Expository Writing

by Mervin James Curl

c. The Method of Division

A third method, often used, and similar in its general form to analysis, divides the subject into its various headings, the sum of which must equal the whole. This method differs from analysis, perhaps, in that it treats the subject throughout as a unit rather than as a congregation of parts. This method may be used to define a subject like mathematics, in stating that it is the pure science which includes arithmetic, algebra, geometry, etc., or to define a quality like patriotism, by enumerating the qualities that patriotism has. These qualities may be, also, the uses to which the subject can be put, as in defining a tool or a machine. The method consists in establishing the genus and then, from a mental map of the subject, selecting the various parts that constitute the whole, whether these parts be of physical extent, as in defining the United States by giving the various sections of the country, or of spiritual significance, as in defining an honest man by stating the qualities that he should possess.

One danger from this method is lack of completeness; great practical value attaches here to the caution to be sure that the definition includes all that properly belongs under it. Another danger is in the temptation to "talk about" the subject without actually defining it, merely saying some pleasant things and then ceasing. The caution against this danger in general must be remembered. Properly used, this method, though it is sometimes rather formal, should result in great clearness through completeness of definition. The following celebrated definition of a "classic" is a good example of compact definition by this method, and the definition of "moral atmosphere" of a more leisurely, informal breaking-up.

A classic is an author who has enriched the human mind, who has really added to its treasure, who has got it to take a step further; who has discovered some unequivocal moral truth, or penetrated to some eternal passion, in that heart of man where it seemed as though all were known and explored, who has produced his thought, or his observation, or his invention, under some form, no matter what, so it be large, great, acute, and reasonable, sane and beautiful in itself; who has spoken to all in a style of his own, yet a style which finds itself the style of everybody,—in a style that is at once new and antique, and is the contemporary of all ages.[21]

The moral atmosphere of the office was ideal. I mean more in the extended and not alone in our specific English sense, though in the latter it was even perhaps more marked. There was not only no temporizing, compromising, compounding with candor, in either major matters or trifling; there was no partiality or ingenuity or bland indifference by which the devil may be, and so often is, whipped round the stump. There was in the Nation's field and conception of its function no temptation to anything of this sort, to be sure, which consideration may conceivably qualify its assessment of merit on the Day of Judgment—a day when we may hope the sins of daily journalism will, in consequence of the same consideration, be extended some leniency—but certainly cannot obscure the fact of its conspicuous integrity. There were people then—as now—that complained of its fairness; which involved, to my mind, the most naïve attitude imaginable, since it was the Nation's practice that had provided the objector with his criterion of fairness in journalism. Of course he might assert that this was only a way of saying that the paper made extraordinary claims which in his estimation it failed to justify; but this was verbiage, the fact being as I have stated it.

But I also mean by moral atmosphere the peace, the serenity, the gentleness, the self-respect, the feeling of character, that pervaded the office. We seemed, to my sense, so recently filled with the reactions of Park Row phenomena, "to lie at anchor in the stream of Time," as Carlyle said of Oxford—which, actually, we were very far from doing; there was never any doubt of the Nation's being what is now called a "live wire," especially among those who took hold of it unwarily—as now and then some one did. Mr. Garrison shared the first editorial room with me. Mr. Godkin had the back office. The publication offices were in front, occupied by the amiable Mr. St. John and his staff, which included a gentle and aristocratic colored bookkeeper who resembled an East Indian philosopher—plainly a Garrisonian protégé. The silence I especially remember as delightful, and I never felt from the first the slightest constraint; Mr. Garrison had the courtesy that goes with active considerateness. The quiet was broken only by the occasional interchange of conversation between us, or by the hearty laugh of Mr. Godkin, whose laugh would have been the most noteworthy thing about him if he had not had so many other noteworthy characteristics; or by a visit now and then from Arthur Sedgwick, in my time not regularly "on" the paper, who always brought the larger world in with him (the office was perhaps a little cloistral as a rule), or the appearance of Earl Shinn with his art or dramatic criticism—both the best written, if not also the best we have ever had in this country, and the latter so distinguished, I think, as to be unique.

Of course, there were visitors, contributors and candid friends, but mainly we worked in almost Quakerish tranquillity five days in the week during my incumbency.[22]

d. The Method of Repetition

A fourth method, which may be used in connection with any other, consists in repeating the definition over and over in different words, from different points of view, driving home by accumulated emphasis. The value of this method lies in its feeling of absolute sureness in the reader's mind: once completed, the definition seems quite settled, quite tamped down, quite clinched. It is a difficult method to employ, for the writer is in great danger of saying exactly the same thing again and again, forgetting to assume different points of view. From such a definition tediousness is of course the result. The subjects treated by this method are likely to be abstract matters upon which light is shed from various angles, as if one poured spot lights from all sides upon some object which remains the same but which delivers up all its phases. Emerson often used this method, as in the following example where both the method of repetition and that of comparison are used:

The two parties which divide the state, the party of Conservatism and that of Innovation, are very old, and have disputed the possession of the world ever since it was made.... It is the counteraction of the centripetal and the centrifugal forces. Innovation is the salient energy; Conservatism the pause on the last movement. "That which is was made by God," says Conservatism. "He is leaving that, he is entering this other," enjoins Innovation.