And the Italian race may well be a subject for exposition. It is when we reach the individual in the last analysis that we have a proper subject for description. There are many Italians — the term may be expounded; there is only one Dante- he may be described. You may expound the meaning of tree and meadow and river, but you describe the landscape about you which has no exact counterpart among all the landscapes of the earth.

Strictly speaking, a subject for exposition is neither a material object nor an actual event. It is merely a mental concept-a concept formed by putting together in thought a certain number of common qualities or actions. Every individual of a class has the common class-qualities, but it has something more than these — it has in addition its individual characteristics. If it were possible to strip it of these latter, we should have our concept embodied, so to speak. But it is manifestly impossible to have a rose possessing size without being of any particular size, or possessing color without being of any particular color, although that is just what is contemplated by the concept called up in our mind by the general term rose.

For the present then rhetorical exposition may be defined as the process of defining and explaining the concepts called up in the mind by general terms or propositions.

All that has been said thus far in this exercise may be taken as an example of this process: it is an exposition of the term exposition. Now take one of the two subjects given at the head of this exercise and write a brief expository essay upon it. You must have obtained

from your practice and from the suggestions in the previous part of this book a pretty clear idea of what is comprehended by narrative or by descriptive composition. Expound that idea.

EXERCISE XLII.

INFORMAL ESSAYS.

Games of Chance.
Popular Superstitions.

The Court Jester.
Modern Chivalry.

Subjects:

A House Divided against Itself.
Penny Wise, Pound Foolish.
The Child is Father of the Man.
"Princes and Republics are Ungrateful.”

Expository composition is not, as might be inferred from the last exercise, limited to dry technical or abstruse subjects. There are multitudes of more or less vague ideas and of imperfectly settled relations in everyday life that open a tempting field to the expositor; the above list of subjects might be extended indefinitely. Remember only that you are to select general ideas and propositions: not, for instance, Triboulet, court jester to Francis I. of France, but the genus court jester; not the neglect of the United States Government in allowing Robert Morris to die in a debtor's prison, but the ungratefulness of republics.

Moreover, while the primary purpose of exposition is to assist the understanding, this does not forbid presenting it in a popular and interesting shape. Informal essays on these topics were at one time very much in

vogue, and their charm is by no means unappreciated to-day. One needs only to mention the names of Montaigne and Addison to prove this. We call these essays informal because they do not follow any rigid classification nor attempt to exhaust the subject or any phase of it. They are more or less rambling, though a cultivated literary sense will take care that they do not produce too disjointed an effect. Their interest is often heightened by giving them a personal tone, by pitching them in the colloquial key, as if the writer were conversing with his reader face to face instead of trying to reach him at long range.

To write in this style is not difficult, since it involves no very strenuous thought. But whatever the writing may lack, for this reason, in positive value, should be compensated for, if possible, by liveliness and pungency of style. For models, read the essays of Montaigne, of Addison, of Charles Lamb. Among the latter's may be specified The Old and the New Schoolmaster, Grace Before Meat, A Dissertation on Roast Pig, Poor Relations. The essays of Bacon may be referred to, though the familiar tone and the personal element are lacking in them. But they consist for the most part of a series of such detached observations that they can hardly be dignified with the name of formal or scientific essays.

The following model is extracted from A Complaint of the Decay of Beggars, one of the Essays of Elia. The long succession of short sentences and the antiquated forms are not commended for imitation.

Poverty is a comparative thing. . . . Its pretences to property are almost ludicrous. Its pitiful attempts to save excite a smile. Every scornful companion can weigh his trifle-bigger purse

against it. Poor man reproaches poor man in the streets with impolitic mention of his condition, his own being a shade better, while the rich pass by and jeer at both. No rascally comparative insults a Beggar, or thinks of weighing purses with him. He is not in the scale of comparison. He is not under the measure of property. He confessedly hath none, any more than a dog or a sheep. No one twitteth him with ostentation above his means. No one accuseth him of pride or upbraideth him with mock humility. None jostle with him for the wall, or pick quarrels for precedency. No wealthy neighbor seeketh to eject him from his tenement. No man sues him. No man goes to law with him. If I were not the independent gentleman that I am, rather than I would be a retainer to the great, a led captain, or a poor relation, I would choose, out of the delicacy and true greatness of my mind, to be a Beggar.

Rags, which are the reproach of poverty, are the Beggar's robes, and graceful insignia of his profession, his tenure, his full dress; the suit in which he is expected to show himself in public. He is never out of the fashion, or limpeth awkwardly behind it. He is not required to put on court mourning. He weareth all colors, fearing none. His costume hath undergone less change than the Quaker's. He is the only man in the universe who is not obliged to study appearances. The ups and downs of the world concern him no longer. He alone continueth in one stay. The price of stock or land affecteth him not. The fluctuations of agricultural or commercial prosperity touch him not, or at worst but change his customers. He is not expected to become bail or security for any one. No man troubleth him with questioning his religion or politics. He is the only free man in the universe.

The following is another example of this popular kind of exposition, though written in a very different style:

ARISTOCRACY IN AMERICA.

A word about American aristocracy, to begin with.
What, American aristocracy?

Yes, certainly.

I assure you that there exist, in America, social sanctuaries into which it is more difficult to penetrate than into the most exclusive mansions of the Faubourg Saint-Germain or of Mayfair and Belgravia. . .

The Americans, not having any king to give them titles of nobility, have created an aristocracy for themselves. This aristocracy boasts as yet no dukes, marquises, earls, or barons, but the blue blood is there, it appears- Dutch blood, as a ruleand that is sufficient.

...

A New York lady, who is quite an authority upon such matters, told me one day that Society in New York was composed of only four hundred persons. Outside of this company of elect, all Philistines.

Money or celebrity may allow you to enter into this charmed circle, but you will never belong to it. You will be in it, but not of it. The lady in question entered also into very minute details on the subject of what she called the difference between "Society people" and "people in Society"; but in spite of all her explanations I confess I did not seize the delicate shades of distinction she tried to convey. All I clearly understood was that the aristocracy of birth exists in America, not only in the brains of those who form part of it, but also in the eyes of their compatriots.

The desire to establish an aristocracy of some sort was bound to haunt the breast of the Americans; it was the only thing that their dollars seemed unable to procure them.

The second aristocracy is the aristocracy of money, plutocracy. To belong to this it is not sufficient to be a millionaire, — you must, I am told, belong to a third generation of millionaires. Of such are the Astors, the Vanderbilts, and company. . . . In the eyes of these people to have from thirty or forty to fifty thousand dollars a year is to be in decent poverty. To have two or three hundred thousand dollars a year is to be in easy circumstances. The third aristocracy is the aristocracy of talent, — literary and artistic society. This third aristocracy is incontestably the first, if you will excuse the Hibernicism.

I do not think that one could find anywhere, or even imagine, a society more refined, more affable, more hospitable, more witty, or more brilliant.