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CHAPTER VI

EXPOSITION

42. The principal work of exposition is explaining what a thing is (definition). That the explanation may be clear it is often necessary to repeat an idea (iteration).

Iteration occurs too in other processes of composition, often in argumentation and very often in persuasion.

I. Definition

43. State briefly the class to which a thing belongs and what distinguishes it from everything within its class (scientific definition).

Many examples may be found in the dictionary: baa, the cry (class) of a sheep (distinguished from other cries); baby, a young (difference within the class) child (difference from other classes).

EXERCISE 17

1. Define any object of the class-room; window, pencil, book, etc.

2. In a strict definition there are three things, the object defined, the class to which it belongs, and the difference. Let one take any two of these from the dictionary, and another supply the third.

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Love, said the maiden;
Beauty, said the page;
Freedom, said the dreamer;
Home, said the sage;
Fame, said the soldier;
Equity, the seer;

Spake my heart full sadly:

"The answer is not here."
Then within my bosom

Softly this I heard:

"Each heart holds the secret:
Kindness is the word."

- O'REILLY: Poems.

Give a short definition by different persons of home, school life, happiness, success, school exercises, etc.

4. The word, literature, is a perpetual source of confusion, because it is used in two senses, and those senses liable to be confounded with each other. In a philosophical use of the word, literature is the direct and adequate antithesis of books of knowledge. But, in a popular use, it is a mere term of convenience for expressing inclusively the total books in a language. In this latter sense, a dictionary, a grammar, a spelling-book, an almanac, a pharmacopoeia, a parliamentary report, a system of farriery, a treatise on billiards, the court calendar, etc., belong to literature. But, in the philosophical sense, not only would it be ludicrous to reckon these as parts of literature, but even books of much higher pretensions must be excluded as, for instance, books of voyages and travels, and generally all books in which the matter to be communicated is paramount to the manner or form of its communication.

-DEQUINCEY: Letters to a Young Man.

This definition is made clear by contrasting the two senses of litWhere are the phrases "philosophical," "popular," placed?

erature.

Why?

Subjects

Define by contrasting two senses of :

Politics.

Economy.

Social.

Electricity (scientific and popular sense).
Poetry.

Democrat, etc. (general and political sense).

5. Conversation, in any worthy sense of the word, is the rarest thing in the world; and people who can judge say that it is becoming rarer every day. People can talk and do talk, perhaps more than enough, but few can now-a-days be said to converse. People gossip and enjoy gossip, but these are perhaps the last people in the world who could be convinced of what is nevertheless a fact, that gossip is not conversation. How many people do you know who say those wise, and witty, and pathetic, and humorous things that fasten on the memory and cultivate the mind?

- FARRELL: Lectures.

This paragraph explains the meaning of conversation by distinguishing it from other things resembling it. The last sentence gives the author's full definition. In the exercise use, if necessary, a dictionary in which synonyms are discriminated.

Subjects

Distinguish the following from their counterfeits :

Glory (fame, notoriety).

Wisdom (knowledge, information).

Kindness (courtesy, affability).

Friendship (affection, selfishness).

Resolution (strength of will, pertinacity).

6. 'You ask me,' said Arminius, 'why I call Mr. Hepworth Dixon's style middle-class Macaulayese. I call it Macaulayese because it has the same internal and external characteristics as Macaulay's style; the external characteristic being a hard metallic movement with nothing of the soft play of life, and the internal characteristic being a perpetual semblance of hitting the right nail on the head without the reality. And I call it middle-class Macaulayese, because it has these faults without the compensation of great studies and of conversance with great affairs, by which Macaulay partly redeems them.'

ARNOLD: Friendship's Garland.

Arnold gives a definition of Dixon's style, using Macaulay as a standard, and then explains each word of his definition; first the class, then the difference. Division is a great help to exposition. Here the division into internal and external characteristics makes the explanation clear and orderly.

Subjects

Explain the following characterizations:
A style of dress (imitation Parisian).
A speaker (exaggerated Americanism).
A street (rural Broadway).

Stevenson's Treasure Island (a high-class dime novel).
A school leader (miniature Napoleon).

Characterize, using another member of the class explained, as a standard, and then explain:

A plan or book.

An athlete or student.
A building or a city.

7. If I were asked to describe as briefly and popularly as I could, what a University was, I should draw my answer from its ancient designation of a Studium Generale, or "School of Universal Learning.' This description implies the assemblage of strangers from all parts in one spot; from all parts; else, how will you find professors and students for every department of knowledge? and in one spot; else, how can there be any school at all? Accordingly, in its simple and rudimental form, it is a school of knowledge of every kind, consisting of teachers and learners from every quarter. Many things are requisite to complete and satisfy the idea embodied in this description; but such a University seems to be in its essence, a place for the communication and circulation of thought, by means of personal intercourse, through a wide extent of country.

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Newman amplifies his definition of a University and shows the meaning and consequences of each term.

Subjects

Amplify, showing your statement to be correct :

Any definition in this book.

Any definition in other school books.

A definition of newspapers, strikes, etc., for a debate.
A definition from a dictionary.

8. The good book of the hour, then, I do not speak of the bad ones, is simply the useful or pleasant talk of some person whom you cannot otherwise converse with, printed for you. Very useful

often, telling you what you need to know, as a sensible friend's present talk would be. These bright accounts of travels; goodhumored and witty discussion of questions; lively or pathetic storytelling in the form of novel; firm fact-telling, by the real agents concerned in the events of passing history;— all these books of the hour, multiplying among us as education becomes more general, are a peculiar possession of the present age: we ought to be entirely thankful for them, and entirely ashamed of ourselves if we make no good use of them. But we make the worst possible use if we allow them to usurp the place of true books: for, strictly speaking, they are not books at all, but merely letters or newspapers in good print. Our friend's letter may be delightful, or necessary, to-day; whether worth keeping or not, is to be considered. The newspaper may be entirely proper at breakfast time, but assuredly it is not reading for all day. So, though bound up in a volume, the long letter which gives you so pleasant an account of the inns and roads and weather last year at such a place, or which tells you that amusing story, or gives you the real circumstances of such and such events, however valuable for occasional reference, may not be, in the real sense of the word, a "book" at all, nor in the real sense, to be "read." A book is essentially not a talked thing, but a written thing; and written, not with a view of mere communication, but of permanence. The book of talk is printed only because its author cannot speak to thousands of people at once; if he could, he would — the volume is mere multiplication of his voice. You cannot talk to your friend in India; if you could, you would; you write instead: that is mere conveyance of voice. But a book is written, not to multiply the voice merely, not to carry it merely, but to perpetuate it. The author has something to say which he perceives to be true and useful or helpfully beautiful. So far as he knows, no one has yet said it; so far as he knows, no one else can say it. He is bound to say it, clearly and melodiously if he may; clearly at all events. In the sum of his life he finds this to be the thing, or group of things, manifest to him: this, the piece of true knowledge, or sight, which his share of sunshine and earth has permitted him to seize. He would fain set it down forever; engrave it on rock, if he could, saying, "This is the best of me; for the rest, I ate, and drank, and slept, loved and hated, like another; my life was as the vapor, and is not; but this I saw and knew: this, if anything of mine, is worth your memory.' That is his "writing"; it is, in his small human way, and with whatever degree of true inspiration is in him, his inscription, or scripture. That is a "Book."

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Ruskin defines the book of the hour, explaining and illustrating all the words of his definition, and then by contrast of contents and purposes he gradually unfolds the idea of a real book.

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