Drama. This is to be regarded as narrative wherein the characters speak and act for themselves, making the story before the spectators' eyes; while all the descriptive background is supplied by scenery and costume, or incidentally through the action and dialogue.

1. The plot of the drama must be more rigorous and interrelated, less tolerant of episode, than that of any other form of story. Every part must contribute clearly and obviously to the completed whole, and the action must be such as can be displayed on a stage. Hence drama must deal with the large and external elements of character, rather than with? subtleties of sentiment and thought.

2. The characters reveal themselves more quickly, and results come about by directer means than in real life. This comes of course from the limited time available for representation; the result is that they reveal themselves in more pointed and significant terms than in the novel.

3. In movement, the drama must keep its audience aware of the working of cause and effect. It is not sufficient that an event occur; we must be able to see what previous conditions or circumstances brought it about. This excludes the element of accident, as a means of solving a plot; any event, to be dramatic, must have its cause and agencies in some way indicated before the spectator's eyes.

CHAPTER XVI.

EXPOSITION.

WITH the coming two chapters we enter upon an important new phase of invention. We make transition from particularized objects to generalized, from things seen, heard, depicted, as matters of observation, to things conceived, identified, classified, as matters of penetrative and systematized thinking. We have been considering traits and acts that distinguish objects as individuals; we are now to look for the traits and acts that unite individuals into classes.1 And as we did in description and narration, so here we consider our subject first, so to say, in its statical, then in its dynamical aspect, first as something at rest, to be set forth as it is, and then as something in movement to an end; which distinction gives rise to the two literary types, exposition and argumentation.

Definition of Exposition. - Exposition is the fixing of mean.ings by generalization, that is, the exhibiting of objects, material or spiritual, as conceived and organized in thought. Let us briefly analyze this definition.

1. It is solely with the exhibiting of objects that is, setting forth their meaning, without taking sides that exposition is concerned. It does not raise the question of the truth or falsity of a thing; that belongs to another process; it seeks rather what the thing is, what is its real nature, its purport, its range and bounds.) It is time enough, when this is ascertained, to consider whether the thing, as 1 Compare what is said about description, p. 477, 2, above.

thus fully revealed, proves itself, or whether further proof of argument is needed.

NOTE. As related to argumentation, exposition is like preparing a term or question for debate; or, to use another comparison, like coming to an understanding on a question of litigation, without bringing it into court. How important this preliminary may be, can be seen from the following description of Abraham Lincoln's method as a jury lawyer: "His more usual and more successful manner was to rely upon a clear, strong, lucid statement, keeping details in proper subordination and bringing for- R ward, in a way which fastened the attention of court and jury alike, the essential point on which he claimed a decision. 'Indeed,' says one of his colleagues, 'his statement often rendered argument unnecessary, and often the court would stop him and say, "if that is the case, we will hear the other side.", " 1

2. The objects of exposition, like those of description, are material or spiritual; but while in description we look for unique traits, here we look for general. Exposition is merely a different approach to its object, an approach by way of the class rather than by way of the individual. (Not the thing itself, in fact, but the notion of the thing, with all the essential parts and qualities covered by the name, is what exposition deals with.

EXAMPLES OF CONTRASTED TREATMENT.— The difference of principle in description and exposition may be illustrated by the following extracts, which both deal with the same object, - the one treating it as an individual, the other as a generalized notion.

Here the qualities selected for mention are only such as can be attributed to some one oak-true of some oaks, but not necessarily true; an oak is just as truly an oak if it is neither hollow, huge, old, nor like an ivied tower.

1 NICOLAY AND HAY, Life of Lincoln, Vol. i, p. 307.

2 TENNYSON, Merlin and Vivien, 11. 1-5.

2. A scientific article on the oak thus begins :

"Oak (Quercus), a genus of trees and shrubs of the natural order Cupuliferæ, having monoecious flowers, the male in slender catkins or spikes, the female solitary or clustered; the fruit a nut or acorn, oblong, ovoid, or globular, protruding from a woody cup formed by the enlarged scales of the involucre; the leaves are deciduous or evergreen, alternate, entire, lobed, or sinuate. The species, of which there are about 300, are spread over nearly the whole of the northern hemisphere, except the extreme north. They are more numerous in America than in Europe; a few are found in Asia, none in tropical Africa, in Australia, or in South America except about the Andes."1

Here the information given pertains to any and every oak tree; it must be like this to be an oak. Further, the information pertains not to how the tree looks, but to its essential nature, the notion we are to form as corresponding to the name.

3. Because the object of exposition is exhibited as conceived and organized in the mind, that is, as a notion, not as an individual, the effectiveness of its presentation depends on mind-qualities, on acumen, clear thinking, breadth. - A logical notion is a human creation, not an object of nature. By this it is not meant to imply that generalization is a conventional or arbitrary process. The qualities and resemblances from which it is made up really exist, and it is an authentic interpretation of what is in the nature of things. But the detecting of these, and the grouping or separating by vital traits, is the work of a scientifically trained mind, requiring ideally the patience and judicial temper of science.

NOTE. Not less truly in exposition than in description, "the eye sees only what it brings with it the power of seeing"; but while in the described object there is something outstanding to strike on the sight, in the expounded object the power behind the sight must go forth to discover, and virtually to create, its concept. It is mind smiting itself into nature, and on its own plans reconstructing nature.

As exposition, though dealing with real objects, is so largely a matter of terms and logical distinctions, it takes

1 Chambers's Cyclopædia, s.v.

two very different aspects, according as the things themselves or the terms which represent them are in mind. This primal distinction between notions and names furnishes the basis on which the present chapter is divided.

I. EXPOSITION OF THINGS.

A logical notion, though created and ordered by the mind, has its basis in the nature of things; it is a reality to be interpreted independently of the symbols or terms which name it. The interpretation of symbols, to be considered later, is an affair of language and literary criticism; the exposition of things, though it has to use language as a terminology, is an affair of intrinsic analysis and classification.

Two directions there are in which the exposition of things may be carried. They may be exhibited intensively, that is, in the direction of their depth; or extensively, that is, in the direction of their breadth. In the first case they are treated as species in a class; the business of the exposition being to exhibit the specific traits common to all the individuals. In the second case they are treated as a whole class; the business of the exposition being to assemble and name the various species that together make up the class. These processes, it will be observed, are opposite, or rather complementary, to each other. The general term to denote the first is definition; to denote the second, division.

NOTE.The relation of the terms genus, species, and individual should here be noted. They make a logical series, the species being intermediate between the genus and the individual. With the genus, or class, exposition by division deals; and the traits it assembles, because they apply to the whole class, are called general. With the species exposition by definition deals; and the traits it names, because they are confined to the species, are called specific; in like manner an individual used to exemplify specific traits is called a specimen. As for the individual, and its traits or acts, not exposition but description deals with those; see above, pp. 477, 2, and 555, 2.