It is a common impression that oriental rugs are as difficult to know as the 320,000 specimens of plants, and the 20,000,000 forms of animal life that Herbert Spencer advised for the teaching of boys. This impression is wrong. There are only six groups or families of oriental rugs, and less than fifty common kinds. The novice can learn to distinguish the six families in sixty minutes. He would confuse them occasionally on so short acquaintance, but a college examiner would give him a passing grade.Persian rugs are the rugs that are profusely decorated with a great variety of flowers, leaves, vines, and occasional birds and animals, woven free hand, with purely decorative intent. India rugs are those in which flowers, leaves, vines, and occasional animals are woven as they appear in nature. Early Indian weavers transcribed flowers to rugs as if they were botanists; modern Indian weavers are copyists of Persian patterns and their copies are plainly not originals.In broad generalization, therefore, the two families of oriental rugs that are decorated almost exclusively with flowers have distinct styles that render their identification comparatively easy.The Turkoman and Caucasian families of oriental rugs also pair off by themselves. They are the rugs of almost pure geometric linear design. Turkoman rugs, comprising the products of Turkestan, Bokhara, Afghanistan, and Beluchistan, are red rugs with web or open ends, woven in the patterns of the kindergarten—squares, diamonds, octagons, etc. That wild tribes should dye their wools in the shades of blood and weave the designs of childhood is fitting and logical.Caucasian rugs differ from Turkoman rugs in being dyed in other colors than blood red, in omitting the apron ends, and in being more crowded, elaborate, and pretentious in geometric linear pattern. The Caucasian weaver's distinction as the oriental cartoonist, the expert in wooden men, women, and animals, is well deserved. He holds the oriental rug patent on Noah's ark designs. Incidentally Mount Ararat and Noah's grave, "shown" near Nakhitchevan, are located on the southern border of his country.Chinese and Turkish rugs pair off almost as logically as the other rug families, although they are totally unlike in appearance. They contain both geometric linear and floral designs; the designs of thevery early rugs of both groups generally are geometric, and the later ones floral. But these facts are not identifying.Chinese rugs can be recognized instantly by their colors, which are determined by their backgrounds, the reverse of the Persian method, which is to make the design the principal color medium. The Chinese colors are probably best described as the lighter and softer colors of silk—dull yellows, rose, salmon red, browns, and tans, the design usually being blue. The Chinese were the original manufacturers and dyers of silk, and they applied their silk dyes to their rugs.Turkish rugs that are ornamented with flowers and leaves can be distinguished from Persian and Indian products by the ruler-drawn character of their patterns. A keen observer describes them as quasi-botanical forms angularly treated. Turkish rugs that contain the patterns common to the Caucasian and Turkoman families can be recognized by their brighter, sharper, and more contrasting colors. The key to the identification of this most difficult rug family is to be found in the Turkish prayer rugs. To know Turkish rugs, one must see many of them; to know the other families one need see only a few.Reduced to a minimum statement, the identification of the six oriental rug families amounts to this:Persian rugs—floral designs drawn free hand.India rugs—floral designs photographed and copied.Turkoman rugs—geometric linear design, blood red, web ends.Caucasian rugs—geometric linear designs, numerous blended colors.Chinese rugs—floral and geometric linear designs, silk colors.Turkish rugs—floral designs, angular, ruled; and geometrical designs, bright contrasting colors.To be able to identify an oriental rug as a particular kind of Persian, Indian, Turkish, Turkoman, Caucasian or Chinese weaving is somewhat more of an accomplishment. The way to begin is to study first the rugs that have distinct or fairly constant characteristics. Take Persian rugs, for example:Bijar—rugs as thick as two or even three ordinary rugs.Fereghan—small leaf design, usually with green border.Gorevan or Scrapi—huge medallions, strong reds and blues.Herat or Ispahan—intricate, stately design on claret ground.Hamadan—a camel hair rug.Kashan—dark, rich, closely patterned, extremely finely woven.Kermanshah—the "parlor" rug, soft cream, rose, and blue.Khorassan—plum colored, small leaf design, long, soft, wool.Kurd—colored yarn run through the end web.Meshed—soft rose and blue with silver cast.Polonaise—delicately colored antique silk rug.Saraband—palm leaf or India shawl design on rose or blue ground.Sehna—closest woven small rug, minute pattern.Shiraz—limp rug, the sides overcast with yarns of various colors.Tabriz—reddish yellow, the design sometimes resembling a baseball diamond.To extend this list would make wearisome reading. Let it suffice to indicate that many oriental rugs, like people, have marked facial distinctions, and that many others have marked peculiarities of body and finish, that make them easy to recognize. Ease of naming, however, ceases with distinct markings, and rugs that are out-and-out hybrids, the cross-bred products of wars, migrations, and trade, are not named, but attributed.Hybrid oriental rugs—the bane of the novice and the joy of the collector—are largely an epitome of the wars of Asia. Cyrus the Great, heading a host of Persians, conquered the Babylonians 500 years before Christ. Of course the Babylonians became interested in Persian rugs and appropriated some of their patterns. Two hundred years later Alexander the Great invaded Asia and conquered it, except the distant provinces of India and China. The Mohammedan Arabs mastered the Persians in the East and the Spaniards in the West in the sixth century. Genghis Khan, out of China with warriors as numerous as locusts, made a single nation of Central Asia in the thirteenth century; and Tamerlane later made subject farther dominions. Even 200 years ago the Afghans conquered the Persians; and as recently as 1771, 600,000 Tartars fled from eastern Russia to the frontiers of China under conditions to make DeQuincey's essay, "Revolt of the Tartars," a contribution to rug literature.The wonder is not, therefore, that Chinese patterns are found in Turkestan, Persian, and Turkish rugs; that Persian patterns are found in Indian, Caucasian and Turkish rugs; that Turkish-Mohammedan patterns reach from Spain to China; and that European designs are found wherever oriental invention bent the knee to imitation. The wonder is rather that there are so many oriental rugs with distinct or fairly constant characteristics.[38]She was at once the daughter of Henry and of Anne Boleyn. From her father she inherited her frank and hearty address, her love of popularity and of free intercourse with the people, her dauntless courage and her amazing self-confidence. Her harsh, manlike voice, her impetuous will, her pride, her furious outbursts of anger, came to her with her Tudor blood. She rated great nobles as if they were school-boys; she met the insolence of Essex with a box on the ear; she would break now and then into the gravest deliberations to swear at her ministers like a fishwife. But strangely in contrast with the violent outlines of her Tudor temper stood the sensuous, self-indulgent nature she derived from Anne Boleyn. Splendour and pleasure were with Elizabeth the very air she breathed. Her delight was to move in perpetual progresses from castle to castle through a series of gorgeous pageants, fanciful and extravagant as a caliph's dream. She loved gaiety and laughter and wit. A happy retort or a finished compliment never failed to win her favour. She hoarded jewels. Her dresses were innumerable. Her vanity remained, even to old age, the vanity of a coquette in her teens. No adulation was too fulsome for her, no flattery of her beauty too gross. "To see her was Heaven," Hatton told her, "the lack of her was hell." She would play with her rings that her courtiers might note the delicacy of her hands; or dance a coranto that the French Ambassador, hidden dexterously behind a curtain, might report her sprightliness to his master. Her levity, her frivolous laughter, her unwomanly jests, gave colour to a thousand scandals. Her character, in fact, like her portrait, was utterly without shade. Of womanly reserve or self-restraint she knew nothing. No instinct of delicacy veiled thevoluptuous temper which had broken out in the romps of her girlhood and showed itself almost ostentatiously throughout her later life. Personal beauty in a man was a sure passport to her liking. She patted handsome young squires on the neck when they knelt to kiss her hand, and fondled her "sweet Robin," Lord Leicester, in the face of the court.[39]
It is a common impression that oriental rugs are as difficult to know as the 320,000 specimens of plants, and the 20,000,000 forms of animal life that Herbert Spencer advised for the teaching of boys. This impression is wrong. There are only six groups or families of oriental rugs, and less than fifty common kinds. The novice can learn to distinguish the six families in sixty minutes. He would confuse them occasionally on so short acquaintance, but a college examiner would give him a passing grade.
Persian rugs are the rugs that are profusely decorated with a great variety of flowers, leaves, vines, and occasional birds and animals, woven free hand, with purely decorative intent. India rugs are those in which flowers, leaves, vines, and occasional animals are woven as they appear in nature. Early Indian weavers transcribed flowers to rugs as if they were botanists; modern Indian weavers are copyists of Persian patterns and their copies are plainly not originals.
In broad generalization, therefore, the two families of oriental rugs that are decorated almost exclusively with flowers have distinct styles that render their identification comparatively easy.
The Turkoman and Caucasian families of oriental rugs also pair off by themselves. They are the rugs of almost pure geometric linear design. Turkoman rugs, comprising the products of Turkestan, Bokhara, Afghanistan, and Beluchistan, are red rugs with web or open ends, woven in the patterns of the kindergarten—squares, diamonds, octagons, etc. That wild tribes should dye their wools in the shades of blood and weave the designs of childhood is fitting and logical.
Caucasian rugs differ from Turkoman rugs in being dyed in other colors than blood red, in omitting the apron ends, and in being more crowded, elaborate, and pretentious in geometric linear pattern. The Caucasian weaver's distinction as the oriental cartoonist, the expert in wooden men, women, and animals, is well deserved. He holds the oriental rug patent on Noah's ark designs. Incidentally Mount Ararat and Noah's grave, "shown" near Nakhitchevan, are located on the southern border of his country.
Chinese and Turkish rugs pair off almost as logically as the other rug families, although they are totally unlike in appearance. They contain both geometric linear and floral designs; the designs of thevery early rugs of both groups generally are geometric, and the later ones floral. But these facts are not identifying.
Chinese rugs can be recognized instantly by their colors, which are determined by their backgrounds, the reverse of the Persian method, which is to make the design the principal color medium. The Chinese colors are probably best described as the lighter and softer colors of silk—dull yellows, rose, salmon red, browns, and tans, the design usually being blue. The Chinese were the original manufacturers and dyers of silk, and they applied their silk dyes to their rugs.
Turkish rugs that are ornamented with flowers and leaves can be distinguished from Persian and Indian products by the ruler-drawn character of their patterns. A keen observer describes them as quasi-botanical forms angularly treated. Turkish rugs that contain the patterns common to the Caucasian and Turkoman families can be recognized by their brighter, sharper, and more contrasting colors. The key to the identification of this most difficult rug family is to be found in the Turkish prayer rugs. To know Turkish rugs, one must see many of them; to know the other families one need see only a few.
Reduced to a minimum statement, the identification of the six oriental rug families amounts to this:
Persian rugs—floral designs drawn free hand.
India rugs—floral designs photographed and copied.
Turkoman rugs—geometric linear design, blood red, web ends.
Caucasian rugs—geometric linear designs, numerous blended colors.
Chinese rugs—floral and geometric linear designs, silk colors.
Turkish rugs—floral designs, angular, ruled; and geometrical designs, bright contrasting colors.
To be able to identify an oriental rug as a particular kind of Persian, Indian, Turkish, Turkoman, Caucasian or Chinese weaving is somewhat more of an accomplishment. The way to begin is to study first the rugs that have distinct or fairly constant characteristics. Take Persian rugs, for example:
Bijar—rugs as thick as two or even three ordinary rugs.
Fereghan—small leaf design, usually with green border.
Gorevan or Scrapi—huge medallions, strong reds and blues.
Herat or Ispahan—intricate, stately design on claret ground.
Hamadan—a camel hair rug.
Kashan—dark, rich, closely patterned, extremely finely woven.
Kermanshah—the "parlor" rug, soft cream, rose, and blue.
Khorassan—plum colored, small leaf design, long, soft, wool.
Kurd—colored yarn run through the end web.
Meshed—soft rose and blue with silver cast.
Polonaise—delicately colored antique silk rug.
Saraband—palm leaf or India shawl design on rose or blue ground.
Sehna—closest woven small rug, minute pattern.
Shiraz—limp rug, the sides overcast with yarns of various colors.
Tabriz—reddish yellow, the design sometimes resembling a baseball diamond.
To extend this list would make wearisome reading. Let it suffice to indicate that many oriental rugs, like people, have marked facial distinctions, and that many others have marked peculiarities of body and finish, that make them easy to recognize. Ease of naming, however, ceases with distinct markings, and rugs that are out-and-out hybrids, the cross-bred products of wars, migrations, and trade, are not named, but attributed.
Hybrid oriental rugs—the bane of the novice and the joy of the collector—are largely an epitome of the wars of Asia. Cyrus the Great, heading a host of Persians, conquered the Babylonians 500 years before Christ. Of course the Babylonians became interested in Persian rugs and appropriated some of their patterns. Two hundred years later Alexander the Great invaded Asia and conquered it, except the distant provinces of India and China. The Mohammedan Arabs mastered the Persians in the East and the Spaniards in the West in the sixth century. Genghis Khan, out of China with warriors as numerous as locusts, made a single nation of Central Asia in the thirteenth century; and Tamerlane later made subject farther dominions. Even 200 years ago the Afghans conquered the Persians; and as recently as 1771, 600,000 Tartars fled from eastern Russia to the frontiers of China under conditions to make DeQuincey's essay, "Revolt of the Tartars," a contribution to rug literature.
The wonder is not, therefore, that Chinese patterns are found in Turkestan, Persian, and Turkish rugs; that Persian patterns are found in Indian, Caucasian and Turkish rugs; that Turkish-Mohammedan patterns reach from Spain to China; and that European designs are found wherever oriental invention bent the knee to imitation. The wonder is rather that there are so many oriental rugs with distinct or fairly constant characteristics.[38]
She was at once the daughter of Henry and of Anne Boleyn. From her father she inherited her frank and hearty address, her love of popularity and of free intercourse with the people, her dauntless courage and her amazing self-confidence. Her harsh, manlike voice, her impetuous will, her pride, her furious outbursts of anger, came to her with her Tudor blood. She rated great nobles as if they were school-boys; she met the insolence of Essex with a box on the ear; she would break now and then into the gravest deliberations to swear at her ministers like a fishwife. But strangely in contrast with the violent outlines of her Tudor temper stood the sensuous, self-indulgent nature she derived from Anne Boleyn. Splendour and pleasure were with Elizabeth the very air she breathed. Her delight was to move in perpetual progresses from castle to castle through a series of gorgeous pageants, fanciful and extravagant as a caliph's dream. She loved gaiety and laughter and wit. A happy retort or a finished compliment never failed to win her favour. She hoarded jewels. Her dresses were innumerable. Her vanity remained, even to old age, the vanity of a coquette in her teens. No adulation was too fulsome for her, no flattery of her beauty too gross. "To see her was Heaven," Hatton told her, "the lack of her was hell." She would play with her rings that her courtiers might note the delicacy of her hands; or dance a coranto that the French Ambassador, hidden dexterously behind a curtain, might report her sprightliness to his master. Her levity, her frivolous laughter, her unwomanly jests, gave colour to a thousand scandals. Her character, in fact, like her portrait, was utterly without shade. Of womanly reserve or self-restraint she knew nothing. No instinct of delicacy veiled thevoluptuous temper which had broken out in the romps of her girlhood and showed itself almost ostentatiously throughout her later life. Personal beauty in a man was a sure passport to her liking. She patted handsome young squires on the neck when they knelt to kiss her hand, and fondled her "sweet Robin," Lord Leicester, in the face of the court.[39]
The formal analyses are in general far less frequent than the informal, which are found constantly in the weekly and monthly magazines and in the editorials of our daily papers. These analyses aim at giving the core of the subject, the gist of the matter, with sufficient important facts or points as background. Thus you will read an account of our relations with Mexico during the revolution in that country. Not everything is said; only the vital things. A study of the character of Mr. Roosevelt or of Mr. Wilson, an article explaining the problems that had to be faced in the building of the Keokuk or the Shoshone dams, a treatment of the question of conscription in England—these and thousands of others flood upon us with the object of illuminating our approach to the subject, of interpreting for us the heart of the matter. Mr. More, in the essay already mentioned, says little about Tennyson's verse form, about his zeal for the tale of Arthur, about the influence upon him of the classics of Greece and Rome. Into a complete treatise these would of course enter; here Mr. More's object is not all-inclusiveness, as one should examine the Pyramids for not only their plan and size but also for their minute finish, their varying materials, their methods of jointure, and the thousand other details; rather he estimates what his subject is, as one should journey round the Pyramids, view them in general, find their significance, and discover the few essentials that make them not cathedrals, not Roman circuses,but Pyramids. In other words, interpretation is the object rather than completeness of fact.
Obviously an informal analysis must be complete as far as it goes, must be complete for its author's purpose, is not good writing if it gives only a partial interpretation which gets nowhere. It is at once apparent, then, that the controlling purpose which has been discussed at length in an earlier chapter is in informal analysis of the utmost importance. Only as it is clearly held in mind will the author know when to stop, what to choose. In formal analysis, where his object is to say all that there is to say, he chooses and ceases to choose by the standard of completeness of fact; in informal analysis he must choose and cease to choose by the standard of whether he has accomplished the desired effect, made the desired interpretation. His analysis, therefore, is valuable only when he has chosen the proper interpretation and has made it effective and clear. If he wishes to analyze a period of history for the purpose of showing the romance of the period, he will choose and cease to choose largely in so far as his material helps to establish the romance, and he will not hesitate to neglect many a fact that would be otherwise important. In the following selection from George Eliot'sMill on the Flossyou will find an analysis of the effect of the Rhone scenery on the author written purposely with the intention of driving home the dreariness of the subject, and therefore with material chosen for that end:
Journeying down the Rhone on a summer's day, you have perhaps felt the sunshine made dreary by those ruined villages which stud the banks in certain parts of its course, telling how the swift river once rose, like an angry, destroying god, sweeping down the feeble generations whose breath is in their nostrils, and making their dwellings a desolation. Strange contrast, you may have thought, between the effect produced on us by these dismal remnants of commonplace houses, which in their best days were butthe sign of a sordid life, belonging in all its details to our own vulgar era; and the effect produced by those ruins on the castled Rhine, which have crumbled and mellowed into such harmony with the green and rocky steeps, that they seem to have a natural fitness, like the mountain-pine; nay, even in the day when they were built they must have had this fitness, as if they had been raised by an earth-born race, who had inherited from their mighty parent a sublime instinct of form. And that was a day of romance! If these robber barons were somewhat grim and drunken ogres, they had a certain grandeur of the wild beast in them—they were forest boars with tusks, tearing and rending: not the ordinary domestic grunter; they represented the demon forces forever in collision with beauty, virtue, and the gentle uses of life; they made a fine contrast in the picture with the wandering minstrel, the soft-lipped princess, the pious recluse, and the timid Israelite. That was a time of color, when the sunlight fell on glancing steel and floating banners; a time of adventure and fierce struggle—nay, of living, religious art and religious enthusiasm; for were not cathedrals built in those days, and did not great emperors leave their Western palaces to die before the infidel strongholds in the sacred East? Therefore it is that these Rhine castles thrill me with a sense of poetry: they belong to the grand historic life of humanity, and raise up for me the vision of an epoch. But these dead-tinted, hollow-eyed, angular skeletons of villages on the Rhone oppress me with the feeling that human life—very much of it—is a narrow, ugly, grovelling existence, which even calamity does not elevate, but rather tends to exhibit in all its bare vulgarity of conception; and I have a cruel conviction that the lives these ruins are the traces of were part of a gross sum of obscure vitality, that will be swept into the same oblivion with the generations of ants and beavers.[40]
Journeying down the Rhone on a summer's day, you have perhaps felt the sunshine made dreary by those ruined villages which stud the banks in certain parts of its course, telling how the swift river once rose, like an angry, destroying god, sweeping down the feeble generations whose breath is in their nostrils, and making their dwellings a desolation. Strange contrast, you may have thought, between the effect produced on us by these dismal remnants of commonplace houses, which in their best days were butthe sign of a sordid life, belonging in all its details to our own vulgar era; and the effect produced by those ruins on the castled Rhine, which have crumbled and mellowed into such harmony with the green and rocky steeps, that they seem to have a natural fitness, like the mountain-pine; nay, even in the day when they were built they must have had this fitness, as if they had been raised by an earth-born race, who had inherited from their mighty parent a sublime instinct of form. And that was a day of romance! If these robber barons were somewhat grim and drunken ogres, they had a certain grandeur of the wild beast in them—they were forest boars with tusks, tearing and rending: not the ordinary domestic grunter; they represented the demon forces forever in collision with beauty, virtue, and the gentle uses of life; they made a fine contrast in the picture with the wandering minstrel, the soft-lipped princess, the pious recluse, and the timid Israelite. That was a time of color, when the sunlight fell on glancing steel and floating banners; a time of adventure and fierce struggle—nay, of living, religious art and religious enthusiasm; for were not cathedrals built in those days, and did not great emperors leave their Western palaces to die before the infidel strongholds in the sacred East? Therefore it is that these Rhine castles thrill me with a sense of poetry: they belong to the grand historic life of humanity, and raise up for me the vision of an epoch. But these dead-tinted, hollow-eyed, angular skeletons of villages on the Rhone oppress me with the feeling that human life—very much of it—is a narrow, ugly, grovelling existence, which even calamity does not elevate, but rather tends to exhibit in all its bare vulgarity of conception; and I have a cruel conviction that the lives these ruins are the traces of were part of a gross sum of obscure vitality, that will be swept into the same oblivion with the generations of ants and beavers.[40]
Informal analysis is not only less complete, but also less strict in adherence to pure analysis alone. It employs whatever is of value, believing that the material, the message, is greater than the form. Outside really formal analysis, which is likely to be fairly dull to all except those who are eager for the particular information given, mostanalytical articles make free use of definition whenever it will serve well to aid the reader's understanding or to move his emotions toward a desired goal; of description if it, like definition, proves of value; even of anecdote and argument if these forms are the fittest instruments for the fight. Thus Hawthorne, analyzing English weather, does not hesitate to dress out his analysis in the charms of personal experience and anecdote and description, which in no way obscure the facts of the weather, but merely take away the baldness of a formal statement and add the relish of actual life.
One chief condition of my enjoyment was the weather. Italy has nothing like it, nor America. There never was such weather except in England, where, in requital of a vast amount of horrible east wind between February and June, and a brown October and black November, and a wet, chill, sunless winter, there are a few weeks of incomparable summer scattered through July and August, and the earlier portion of September, small in quantity, but exquisite enough to atone for the whole year's atmospherical delinquencies. After all, the prevalent sombreness may have brought out those sunny intervals in such high relief that I see them, in my recollection, brighter than they really were: a little light makes a glory for people who live habitually in a gray gloom. The English, however, do not seem to know how enjoyable the momentary gleams of their summer are; they call it broiling weather, and hurry to the seaside with red, perspiring faces, in a state of combustion and deliquescence; and I have observed that even their cattle have similar susceptibilities, seeking the deepest shade, or standing midleg deep in pools and streams to cool themselves, at temperatures which our own cows would deem little more than barely comfortable. To myself, after the summer heats of my native land had somewhat effervesced out of my blood and memory, it was the weather of Paradise itself. It might be a little too warm; but it was that modest and inestimable superabundance which constitutes a bounty of Providence, instead of just a niggardly enough. During my first year in England, residing in perhaps the most ungenial part of the kingdom, I could never be quite comfortablewithout a fire on the hearth; in the second twelvemonth, beginning to get acclimatized, I became sensible of an austere friendliness, shy, but sometimes almost tender, in the veiled, shadowy, seldom smiling summer; and in the succeeding years,—whether that I had renewed my fibre with English beef and replenished my blood with English ale, or whatever were the cause,—I grew content with winter and especially in love with summer, desiring little more for happiness than merely to breathe and bask. At the midsummer which we are now speaking of, I must needs confess that the noontide sun came down more fervently than I found altogether tolerable; so that I was fain to shift my position with the shadow of the shrubbery, making myself a movable index of a sundial that reckoned up the hours of an almost interminable day.For each day seemed endless, though never wearisome. As far as your actual experience is concerned, the English summer day has positively no beginning and no end. When you awake, at any reasonable hour, the sun is already shining through the curtains; you live through unnumbered hours of Sabbath quietude, with a calm variety of incident softly etched upon their tranquil lapse; and at length you become conscious that it is bedtime again, while there is still enough daylight in the sky to make the pages of your book distinctly legible. Night, if there be any such season, hangs down a transparent veil through which the bygone day beholds its successor; or, if not quite true of the latitude of London, it may be soberly affirmed of the more northern parts of the island, that To-morrow is born before its Yesterday is dead. They exist together in the golden twilight, where the decrepit old day dimly discerns the face of the ominous infant; and you, though a mere mortal, may simultaneously touch them both with one finger of recollection and another of prophecy. I cared not how long the day might be, nor how many of them. I had earned this repose by a long course of irksome toil and perturbation, and could have been content never to stray out of the limits of that suburban villa and its garden. If I lacked anything beyond, it would have satisfied me well enough to dream about it, instead of struggling for its actual possession. At least, this was the feeling of the moment; although the transitory, flitting, and irresponsible character of my life there was perhaps the most enjoyable element of all, as allowingme much of the comfort of house and home, without any sense of their weight upon my back. The nomadic life has great advantages, if we can find tents ready pitched for us at every stage.[41]
One chief condition of my enjoyment was the weather. Italy has nothing like it, nor America. There never was such weather except in England, where, in requital of a vast amount of horrible east wind between February and June, and a brown October and black November, and a wet, chill, sunless winter, there are a few weeks of incomparable summer scattered through July and August, and the earlier portion of September, small in quantity, but exquisite enough to atone for the whole year's atmospherical delinquencies. After all, the prevalent sombreness may have brought out those sunny intervals in such high relief that I see them, in my recollection, brighter than they really were: a little light makes a glory for people who live habitually in a gray gloom. The English, however, do not seem to know how enjoyable the momentary gleams of their summer are; they call it broiling weather, and hurry to the seaside with red, perspiring faces, in a state of combustion and deliquescence; and I have observed that even their cattle have similar susceptibilities, seeking the deepest shade, or standing midleg deep in pools and streams to cool themselves, at temperatures which our own cows would deem little more than barely comfortable. To myself, after the summer heats of my native land had somewhat effervesced out of my blood and memory, it was the weather of Paradise itself. It might be a little too warm; but it was that modest and inestimable superabundance which constitutes a bounty of Providence, instead of just a niggardly enough. During my first year in England, residing in perhaps the most ungenial part of the kingdom, I could never be quite comfortablewithout a fire on the hearth; in the second twelvemonth, beginning to get acclimatized, I became sensible of an austere friendliness, shy, but sometimes almost tender, in the veiled, shadowy, seldom smiling summer; and in the succeeding years,—whether that I had renewed my fibre with English beef and replenished my blood with English ale, or whatever were the cause,—I grew content with winter and especially in love with summer, desiring little more for happiness than merely to breathe and bask. At the midsummer which we are now speaking of, I must needs confess that the noontide sun came down more fervently than I found altogether tolerable; so that I was fain to shift my position with the shadow of the shrubbery, making myself a movable index of a sundial that reckoned up the hours of an almost interminable day.
For each day seemed endless, though never wearisome. As far as your actual experience is concerned, the English summer day has positively no beginning and no end. When you awake, at any reasonable hour, the sun is already shining through the curtains; you live through unnumbered hours of Sabbath quietude, with a calm variety of incident softly etched upon their tranquil lapse; and at length you become conscious that it is bedtime again, while there is still enough daylight in the sky to make the pages of your book distinctly legible. Night, if there be any such season, hangs down a transparent veil through which the bygone day beholds its successor; or, if not quite true of the latitude of London, it may be soberly affirmed of the more northern parts of the island, that To-morrow is born before its Yesterday is dead. They exist together in the golden twilight, where the decrepit old day dimly discerns the face of the ominous infant; and you, though a mere mortal, may simultaneously touch them both with one finger of recollection and another of prophecy. I cared not how long the day might be, nor how many of them. I had earned this repose by a long course of irksome toil and perturbation, and could have been content never to stray out of the limits of that suburban villa and its garden. If I lacked anything beyond, it would have satisfied me well enough to dream about it, instead of struggling for its actual possession. At least, this was the feeling of the moment; although the transitory, flitting, and irresponsible character of my life there was perhaps the most enjoyable element of all, as allowingme much of the comfort of house and home, without any sense of their weight upon my back. The nomadic life has great advantages, if we can find tents ready pitched for us at every stage.[41]
An extension of this willingness to make grist of whatever comes to the writer's mill lies in the close approach, at times, that analysis makes to the informal essay. Of course the line is difficult to draw—and perhaps not necessarily drawn—and most informal essays are to some extent, at least, analytical. The more you desire your analysis to become interesting, the more you wish to take hold of your reader, the more you will make use of the close approach unless your subject and its facts are of a kind to repel such intimacy. An analysis of the nebular hypothesis deals with facts of so august a nature, on so nearly an unimaginable plane, that intimacy seems out of place, impudent, like levity in cathedrals. But if you have such a subject as George Gissing[42]chose in the following analysis of the sportswoman's attitude and character, you may well, as he did, throw aside the formalities of expression and at once make truce of intimacy with your reader. So long as you do not obscure the facts of the analysis, make it unclear or blurred, so long you are safe.
I found an article, by a woman, on "Lion Hunting," and in this article I came upon a passage which seemed worth copying:"As I woke my husband, the lion—which was then about forty yards off—charged straight towards us, and with my .303 I hit him full in the chest, as we afterwards discovered, tearing his windpipe to pieces and breaking his spine. He charged a second time, and the next shot hit him through the shoulder, tearing his heart to ribbons."It would interest me to look upon this heroine of gun and pen. She is presumably quite a young woman; probably, when at home,a graceful figure in drawing-rooms. I should like to hear her talk, to exchange thoughts with her. She would give one a very good idea of the matron of old Rome who had her seat in the amphitheatre. Many of those ladies, in private life, must have been bright and gracious, highbred and full of agreeable sentiment; they talked of art and of letters; they could drop a tear over Lesbia's sparrow; at the same time, they were connoisseurs in torn windpipes, shattered spines, and viscera rent open. It is not likely that many of them would have cared to turn their own hands to butchery, and, for the matter of that, I must suppose that our Lion Huntress of the popular magazine is rather an exceptional dame; but no doubt she and the Roman ladies would get on well together, finding only a few superficial differences. The fact that her gory reminiscences are welcomed by an editor with the popular taste in view is perhaps more significant than appears either to editor or public. Were this lady to write a novel (the chances are she will) it would have the true note of modern vigour. Of course her style has been formed by her favourite reading; more than probably, her ways of thinking and feeling owe much to the same source. If not so already, this will soon, I dare say, be the typical Englishwoman. Certainly, there is "no nonsense about her." Such women should breed a terrible race.
I found an article, by a woman, on "Lion Hunting," and in this article I came upon a passage which seemed worth copying:
"As I woke my husband, the lion—which was then about forty yards off—charged straight towards us, and with my .303 I hit him full in the chest, as we afterwards discovered, tearing his windpipe to pieces and breaking his spine. He charged a second time, and the next shot hit him through the shoulder, tearing his heart to ribbons."
It would interest me to look upon this heroine of gun and pen. She is presumably quite a young woman; probably, when at home,a graceful figure in drawing-rooms. I should like to hear her talk, to exchange thoughts with her. She would give one a very good idea of the matron of old Rome who had her seat in the amphitheatre. Many of those ladies, in private life, must have been bright and gracious, highbred and full of agreeable sentiment; they talked of art and of letters; they could drop a tear over Lesbia's sparrow; at the same time, they were connoisseurs in torn windpipes, shattered spines, and viscera rent open. It is not likely that many of them would have cared to turn their own hands to butchery, and, for the matter of that, I must suppose that our Lion Huntress of the popular magazine is rather an exceptional dame; but no doubt she and the Roman ladies would get on well together, finding only a few superficial differences. The fact that her gory reminiscences are welcomed by an editor with the popular taste in view is perhaps more significant than appears either to editor or public. Were this lady to write a novel (the chances are she will) it would have the true note of modern vigour. Of course her style has been formed by her favourite reading; more than probably, her ways of thinking and feeling owe much to the same source. If not so already, this will soon, I dare say, be the typical Englishwoman. Certainly, there is "no nonsense about her." Such women should breed a terrible race.
Informal analysis may appear in various forms, not all of which are at once apparent as analysis until we disabuse our minds of thinking that analysis must be, always, complete in facts. For example, informal analysis often appears in the form of enumeration, in which the author "has some things to say"—always for a definite purpose—and says them in some reasonable order. Thus Mr. Herbert Croly, in his article "Lincoln as More than American," analyzes Lincoln's character as related to the characters of other Americans through the qualities of intellectuality, humanness, magnanimity, and humility. More might be said; theanalysis is not complete in fact, but it serves the purpose of the author. It is distinctly in the enumerative order, the progression being determined by the controlling purpose of delineating Lincoln as worthy of not only respect but even true awe, the awe that we give only to those great souls who, in spite of all their mental supremacy, are yet beautifully humble.
Informal analysis often appears in the form of equation: the subject of analysis is stated as equal to something else—a quality, an instrument from another field of human knowledge, the same thing in other more common or well-known words. For example, William James, in his essay "The Social Value of the College Bred," first states that the value of a college education is "to help you to know a good man when you see him," and then explains what he means by this phrase. This form of analysis, then, is usually in the nature of a double equation:xis equal toy, which, in turn, can be split up intoa,b,c. The method really consists in arriving at an easily comprehended statement of the significance of the subject through the medium of a more immediately workable or attractive or simple synonymous statement. It is an application of the old formula of going from the known to the unknown, except that in this case we proceed from the unknown to the known and then return to the unknown with increased light.
A third form of informal analysis is the showing of the significance of the subject, its root meaning. In this case the writer attempts not so much to break the subject into its obvious parts as to set before the reader the meaning of it as a whole, in so short a compass, often, that it will not need further explanation, or if it does, that it may be thendivided after the statement in easier form has been made. The following explanation of the philosophy of Nietzsche illustrates this form of analysis:
The central motive of Nietzsche seems to me to be this. It is clear to him that the moral problem concerns the perfection, not of society, not of the masses of men, but of the great individual. And so far he, indeed, stands where the standard of individualistic revolt has so often been raised. But Nietzsche differs from other individualists in that the great object toward which his struggle is directed is the discovery of what his own individuality itself means and is. A Titan of the type of Goethe's or Shelley's Prometheus proclaims his right to be free of Zeus and of all other powers. But by hypothesis Prometheus already knows who he is and what he wants. But the problem of Nietzsche is, above all, the problem. Who am I, and, What do I want? What is clear to him is the need of strenuous activity in pressing on toward the solution of this problem. His aristocratic consciousness is the sense that common men are in no wise capable of putting or of appreciating this question. His assertion of the right of the individual to be free from all external restraints is the ardent revolt of the strenuous seeker for selfhood against whatever hinders him in this task. He will not be interrupted by the base universe in the business—his life-business—of finding out what his own life is to mean for himself. He knows that his own will is, above all, what he calls the will for power. On occasion he does not hesitate to use this power to crush, at least in ideal, whoever shall hinder him in his work. But the problem over which he agonizes is the inner problem. What does this will that seeks power genuinely desire? What is the power that is worthy to be mine?[43]
The central motive of Nietzsche seems to me to be this. It is clear to him that the moral problem concerns the perfection, not of society, not of the masses of men, but of the great individual. And so far he, indeed, stands where the standard of individualistic revolt has so often been raised. But Nietzsche differs from other individualists in that the great object toward which his struggle is directed is the discovery of what his own individuality itself means and is. A Titan of the type of Goethe's or Shelley's Prometheus proclaims his right to be free of Zeus and of all other powers. But by hypothesis Prometheus already knows who he is and what he wants. But the problem of Nietzsche is, above all, the problem. Who am I, and, What do I want? What is clear to him is the need of strenuous activity in pressing on toward the solution of this problem. His aristocratic consciousness is the sense that common men are in no wise capable of putting or of appreciating this question. His assertion of the right of the individual to be free from all external restraints is the ardent revolt of the strenuous seeker for selfhood against whatever hinders him in this task. He will not be interrupted by the base universe in the business—his life-business—of finding out what his own life is to mean for himself. He knows that his own will is, above all, what he calls the will for power. On occasion he does not hesitate to use this power to crush, at least in ideal, whoever shall hinder him in his work. But the problem over which he agonizes is the inner problem. What does this will that seeks power genuinely desire? What is the power that is worthy to be mine?[43]
A fourth class of informal analytical writing is the showing the relationship that exists between two ideas or things, as cause and effect, as source and termination, as contrary forces, or as any relation that has real existence. Underthis heading will be found the large group of articles that answer the questionwhy?, as for example, "Why the Quebec Bridge Collapsed," "Causes of the Strike among the Garment Workers," "Popular Opinion as Affecting Government Action," and other such subjects. In the following analysis of the relation existing between human action as result, and impulse and desire as causes, you will find such an informal presentation of material.
All human activity springs from two sources: impulse and desire. The part played by desire has always been sufficiently recognized. When men find themselves not fully contented, and not able instantly to procure what will cause content, imagination brings before their minds the thought of things which they believe would make them happy. All desire involves an interval of time between the consciousness of a need and the opportunity for satisfying it. The acts inspired by desire may in themselves be painful, the time before satisfaction can be achieved may be very long, the object desired may be something outside our own lives, and even after our own death. Will, as a directing force, consists mainly in following desires for more or less distant objects, in spite of the painfulness of the acts involved and the solicitations of incompatible but more immediate desires and impulses. All this is familiar, and political philosophy hitherto has been almost entirely based upon desire as the source of human actions.But desire governs no more than a part of human activity, and that not the most important but only the more conscious, explicit, and civilized part.In all the more instinctive part of our nature we are dominated by impulses to certain kinds of activity, not by desires for certain ends. Children run and shout, not because of any good which they expect to realize, but because of a direct impulse to running and shouting. Dogs bay the moon, not because they consider that it is to their advantage to do so, but because they feel an impulse to bark. It is not any purpose, but merely an impulse, that prompts such actions, as eating, drinking, love-making, quarrelling, boasting. Those who believe that man is a rational animal will say that people boast in order that others may have a goodopinion of them; but most of us can recall occasions when we have boasted in spite of knowing that we should be despised for it. Instinctive acts normally achieve some result which is agreeable to the natural man, but they are not performed from desire for this result. They are performed from direct impulse, and the impulse often is strong even in cases in which the normal desirable result cannot follow. Grown men like to imagine themselves more rational than children and dogs, and unconsciously conceal from themselves how great a part impulse plays in their lives. This unconscious concealment always follows a certain general plan. When an impulse is not indulged in the moment in which it arises, there grows up a desire for the expected consequences of indulging the impulse. If some of the consequences which are reasonably to be expected are clearly disagreeable, a conflict between foresight and impulse arises. If the impulse is weak, foresight may conquer; this is what is called acting on reason. If the impulse is strong, either foresight will be falsified, and the disagreeable consequences will be forgotten, or, in men of heroic mold, the consequences may be recklessly accepted. When Macbeth realizes that he is doomed to defeat, he does not shrink from the fight; he exclaims:—Lay on, Macduff,And damned be he that first cries, Hold, enough!But such strength and recklessness of impulse is rare. Most men, when their impulse is strong, succeed in persuading themselves, usually by a subconscious selectiveness of attention, that agreeable consequences will follow from indulgence of their impulse. Whole philosophies, whole systems of ethical valuation, spring up in this way; they are the embodiment of a kind of thought which is subservient to impulse, which aims at providing a quasi-rational ground for the indulgence of impulse. The only thought which is genuine is that which springs out of the intellectual impulse of curiosity, leading to the desire to know and understand. But most of what passes for thought is inspired by some non-intellectual impulse, and is merely a means of persuading ourselves that we shall not be disappointed or do harm if we indulge this impulse.When an impulse is restrained, we feel discomfort, or even violent pain. We may indulge the impulse in order to escape fromthis pain, and our action is then one which has a purpose. But the pain only exists because of the impulse, and the impulse itself is directed to an act, not to escaping from the pain of restraining the impulse. The impulse itself remains without a purpose, and the purpose of escaping from pain only arises when the impulse has been momentarily restrained.Impulse is at the basis of our activity, much more than desire. Desire has its place, but not so large a place as it is seemed to have. Impulses bring with them a whole train of subservient fictitious desires: they make men feel that they desire the results which will follow from indulging the impulses, and that they are acting for the sake of these results, when in fact their action has no motive outside itself. A man may write a book or paint a picture under the belief that he desires the praise which it will bring him; but as soon as it is finished, if his creative impulse is not exhausted, what he has done grows uninteresting to him, and he begins a new piece of work. What applies to artistic creation applies equally to all that is most vital in our lives: direct impulse is what moves us, and the desires which we think we have are a mere garment for the impulse.Desire, as opposed to impulse, has, it is true, a large and increasing share in the regulation of men's lives. Impulse is erratic and anarchical, not easily fitted into a well-regulated system; it may be tolerated in children and artists, but it is not thought proper to men who hope to be taken seriously. Almost all paid work is done from desire, not from impulse: the work itself is more or less irksome, but the payment for it is desired. The serious activities that fill a man's working hours are, except in a few fortunate individuals, governed mainly by purposes, not by impulses toward these activities. In this hardly any one sees an evil, because the place of impulse in a satisfactory existence is not recognized.An impulse, to one who does not share it actually or imaginatively, will always seem to be mad. All impulse is essentially blind, in the sense that it does not spring from any prevision of consequences. The man who does not share the impulse will form a different estimate as to what the consequences will be, and as to whether those that must ensue are desirable. This difference of opinion will seem to be ethical or intellectual, whereas its real basisis a difference of impulse. No genuine agreement will be reached, in such a case, so long as the difference of impulse persists. In all men who have any vigorous life, there are strong impulses such as may seem utterly unreasonable to others. Blind impulses sometimes lead to destruction and death, but at other times they lead to the best things the world contains. Blind impulse is the source of war, but it is also the source of science, and art, and love. It is not the weakening of impulse that is to be desired, but the direction of impulse toward life and growth rather than toward death and decay.The complete control of impulse by will, which is sometimes preached by moralists, and often enforced by economic necessity, is not really desirable. A life governed by purposes and desires, to the exclusion of impulses, is a tiring life; it exhausts vitality, and leaves a man, in the end, indifferent to the very purposes which he has been trying to achieve. When a whole nation lives in this way, the whole nation tends to become feeble, without enough grasp to recognize and overcome the obstacles to its desires. Industrialism and organization are constantly forcing civilized nations to live more and more by purpose rather than impulse. In the long run such a mode of existence, if it does not dry up the springs of life, produces new impulse, not of the kind which the will has been in the habit of controlling or of which thought is conscious. These new impulses are apt to be worse in their effects than those which have been checked. Excessive discipline, especially when it has been imposed from without, often issues in impulses of cruelty and destruction; this is one reason why militarism has a bad effect on national character. Either lack of vitality, or impulses which are oppressive and against life, will almost always result if the spontaneous impulses are not able to find an outlet. A man's impulses are not fixed from the beginning by his native disposition: within certain wide limits, they are profoundly modified by his circumstances and his way of life. The nature of these modifications ought to be studied, and the results of such study ought to be taken account of in judging the good or harm that is done by political and social institutions.[44]
All human activity springs from two sources: impulse and desire. The part played by desire has always been sufficiently recognized. When men find themselves not fully contented, and not able instantly to procure what will cause content, imagination brings before their minds the thought of things which they believe would make them happy. All desire involves an interval of time between the consciousness of a need and the opportunity for satisfying it. The acts inspired by desire may in themselves be painful, the time before satisfaction can be achieved may be very long, the object desired may be something outside our own lives, and even after our own death. Will, as a directing force, consists mainly in following desires for more or less distant objects, in spite of the painfulness of the acts involved and the solicitations of incompatible but more immediate desires and impulses. All this is familiar, and political philosophy hitherto has been almost entirely based upon desire as the source of human actions.
But desire governs no more than a part of human activity, and that not the most important but only the more conscious, explicit, and civilized part.
In all the more instinctive part of our nature we are dominated by impulses to certain kinds of activity, not by desires for certain ends. Children run and shout, not because of any good which they expect to realize, but because of a direct impulse to running and shouting. Dogs bay the moon, not because they consider that it is to their advantage to do so, but because they feel an impulse to bark. It is not any purpose, but merely an impulse, that prompts such actions, as eating, drinking, love-making, quarrelling, boasting. Those who believe that man is a rational animal will say that people boast in order that others may have a goodopinion of them; but most of us can recall occasions when we have boasted in spite of knowing that we should be despised for it. Instinctive acts normally achieve some result which is agreeable to the natural man, but they are not performed from desire for this result. They are performed from direct impulse, and the impulse often is strong even in cases in which the normal desirable result cannot follow. Grown men like to imagine themselves more rational than children and dogs, and unconsciously conceal from themselves how great a part impulse plays in their lives. This unconscious concealment always follows a certain general plan. When an impulse is not indulged in the moment in which it arises, there grows up a desire for the expected consequences of indulging the impulse. If some of the consequences which are reasonably to be expected are clearly disagreeable, a conflict between foresight and impulse arises. If the impulse is weak, foresight may conquer; this is what is called acting on reason. If the impulse is strong, either foresight will be falsified, and the disagreeable consequences will be forgotten, or, in men of heroic mold, the consequences may be recklessly accepted. When Macbeth realizes that he is doomed to defeat, he does not shrink from the fight; he exclaims:—
Lay on, Macduff,And damned be he that first cries, Hold, enough!
Lay on, Macduff,And damned be he that first cries, Hold, enough!
But such strength and recklessness of impulse is rare. Most men, when their impulse is strong, succeed in persuading themselves, usually by a subconscious selectiveness of attention, that agreeable consequences will follow from indulgence of their impulse. Whole philosophies, whole systems of ethical valuation, spring up in this way; they are the embodiment of a kind of thought which is subservient to impulse, which aims at providing a quasi-rational ground for the indulgence of impulse. The only thought which is genuine is that which springs out of the intellectual impulse of curiosity, leading to the desire to know and understand. But most of what passes for thought is inspired by some non-intellectual impulse, and is merely a means of persuading ourselves that we shall not be disappointed or do harm if we indulge this impulse.
When an impulse is restrained, we feel discomfort, or even violent pain. We may indulge the impulse in order to escape fromthis pain, and our action is then one which has a purpose. But the pain only exists because of the impulse, and the impulse itself is directed to an act, not to escaping from the pain of restraining the impulse. The impulse itself remains without a purpose, and the purpose of escaping from pain only arises when the impulse has been momentarily restrained.
Impulse is at the basis of our activity, much more than desire. Desire has its place, but not so large a place as it is seemed to have. Impulses bring with them a whole train of subservient fictitious desires: they make men feel that they desire the results which will follow from indulging the impulses, and that they are acting for the sake of these results, when in fact their action has no motive outside itself. A man may write a book or paint a picture under the belief that he desires the praise which it will bring him; but as soon as it is finished, if his creative impulse is not exhausted, what he has done grows uninteresting to him, and he begins a new piece of work. What applies to artistic creation applies equally to all that is most vital in our lives: direct impulse is what moves us, and the desires which we think we have are a mere garment for the impulse.
Desire, as opposed to impulse, has, it is true, a large and increasing share in the regulation of men's lives. Impulse is erratic and anarchical, not easily fitted into a well-regulated system; it may be tolerated in children and artists, but it is not thought proper to men who hope to be taken seriously. Almost all paid work is done from desire, not from impulse: the work itself is more or less irksome, but the payment for it is desired. The serious activities that fill a man's working hours are, except in a few fortunate individuals, governed mainly by purposes, not by impulses toward these activities. In this hardly any one sees an evil, because the place of impulse in a satisfactory existence is not recognized.
An impulse, to one who does not share it actually or imaginatively, will always seem to be mad. All impulse is essentially blind, in the sense that it does not spring from any prevision of consequences. The man who does not share the impulse will form a different estimate as to what the consequences will be, and as to whether those that must ensue are desirable. This difference of opinion will seem to be ethical or intellectual, whereas its real basisis a difference of impulse. No genuine agreement will be reached, in such a case, so long as the difference of impulse persists. In all men who have any vigorous life, there are strong impulses such as may seem utterly unreasonable to others. Blind impulses sometimes lead to destruction and death, but at other times they lead to the best things the world contains. Blind impulse is the source of war, but it is also the source of science, and art, and love. It is not the weakening of impulse that is to be desired, but the direction of impulse toward life and growth rather than toward death and decay.
The complete control of impulse by will, which is sometimes preached by moralists, and often enforced by economic necessity, is not really desirable. A life governed by purposes and desires, to the exclusion of impulses, is a tiring life; it exhausts vitality, and leaves a man, in the end, indifferent to the very purposes which he has been trying to achieve. When a whole nation lives in this way, the whole nation tends to become feeble, without enough grasp to recognize and overcome the obstacles to its desires. Industrialism and organization are constantly forcing civilized nations to live more and more by purpose rather than impulse. In the long run such a mode of existence, if it does not dry up the springs of life, produces new impulse, not of the kind which the will has been in the habit of controlling or of which thought is conscious. These new impulses are apt to be worse in their effects than those which have been checked. Excessive discipline, especially when it has been imposed from without, often issues in impulses of cruelty and destruction; this is one reason why militarism has a bad effect on national character. Either lack of vitality, or impulses which are oppressive and against life, will almost always result if the spontaneous impulses are not able to find an outlet. A man's impulses are not fixed from the beginning by his native disposition: within certain wide limits, they are profoundly modified by his circumstances and his way of life. The nature of these modifications ought to be studied, and the results of such study ought to be taken account of in judging the good or harm that is done by political and social institutions.[44]
A fifth form in which analysis often appears is as a statement of a problem. An engineer who is asked by a city to investigate the conditions that confront the municipality as regards water supply will have such a problem to state. The statement will presumably consist of several divisions. First of all, of course—and this will be essential in all such statements—will be an analysis of the conditions themselves. In this particular case he will find out how much water is needed, how great the present supply is, what sources are available for increased supply, what the character of the water in these other sources is, and anything else that may be of value to the city. If any former attempts at solution have been made, he may mention them. If he is asked to recommend a plan of procedure, he will make an analysis of the details of this plan and will present them.
Now obviously the nature of the audience will determine somewhat the manner of approach to the conditions. If, for example, the problem is to be stated to the financial committee of the city, the angle of approach will be that of cost; if to a prospective constructing engineer, from that of difficulties of construction of reservoirs or from that of availability of sources. If you are to state the problem of lessening the illiteracy in a given neighborhood, you will approach the subject for the school committee from the angle, perhaps, of the establishment of night schools, or from that of the necessary welding of nationalities; for the charitable societies from that of the poverty that compels child labor in the community. And in the recommendations for meeting the conditions, if such recommendations are made, attention must be paid to the particular people who will read the analysis. Of course if you make an abstract, complete survey, you will cover the ground in whatever way seems most suitable.
Such an analysis, when it is in the nature of a report, will presumably be in brief, tabulated form. If, on the other hand, it is not a report, the subject may be treated more informally, made more pleasing. The following statement of the problem of the development of power machinery is made rather formally from the angle of the constructive engineer with an eye also to the financial conditions.
The problem of power-machinery development is, therefore, divisible into several parts: First, what processes must be carried out to produce motion against resistance, from the energy of winds, the water of the rivers, or from fuel. Second, what combinations of simply formed parts can be made to carry out the process or series of processes. These two steps when worked out will result in some kind of engine, but it may not be a good engine, for it may use up too much natural energy for the work it does; some part may break or another wear too fast; some part may have a form that no workman can make, or use up too much material or time in the making; in short, while the engine may work, it may be too wasteful, or do its work at too great a cost of coal or water, attendance in operation, or investment, or all these together. There must, therefore, be added several other elements to the problem, as follows: Third, how many ways are there of making each part, and which is the cheapest, or what other form of part might be devised that would be cheaper to make, or what cheaper material is there that would be equally suitable. Fourth, how sensitive to care are all these parts when in operation, and how much attendance and repairs will be required to keep the machine in good operating condition. Fifth, how big must the important parts of the whole machine be to utilize all the energy available, or to produce the desired amount of power. Sixth, how much force must each part of the mechanism sustain, and how big must it be when made of suitable material so as not to break. Seventh, how much work can be produced by the process for each unit of energy supplied.[45]
The problem of power-machinery development is, therefore, divisible into several parts: First, what processes must be carried out to produce motion against resistance, from the energy of winds, the water of the rivers, or from fuel. Second, what combinations of simply formed parts can be made to carry out the process or series of processes. These two steps when worked out will result in some kind of engine, but it may not be a good engine, for it may use up too much natural energy for the work it does; some part may break or another wear too fast; some part may have a form that no workman can make, or use up too much material or time in the making; in short, while the engine may work, it may be too wasteful, or do its work at too great a cost of coal or water, attendance in operation, or investment, or all these together. There must, therefore, be added several other elements to the problem, as follows: Third, how many ways are there of making each part, and which is the cheapest, or what other form of part might be devised that would be cheaper to make, or what cheaper material is there that would be equally suitable. Fourth, how sensitive to care are all these parts when in operation, and how much attendance and repairs will be required to keep the machine in good operating condition. Fifth, how big must the important parts of the whole machine be to utilize all the energy available, or to produce the desired amount of power. Sixth, how much force must each part of the mechanism sustain, and how big must it be when made of suitable material so as not to break. Seventh, how much work can be produced by the process for each unit of energy supplied.[45]
The problem that confronts you, then, in either kind of analysis, however formal or informal it may be, is, How shall I go to work? The first necessity is the choosing of a basis for division of the subject, whether it be in classification or partition. The necessity for this arises from the demand of the human mind for logical consistency. Life seems often wildly inconsistent, but we demand that explanation of it or any phase of it be arranged according to what seems to us some logical law of progression, some consistent point of view. And in truth without some such law or basis the mind soon becomes hopelessly enmeshed and bewildered. I cannot expect my reader to understand my treatise on locomotive engines, my classification of them, if I regard them now as engines of speed, now as means of conveyance, now as potential destroyers of life, and now as instruments whereby capitalists become rich and workmen become poor. As often as I change my point of view, so often I shall be under the necessity of making a new arrangement of the engines, a new alignment. It is like skimming past a cornfield with the platoons of green spears constantly shifting their number, their direction, and their general appearance. If I station myself at one point, I can soon make reasonable estimates, but so long as I whirl from point to point my estimate must whirl likewise and I shall be confused rather than helped. If, then, you are to analyze, say, our present-day domestic architecture, it is not enough to heap together everything that occurs to you about houses: their size, material, color, arrangement, finish, beauty, convenience, situation as regards sidewalks, their heating and upkeep. To prevent your reader from becoming hopelessly muddled, from seeming to deal with the valley of the unorganized dry bones of fact, you must have some guiding principle, some basis, some point of view. Suppose that you takebeautyas your basis. Then at once you have a standard by which you can judge all houses, to which you can relate questions of position, arrangement, convenience, lighting, heating, etc. Each of these questions is now significant as affecting the cause of beauty. You could, of course, chooseconvenienceas your basis, to which, then, beauty would be subordinate as contributing or opposing. Asked to analyze the architecture of a railroad terminal, you will not do well to plant dynamite under it and make an architectural rummage sale of its parts; rather you will choose, perhaps,serviceabilityas your basis, and will then examine tracks, offices, waiting rooms, etc. to see what the whole is. No part will thereby be overlooked; each will be significant, and the whole will be unified by your single point of view. An analysis of MacDowell's music might be based onemotional power; of the currency problem on that ofgeneral distribution; of universities on that ofproportion of cultural to so-called practical courses. Notice, also, that the choosing of a basis of division is just as necessary in one kind of analysis as in another, that formality and informality do not affect the logic of the situation in the least, that whatever the subject or the proposed method of treatment, you must be consistent in your point of view, must make a pivot round which the whole can turn.
Sometimes more than one principle will be necessary, in a complicated analysis, as in judging a route for a railway we saw the necessity for considering grades, drainage, landslides, etc., as we might interweave the bases of cost, beauty, convenience, etc., but—like the reins of the ten-span circus horses—all will be found to run back finally to the single driver—in the case of the railway,practicability. In classifying dredges, for example, we may use as basis the action of the machine upon the bottom of the body of water, that is, whether the action is continuous or intermittent; in this case we shall find four types of continuous dredges: theladder, the hydraulic, the stirring, and the pneumatic; and we shall find two classes of intermittent: the dipper and the grapple dredges. Or we may divide all dredges on the basis of whether they are self-propelling or non-propelling. Finally, we may take as basis for the classification the manner of disposing of the excavated materials, in which case we shall find several groups. In the following example we have two bases used for classifying clearing-houses. The use of more than one basis will depend on whether we can by such use make more easily clear to a reader the nature of the subject and on whether different readers will need different angles of approach.