Читать книгу A First Book in Writing English - Edwin Herbert Lewis - Страница 6

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An Art of Communication.—Language may be studied in various ways. It may be scientifically investigated as a historical growth, or as a curious revelation of how the human mind works. This kind of study has pure knowledge for its object; if it learns the laws which govern language, it is satisfied. Again, language may be studied with a view to applying its principles to the art of self-expression. The attempt to find words for one’s ideas has enlivened many a weary hour for many a person who wrote merely for his own satisfaction. But the chief object for which language should be studied is that it may be made a means of communication.

Most that is good in life comes from men’s ability to make their fellows share their thoughts and feelings. But it is not always an easy thing to make others see how we feel or think. The young child is called an infant, a word which means not-speaking. Half his miseries arise from his inability to communicate his notions. “Men are but children of a larger growth,” and much of their misery results from inability to tell what they think or feel. In a sense the case is worse for the man than for the child. The latter makes gestures and grimaces to help his meaning out; and he depends not in vain on pitch and stress. The grown man is partly shorn of these helps, in that he has to communicate by letters and other compositions. How much more work the eye does to-day than the ear! Before the age of printing, things were different.

Both in speaking and in writing there are many special laws that must be observed if there is to be real communication. The special laws of spoken language are not so numerous as those of written language. Written language has to be much more careful than spoken; the writer has no chance of correcting himself on the spot if not understood. Nevertheless a knowledge of how to communicate by written words is a very great help in communicating orally.

The art of communicating by means of written English words is called English composition, or rhetoric. The latter word once meant the art of speaking; and it still keeps this sense when a composition is written to be delivered. Rhetoric is a useful art, like that of curing the sick, or that of building bridges. A matter of prime importance to each man is that, in business or in society, he should be able to say or write exactly what he means; rhetoric helps him to do this. A business man may lose money by failing to make himself clearly understood; misunderstandings and quarrels arise between friends because some one has failed to write just what he meant; a man is liable to be taken for a boor if he abuses the English language. Rhetoric is an exceedingly practical art.

It would not, however, be fair to remove all emphasis from the fact that rhetoric is a fine art, an art of beauty. As soon as the student begins to master the use of words, he has a chance to become an artist in language. In producing a beautiful thing he feels the artist’s pleasure. Most persons like to play some musical instrument, or experiment in color, or use a camera. Why should they not come to enjoy the art of setting down their ideas in words skilfully chosen, and arranged with delicate precision? The old Greeks enjoyed it—those people who knew how to extract so much high pleasure from life. Along with their musical contests and athletic contests, they had trials of skill in poetry and in public speech.

There is no more delightful art than that of writing, if the writer finds words for his own fresh impressions. In order to learn the mandolin, a new player will train his wrist till it aches. But thrumming music is doubtless small pleasure compared with writing music; and writing English is in a way like writing music,—a fine, high, creative process, which, in the hands of a master, results in a permanent, not a fleeting, product.

A teacher of English recently said that, in a certain sense, if a student likes any study at all he can be brought to like composition also.[6] She was right. If he cares for mathematics, and the beautiful precision by which everything in mathematics falls exactly into its place, he will enjoy showing the exact relations he conceives to exist between the parts of his sentence. If a girl likes music she will care for the music that is in prose. She will perceive that a good sentence is free from ugly sounds, and has furthermore a music of rhythm, a finely modulated rise and fall that a keen ear readily perceives. A lad declares himself interested in inventing or in building machinery. If so, why should he not enjoy building a theme? To think out a new mechanical device requires much the same kind of ingenuity, sense of proportion, perception of cause and effect, that are required in thinking out the logical framework of a composition.

The student should work steadily toward the point where he may come to have an abiding love for that which is lucid and beautiful in expression by words. He will never regret the time he spends in perfecting his instrument of expression. No matter how practical the life he plans to lead, the power of writing down his ideas in good English, in a way that will leave no doubt as to what he meant and how earnestly he meant it, will always profit him. One meets everywhere men who lament that they gave so little attention to our language when they were young enough to master it.

The Limitations of the Art.—It must never be supposed that, because to some extent a fine art, rhetoric should be studied as an end in itself. What was said a moment ago about the primary aim of the study must be kept steadily in view. We study the art of composition not for the art’s sake, but to communicate our ideas and feelings. Rhetoric does not profess to supply the student with ideas, though it assumes that his mind is stimulated to new thought by trying to express that which he already has. The more ideas he brings to the study,—ideas he has thought out in life or in his other studies, like literature, history, civics,—the more facility he will carry away; for ideas are the very best of material to make themes of. If composition does only one thing for a given person,—if, namely, it brings him to a sturdy habit of finding something to say before he asks other people to listen to him,—it is eminently worth while.

Write for an Audience.—Writing is usually good in proportion as the writer is interested in it. If he cares for it, if he is anxious to find a worthy thought and make it clear to the eyes of others, he will be very likely to succeed in doing so. Something of every student’s weekly work ought to be good enough to come before the eyes of his friends and to command his friends’ respect. The student will find that his mates are keen critics; they will not respect poor work. But they are also fair and sympathetic critics, ready and willing to surrender on sight to really good work. A class as a whole will judge the compositions of each member disinterestedly and appreciatively.

Whatever is most characteristic of you, as different from other people; whatever gift is yours, of imagination, or reasoning power, or emotion, or humor,—all will find its fit expression in your writing. Every human being is particularly interested in something, is peculiarly apt at something. To find out what most appeals to one’s self in literature or in life, and to voice one’s ideas about it, is to know a keen pleasure. It is more. It is to be of some use to one’s fellows. As human beings we want other human beings to tell us the best that is in them. If a man has ideas we wish to share them—and wish him to learn how to express them that we may share them. If he hasn’t ideas, the effort to express what he considers such will convince both him and us of the fact. But then!—everybody has ideas.