the
attitude which you take in writing will be radically different from
that which you would assume if the heading read, "He never _hesitated_
to _warp_ principles to outwit unfavorable conditions." Both the logic
of structure and that of attitude, then, are aided by the use of an
outline. And, at any point in the actual completed writing, you can
easily determine by referring to the outline, whether you are gaining
the effect that you desire and what progress you have made. And in
the third place, as regards expression, the outline relieves you of
the necessity of doing the constructive thinking of the subject, and
enables you to apply all your powers to the actual saying of your
message. Shakespeare might have written, instead of "the multitudinous
seas incarnadine," "make all the ocean, that's full of fishes,[9] look
red"--but he did not. Had he done so, where would now have been the
power and the charm? Expression is of utmost value, and you can ill
afford to slight it. For this reason, and especially since distinguished
expression is so difficult to form, to be released from the attendant
worry of constructive thinking is of the greatest help to the writer.
Both logic and expression, then, are dependent on the outline: with it
they are more sure.
[9] If this be the meaning of "multitudinous."
Instead, then, of feeling that dim dread of failure, which ever dogs the
writer's steps, with a well-constructed outline you can feel comparative
safety in the possession of a safe guide in case of perplexity. You will
be initiated, will know the secrets of your subject, will have a "grip"
with your facts and ideas, and can apply your powers to putting the
intangible thoughts into tangible words.
As for being of value to the instructor, often he too can estimate more
surely and easily the worth of the writing if he has the skeleton to
examine. For there the structural defects are more apparent, are not
concealed by the pleasant flow of words, just as the structure of a
skyscraper is more apparent before the wall-tiles or bricks are laid
on to conceal the girders. The instructor can therefore often point
out insufficiencies in the thought, or wrong relations, which might
otherwise stand as defects in the finished work.
The Form of the Outline
Shall an outline be written in words and phrases or in complete
sentences? In the first place, so far as any reader except the author
is concerned, complete sentences are necessary for understanding.
Often they are necessary for the writer himself. In an outline of a
theme explaining gas engines the isolated heading _Speed_ means nothing
definite to any one but the author, if indeed to him. A reader cannot
tell from such a word whether speed is important or insignificant, or
whether the author intends to give to gas engines credit for comparative
excellence in this property. If, however, the heading reads, "In the
important property of _Speed_ gas engines are the equal of steam
engines," the reader knows at once what is meant, whether he may agree
with the statement or not. He can definitely tell from an outline of
complete sentences what the course of thought is to be and what will be
the tone of the theme. The reader, then, needs complete sentences. The
writer, on the other hand, might seem to be sufficiently helped by mere
words or phrases, since he naturally knows what he means. But does he
know? The chances are that when an author puts down such a heading as
_Speed_ he has only a large general notion of what he means, without
being sure of the immediate connection and application, and with perhaps
no idea at all of the tone which he intends to catch. If the author will
write the sentence quoted above, he will complete his thought, make it
really definite, and be pretty sure to know what he is talking about,
what he intends to do. Furthermore, even though he know, when he sets
down a phrase, what he means by it, the chance is strong that when he
arrives at the expansion of the phrase he will have forgotten some of
the implications and may give the heading a cast that he did not intend.
Whether he knows definitely what he means or not, the writer is more
safe if he uses complete sentences, and for any other reader of the
outline complete sentences are quite necessary.
Outlines are of three kinds: those that show the topic relations by
division into indented headings; those that show the sequence of
paragraphs by statement of the topic sentence; and those that combine
these two forms. The primary object of the first form, which is
illustrated by the first outline of "An Idyl of the Honey-Bee" which
follows, is to aid in the thinking, to plot out the ground and to group
the material. In this first outline a glance at the five main headings
makes the plan of the essay at once apparent--first a statement of the
effect of bees upon us; then an account of a hunt; then some specific
examples to drive things home; then some special directions that might
be overlooked, and finally a tribute to the joy of the hunting. The
benefit of this kind of outline is that the general relationships
among topics are made clear, the large divisions of thought appear,
and the writer can with comparative ease tell whether he has covered
the subject, and whether he has chosen the best order of thought. It
avoids the invertebrate flow of thought that is unaware of structure. In
other words, it is of value chiefly to the thinking. It does not show
which topics shall be grouped into paragraphs together, and it does
not, of course, phrase the topic sentences, usually. In such an outline
care should be taken to make each heading a complete sentence, and to
make headings that are of the same rank fairly parallel in structure
of expression unless this interferes with the tone of the heading. For
example, A, B, and C under III are made similar in structure since they
bear the same general relation to III.
The second type of outline, that in which a list of the topic sentences
is given, and which is illustrated by the second outline of "An Idyl of
the Honey-Bee" which follows, is of value, especially if used with an
outline of the first type, in that it shows just how much of the thought
should go into the various paragraphs, and thereby establishes the
divisions of expression. Comparison of the two outlines of "An Idyl of
the Honey-Bee" will show that paragraph 5 in the second outline includes
all the material in the four headings, 2, a, 1´, and b, under II in the
first outline. Now for the writer to know beforehand how he intends
to divide his material into paragraphs is of great value; otherwise he
might be giving to some comparatively minor point--which for the moment
assumes interest for him--a separate paragraph, as if, for example, Mr.
Burroughs had dwelt at length on the interesting location of trees on
ledges. In other words, this second kind of outline is valuable chiefly
in its arrangement and placing of material. Its service in making
the original choice is not so immediately apparent. It has also the
advantage that it indicates pretty well what kind of expression is to be
used in the expanded form.
The third type of outline, which many writers prefer to either of
the others, indicates both the topics to be treated and the division
into paragraphs. It may be constructed in either of two ways: first,
the topic sentences may be stated in their regular order, with the
subdivisions of the thought as they appear in the indented outline
grouped under the topic sentences; or in the indented outline the
paragraphs may be indicated by the regular sign for the paragraph at
any point where a new division is to be made. That is, in the first of
the two outlines that follow, the first paragraph might be indicated
in the first outline as including I and I, A; the second as including
II and II, A; the third as including II, B, 1, a, b, etc. Or, in the
second outline the subheadings of the first might be indicated under
the various topic sentences. The value of this type of outline is
obviously that it both shows the logic of the thought and the divisional
arrangement for presentation in paragraphs. With such an outline the
chances that you could go wrong, in even a long theme on a difficult
subject, are slight.
Do not fail, therefore, when your theme is to be of any considerable
length, or when the subject is at all difficult, to make an outline.
There is no greater pleasure in the world than that of creative effort
when the creator knows what he is about. But when the ideas are hazy,
when the writer does not know exactly what he wishes to do and what
impression he wishes to make--then the process of creation is anything
but pleasant. And since the outline presents a pattern of your work,
since with it you cannot fail to see what your intentions are and
what the requirements of your subject, regard it as your best writing
friend--and make use of the rights of friendship and require service.
FIRST OUTLINE OF "AN IDYL OF THE HONEY-BEE"
I. A colony of bees increases our interest in a wood.
A. The secret of the hidden golden store of honey is pleasing.
II. The hunt is most interesting, especially in the autumn.
A. Nature, as we tramp with luncheon and with bait, is in her
greatest glory.
B. We are stimulated by the odds against our finding the tree.
1. Determining the direction of the tree is a problem.
a. It is easy to catch the first bee and watch it devour
the bait.
b. But to be sure of its rapid flight home requires
sharp eyes and concentrated watching.
c. Only after three or four trips of the first bee do
others discover the secret of our bait and join in
establishing the necessary "line" to the tree.
2. Determining the distance of the tree requires skill.
a. From another point we make a new "line" that meets
the first at the tree.
1´. This is called "cross-lining."
b. It is easy to pass by the tree even when we know
about where it is.
C. Once found, the tree must be attacked boldly.
1. Bees do not sting a bold person.
2. But when a sting is touched, even on a dead bee, it
hurts.
3. Honey is the best cure for the sting.
D. The actions of the bees are interesting.
1. Those which are away from home do not recognize the ruins
of their own hive, and begin to eat.
a. At last they pathetically understand.
2. Robber bees come for plunder.
a. Bumble-bees arrive in large numbers.
1´. Compared with honey-bees they are clumsy.
III. Two examples from experience show the chances for missing and the
delights of triumph.
A. Both trees were hemlocks.
B. Both were in interesting situations.
C. Both yielded good store of honey.
IV. Special facts, occasioned by the habits of bees, need to be
remembered.
A. In the woods, the hunter must stop, every little while, to
test his "line."
1. Sometimes he is baffled, because the bees do not know the
woods from the ground side.
B. Bees hunt for honey far from home.
1. Usually it is easier to find a tree half a mile away than
from only a few yards.
C. Since bees like water, a careful hunter looks along creeks
and near springs.
V. Wild honey is better than tame because it tastes of the adventure
of finding it.
SECOND OUTLINE OF "AN IDYL OF THE HONEY-BEE"
1. The presence of a colony of bees in a wood gives it interest.
2. The fall is the best time to start with luncheon and bait off
across the fields a-hunting.
3. After two miles we catch several bees and watch them start for
home with our honey.
4. After several trips, other bees that have discovered the secret
arrive.
5. With one line established, we move on, establish another, find
the tree and attack it.
6. Boldness in handling bees is essential.
7. Bees that are away from home when their tree is attacked have
considerable difficulty in recognizing it.
8. Robber bees join the plundered to eat all the remnants of honey.
9. A neighbor honey-bee leads to another store in a hemlock.
10. Another tree in the vicinity, also a hemlock, had a superb
situation.
11. The honey in this tree was most pleasing to see and to carry
home.
12. In lining bees one must stop every little while and test his
line; bees puzzle sometimes by their actions since they know the
woods only from above.
13. Bees discover their home to the hunter better when they are
caught at some distance from the tree.
14. Since bees like water, it is well to hunt along brooks and near
springs.
15. Wild honey is sweeter than tame.
EXERCISES
I. Select the words and phrases in the selection from _Pulvis et
Umbra_ which immediately help to accomplish the controlling
purpose of the essay.
II. From what grade in the intellectual and social world does
Stevenson select his examples in the paragraph beginning: _If the
first view of this creature_, etc.? Why? From what grade would
you select examples for a similar paragraph if you intended the
creation of despair as your controlling purpose? What common
qualities are found in _all_ Stevenson's examples through the
selection? Why does he strive for this quality?
III. Make an outline of "An Idyl of the Honey-Bee," using the material
which now appears, but placing the accent of the essay upon the
difficulty of obtaining the honey, instead of upon the pleasures
of the hunt, as it is now placed--in other words, outline the
essay with change of controlling purpose.
IV. Write the first paragraph of the essay, and the last one, as you
would wish them to appear if your intention were to make
difficulty rather than joy the controlling purpose.
V. 1. Make an outline for "Solemn-Looking Blokes" with the
controlling purpose of bringing out the romantic nature of
the presence of American troops in England.
2. Make an outline such as would suit the expression of an
American who had been living in England since the declaration
of war in 1914 and had been taunted with the apathy of the
United States government, and now was supremely proud to see
United States troops in England.
VI. Write a final paragraph of "Solemn-Looking Blokes" to express any
of the following controlling purposes:
1. Joy at the union of the old and the new worlds in a common
cause.
2. Heartache at the awfulness of soldiers' sailing 3000 miles
to die because an autocratic government precipitated war.
3. The pride of an American resident in London over the physique
of the United States soldiers.
4. The astonishment of a London school-boy who has just read in
his history how the American colonies rebelled.
5. The apprehension of a British Tory lest aristocracy be doomed
when the troops of a great democracy appear so far away from
home to battle against autocracy.
VII. Write outlines and themes on any of the following subjects to
accomplish the different controlling purposes:
1. The Scientific Reduction of Noise.
1. To show the _social duty_ of engineers.
2. To show the wonder of man's analytical powers.
3. To show the seriousness of the difficulties that must be
faced.
2. The Growing Appreciation of Good Architecture in America.
1. To show the good educative work of our architects.
2. To show the influence of European travel.
3. To show the effect of the general rise in standards of
education.
3. The Popular Magazines.
1. To show the general looseness of thinking.
2. To show the senseless duplication of material and ideas.
3. To show the opportunity for a host of authors.
4. The Effects of the Big Mail-Order Houses.
1. To show how they ruin the small country store.
2. To show how they increase the opportunities of the small
buyers.
3. To show how they help give employment in the large
cities.
5. Is Religion Declining?
1. To show the shifting of responsibility from creeds to
deeds.
2. To show the changed status of the church.
3. To show the effect of increased education on religion.
6. "Best Sellers."
1. To show the relation of their immediate popularity to
their final valuation.
2. To indicate the qualities necessary to a "best seller."
3. To show the effect upon the thinking of a nation that has
many "best sellers."
7. Results of the Farm Credit Legislation.
1. To show the relief gained for the farmers.
2. To show the effect on increased production.
3. To show the fairer economic distribution.
8. The Use of Concrete.
1. To show the general economic value.
2. To show the general lightening of toil that it may have
caused.
3. To show the variety of its service.
9. The American Spirit.
1. To show its idealism.
2. To show its indebtedness to England, or France, or
Germany.
3. To show how it may help the world.
10. Beethoven's Piano-forte Sonatas.
1. To show them as the culmination of the sonata
development.
2. To show their romantic nature.
3. To show the development of Beethoven's genius as he
matured.
11. Heredity in Plants.
1. To show the similarity to heredity in man.
2. To show how knowledge of heredity in plants may serve an
economic purpose.
3. To show the wonderful consistency of the laws of heredity
in plants.
12. Glacial Action in the Mississippi Valley.
1. To show the economic result.
2. To indicate the sweep of time consumed in the formation.
3. To show the picturesque qualities in the gradual action.
VIII. What is the controlling purpose in the following selection? Point
out the influence upon the writer of knowing that Bostonians
would read his words. Indicate how the selection would differ if
the controlling object were to be bitter jealousy expressed by a
resident in a newer, larger, envious city.
Boston has a rather old-fashioned habit of speaking
the English language. It came upon us rather suddenly one day
as we journeyed out Huntington Avenue to the smart new gray
and red opera house. The very coloring of the _foyer_ of that
house--soft and simple--bespoke the refinement of the Boston
of to-day.
In the Metropolitan Opera House, New York, in every
other one of the glib opera houses that are springing up
mushroom-fashion across the land, our ears would have been
assailed by "Librettos! Get your Librettos!" Not so in Boston.
At the Boston Opera House the young woman back of the _foyer_
stand calmly announced at clocklike intervals:
"Translations. Translations."
And the head usher, whom the older Bostonians
grasped by the hand and seemed to regard as a long-lost
friend, did not sip out, "Checks, please."
"Locations," he requested, as he condescended to the
hand-grasps of the socially elect.
"The nearer door for those stepping out," announces
the guard upon the elevated train, and as for the surface and
trolley-cars, those wonderful green perambulators laden down
with more signs than nine ordinary trolley-cars would carry at
one time, they do not speak of the newest type in Boston as
"Pay-as-you-enter-cars," after the fashion of less cultured
communities. In the Hub they are known as Prepayment cars--its
precision is unrelenting.[10]
[10] Edward Hungerford: _The Personality of American Cities_. By
courtesy of the publisher, Robert M. McBride & Co., New York
City.
IX. What is the controlling purpose in the following selection from
Mr. John Masefield's volume of _Gallipoli_? Analyze this
controlling purpose as to the subject itself, the author's
personal reaction, and the intended readers--largely perhaps, the
American people.
Let the reader imagine himself to be facing three
miles of any very rough broken sloping ground known to him,
ground for the most part gorse-thyme-and-scrub-covered,
being poor soil, but in some places beautiful with flowers
(especially a "spiked yellow flower with a whitish leaf") and
on others green from cultivation. Let him say to himself that
he and an army of his friends are about to advance up the
slope towards the top, and that as they will be advancing in
a line, along the whole length of the three miles, he will
only see the advance of those comparatively near to him, since
folds or dips in the ground will hide the others. Let him,
before he advances, look earnestly along the line of the hill,
as it shows up clear, in blazing sunlight only a mile from
him, to see his tactical objective, one little clump of pines,
three hundred yards away, across what seem to be fields. Let
him see in the whole length of the hill no single human being,
nothing but scrub, earth, a few scattered buildings, of the
Levantine type (dirty white with roofs of dirty red) and some
patches of dark Scotch pine, growing as the pine loves, on
bleak crests. Let him imagine himself to be more weary than he
has ever been in his life before, and dirtier than he has ever
believed it possible to be, and parched with thirst, nervous,
wild-eyed and rather lousy. Let him think that he has not
slept for more than a few minutes together for eleven days and
nights, and that in all his waking hours he has been fighting
for his life, often hand to hand in the dark with a fierce
enemy, and that after each fight he has had to dig himself a
hole in the ground, often with his hands, and then walk three
or four roadless miles to bring up heavy boxes under fire. Let
him think, too, that in all those eleven days he has never
for an instant been out of the thunder of cannon, that waking
or sleeping their devastating crash has been blasting the air
across within a mile or two, and this from an artillery so
terrible that each discharge beats as it were a wedge of shock
between the skull-bone and the brain. Let him think too that
never, for an instant, in all that time, has he been free or
even partly free from the peril of death in its most sudden
and savage forms, and that hourly in all that time he has seen
his friends blown to pieces at his side, or dismembered, or
drowned, or driven mad, or stabbed, or sniped by some unseen
stalker, or bombed in the dark sap with a handful of dynamite
in a beef-tin, till their blood is caked upon his clothes and
thick upon his face, and that he knows, as he stares at the
hill, that in a few moments, more of that dwindling band,
already too few, God knows how many too few, for the task to
be done, will be gone the same way, and that he himself may
reckon that he has done with life, tasted and spoken and loved
his last, and that in a few minutes more may be blasted dead,
or lying bleeding in the scrub, with perhaps his face gone
and a leg and an arm broken, unable to move but still alive,
unable to drive away the flies or screen the ever-dropping
rain, in a place where none will find him, or be able to help
him, a place where he will die and rot and shrivel, till
nothing is left of him but a few rags and a few remnants and
a little identification-disc flapping on his bones in the
wind. Then let him hear the intermittent crash and rattle of
the fire augment suddenly and awfully in a roaring, blasting
roll, unspeakable and unthinkable, while the air above, that
has long been whining and whistling, becomes filled with the
scream of shells passing like great cats of death in the air;
let him see the slope of the hill vanish in a few moments into
the white, yellow, and black smokes of great explosions shot
with fire, and watch the lines of white puffs marking the hill
in streaks where the shrapnel searches a suspected trench; and
then, in the height of the tumult, when his brain is shaking
in his head, let him pull himself together with his friends,
and clamber up out of the trench, to go forward against an
invisible enemy, safe in some unseen trench expecting him.[11]
[11] John Masefield: _Gallipoli_. By courtesy of the publishers, The
Macmillan Company, New York City.
What light does the following paragraph which appears at the
beginning of the book throw upon the controlling purpose?
Later, when there was leisure, I began to consider
the Dardanelles Campaign, not as a tragedy, nor as a mistake,
but as a great human effort, which came, more than once, very
near to triumph, achieved the impossible many times, and
failed, in the end, as many great deeds of arms have failed,
from something which had nothing to do with arms nor with the
men who bore them. That the effort failed is not against
it; much that is most splendid in military history failed,
many great things and noble men have failed. To myself, this
failure is the second grand event of the war; the first was
Belgium's answer to the German ultimatum.[12]
[12] John Masefield: _Gallipoli_. By courtesy of the publishers, The
Macmillan Company, New York City.
X. Explain what would be your controlling purpose in a theme on any
of the following subjects, and how you would _arrange your
material_ to accomplish this purpose.
1. What is the Primary Function of a Successful Novel?
2. The Philosophy of Woman Suffrage.
3. Lynch Law and Law Reform.
4. The Conservatism of the American College Student.
5. Intellectual Bravery.
6. A Mediæval Free City.
7. Mr. Roosevelt's Career as an Index of the American Character.
8. Practical Efficiency as an Enemy to "Sweetness and Light."
9. The Æsthetics of the Skyscraper.
10. Possibilities for the Small Farmer in America.
11. The Future of Civil Engineering.
12. Housekeeping as an Exact Science.
XI. Indicate what your controlling purpose would be in writing of
the following subjects, if you chose your purpose from the
_subject-matter alone_. Then show how the purpose might be
affected by the different sets of readers as they are indicated
in the subheadings.
1. The Intelligence of the Average Voter.
a. For a woman who eagerly desires woman suffrage.
b. For a refined but narrow aristocrat, descendant of an old
family.
c. For an agitating member of the I.W.W.
2. The Value of Courses in Literature for the Technical Student.
a. For a hard-headed civil engineer.
b. For a white-haired, kindly old professor of Greek, who
resents the intrusion of science and labor.
c. For a mother who wants her son to "get everything good
from his technical course."
3. The Delights of Fishing.
a. For a woman who cannot understand why her husband wants
to be always going on silly fishing trips.
b. For a group of city men who are devotees of the sport.
c. For a small boy who hopes some day to go with "Dad" on
his trips.
4. The Value of the Civic Center.
a. For a man who resents the extra taxation that would be
necessary to make one in his city.
b. For a prominent, public-spirited architect.
c. For a young woman graduate from college who eagerly
desires to "do something" for her city.
5. The Spirit of the "Middle West," the "Old South" or any other
section of the country.
a. For a proud resident.
b. For a sniffy resident of another section.
c. For a person who has never thought of such a thing.