CONTENTS 3-10 3-8 8-10 II-27 INTRODUCTION Beneath all forms of prose lie four kinds of writing, which, though variously combined, are yet distinct and separate. These are description, the methods of suggesting mental images corresponding in some degree to scenes beheld or imagined by the writer; narration, the methods of conducting a story; persuasion, the methods of moving men to action, whether through their reason or through their feelings; and exposition, the methods of lucid explanation. The principles set forth in this book, though they are generally applicable to all four kinds, are here applied exclusively to exposition. All brief pieces of exposition are included in the extended sense given here to the term essay. The direct use of these rules of construction is confined to revision. Indirectly, sound principles, and even sound rules of detail, may lead to good habits; but directly they are of no use till something, at least, is written. To write by rule, in the sense of pausing to apply rules in the process of composition, is, of course, futile. In that sense probably nobody ever wrote by rule. To rewrite by rule is simply to follow the method of progress in any art. |