True ease in writing comes from art, not chance, As those move easiest who have learned to dance. POPE: Essay on Criticism. COMPOSITION AND RHETORIC. INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. 1. Requisites for Composition. If we are to write anything which shall give interest and pleasure to others two things are necessary: we must have something to say, and we must know how to say it. Evidently, the ability to express ourselves well can be of little use to us until we have satisfied the first of these requisites. Finding something to say is ordinarily the great problem of all of us who are called upon to write, whether in school or elsewhere. It is not merely that we have nothing to express, for most of us are talking a great part of the time, but that we feel the greater importance of the written word, and do not readily satisfy ourselves that our thoughts and feelings are of sufficient importance to make it worth while putting them down in writing. This feeling of the inadequacy of what we might say checks the flow 3 of our thoughts. Further, we feel that we cannot present the things that we have in mind in their clearest and most attractive form. There are few of us, perhaps, who cannot remember how difficult it was, in our first years at school, to make ourselves understood. There were explanations which we could have made as clear as crystal in the class-room, had we known just how to express the thought that we held with so sure a grasp. How many times have we recalled the words of Portia, in "The Merchant of Venice," "If to do were as easy as to know what were good to do, chapels had been churches, and poor men's cottages princes' palaces." What we need is something to help us convey our thoughts to others clearly, forcibly, and gracefully. The practice of composition and the study of rhetoric are the sources to which we must look for help in surmounting our difficulties. 2. System in Composition. When we would write. our thoughts out for others, we should bear in mind that what we have to say must be arranged in some sort of organic system, so that one detail shall grow into another, and the whole shall result in rounded completeness. Composition is a placing of something with something. In reality, it is a placing together of our thoughts in an orderly way. Our composition when complete must follow one line of thought; that is, there must be unity. Each part of the composition must have a definite relation to some other part, and this relation must be clear. In addition to unity, then, a composition must have coherence; it must stick together. Composition, indeed, may be defined as the putting together of several elements so as to produce a unified and coherent whole. 3. The Function of Rhetoric. The ability to choose proper words, and to put them together into sentences, is not alone sufficient for a satisfactory expression of our thoughts. If I should say: "The man wept on hearing of the death of his mother," the assertion might be accurate in fact and correct in grammar, and yet fail altogether to convey the real emotional value of what I have in mind. For effective writing we must say what we have to say so that our readers or hearers may see exactly as we see, and feel exactly as we feel. It is the part of rhetoric to enable us to do this. The study of rhetoric should develop in us a clear understanding of literary qualities, it should give us confidence in our work, and it should enable us to present our thoughts in such fashion that they will make as great an appeal as possible to the sympathetic interest of our readers. We should not hope, through the aid of the study of rhetoric, to make the trivial appear important or the vulgar, polished and refined. It should be remembered, also, that the rules of rhetoric will but hamper us, if we do not come to such an understanding of the reasons for them as will enable us to use our own judgment under their guidance. Do not, then, confound a knowledge of text-book definitions with the skill acquired by applying them in practice. Do not |