1. Milton’s poetry has given him his position among men. (9-46.)
    1. No poet has ever triumphed over greater difficulties than Milton. (10-19.)
    2. In his lesser works he shows his great power. (20-31.)
    3. [107] There is but one modern poem that can be compared with “Paradise Lost;” Dante’s “Divine Comedy” has great power, is upon a kindred subject, but in style of treatment widely different. (32-46.)
      Transition. (47-49.)
  2. His conduct was such as was to be expected from a man of a spirit so high and of an intellect so powerful. (50-90.)
    1. He lived at one of the most memorable eras in the history of mankind, and his conduct must be judged as that of the people is judged. (50-78.)
    2. There were some peculiarities which distinguished him from his contemporaries. (79-90.)
      Conclusion. (91-94.)

Again, taking up but one section, B, II., the analysis is as follows:—

  1. There were some peculiarities which distinguished him from his contemporaries. (79-90.)
    1. Milton adopted the noblest qualities of every party—
      1. Puritans. (80-84.)
        1. They excited contempt. However
        2. They were no vulgar fanatics; but
        3. They derived their peculiarities from their daily contemplation of superior beings and eternal interests.
        4. Thus the Puritan was made up of two men,—the one all self-abasement, the other all pride.
        5. Résumé of character of Puritans.
      2. Heathens were passionate lovers of freedom. (85.)
      3. Royalists had individual independence, learning, and polite manners of the Court.
    2. But he alone fought the battle for the freedom of the mind. (88.)
      1. This led him to discard parties; and (89)
      2. To dare the boldest literary services. (90.)

[108] The fundamental principle guiding in the selection of material is unity. It decides what may with propriety be admitted to the essay, and it determines in part what must be left out. Another principle, secondary to this, is scale of treatment. If the essay is to be short, only essentials may be used; if long, many related sub-topics must take their subordinate positions in the essay.

Arrangement. Following the selection of material comes its arrangement. Here also there is greater difficulty than was experienced in narration or description. Though the same principles of Coherence and Mass guide, they are more difficult to apply. The seat of the difficulty is in the elusiveness of the material. It is hard to picture distinctly the value and relation of the different topics of an essay. Suppose the subject is “The Evils of War.” The first paragraph might contain a general statement announcing the theme. Then these topics are to be discussed:—

  1. The effect on the morale of a nation.
  2. The suffering of friends and relatives.
  3. The destruction of life.
  4. The backward step in civilization.
  5. The destruction of property.

The order could not be much worse. How shall a better be obtained?

Use Cards for Subdivisions. The most helpful suggestion regarding a method of making the material in some degree visible, capable of being grasped, is that each subdivision be placed on a separate card, and that, as the material is gathered, it be put upon the card containing the group to which it belongs. By different arrangements of these cards the writer can find most easily the order that is natural and effective. It is much like anagrams, this ordering of matter in an [109] essay. Take these letters, s-l-y-w-a-r-e, and in your head try to put them together to make a word; you will have some trouble, probably. If, however, these same letters be put upon separate slips of paper, you may with some arrangement get out the rather common word, lawyers. It is much the same with topic cards in exposition; they can be moved and rearranged in all possible ways, and at last an order distinctly better than any other will be found.

Speaking of cards, it might be well to say that the habit of putting down a fact or an idea bearing on a topic just as soon as it occurs to one is invaluable for a writer. All men have good memories; some persons have better ones than others. But there is no one who does not forget; and each catches himself very often saying, “I knew that, but I forgot it.” It is a fact, not perhaps complimentary, that paper tablets are surer than the tablets of memory.

An Outline. In exposition, where the whole attention of the reader should be given to the thought, where more than ever the mind should be freed from every hindrance, and its whole energy directed to getting the meaning, the greatest care should be given to making a plan. No person who has attained distinction in prose has worked without a plan. Any piece of literature, even the most discursive, has in it something of plan; but in literature of the first rank the plan is easily discovered. How clear it is in Macaulay’s essay has been seen. In Burke it is yet more logical and exact. However beautiful a piece may be, however naturally one thought grows out of another, as though it were always so and could be no other way, be sure it is so because of some man’s thought, on account of careful planning. And it may be said without a chance of contradiction that when an essay has [110] been well planned it is half done, and that half by far the harder. “We can hardly at the present day understand what Menander meant, when he told a man who inquired as to the progress of his comedy that he had finished it, not having yet written a single line, because he had constructed the action of it in his mind. A modern critic would have assured him that the merit of his piece depended on the brilliant things which arose under his pen as he went along.” The brilliant things are but the gargoyles and the scrolls, the ornaments of the structure; and when so brilliant as to attract especial attention, they divert the mind from the total effect much as a series of beautiful marbles set between those perfect columns would have ruined the Parthenon. It was not in any single feature—not in pediment, column, or capital, not in frieze, architrave, or tympanum—that its glorious beauty lay, but in the simple strength and the harmonious symmetry of the whole, in the general plan. Webster planned his orations, Newman planned his essays, Carlyle planned his Frederick the Great. Their works are not a momentary inspiration; they are the result of forethought, long and painstaking. The absolute essential in the structure of an essay, that without which it will fail to arrive anywhere, that compared to which all ornament, all fine writing, is but sounding brass and a tinkling cymbal, that absolute essential is the total effect secured by making a plan.