by successive steps which
prepare the reader for the reception of a truth that before seemed
false to him. In this case the theme will be stated at the end, but
not at the beginning of the essay.

Get started as soon as you can, and stop when you have finished; by so
doing you will have important matters in those places which will
emphasize them. Shun the allurements of high-sounding introductions
and conclusions. Professor Marston used to tell his pupils to write
the best introduction they could, to fashion their most gorgeous
peroration, and to be sure to have the discussion clear, logical, and
well expressed. Then he said that when he had cut off both ends, he
generally had left a good essay. An essay should be done much as a
business man does business. He does not want the gentleman who calls
on him during business hours to bow and scatter compliments before he
takes up the matter which brought him there; nor does he care to see
him swaying on the doorknob after the business is finished. To the
business at once, and leave off when you have done. Introductions,
exordiums, perorations, and conclusions are worthless unless they be
in reality a part of the discussion and necessary to the understanding
of the whole.

Proportion in Treatment.

Everything, however, cannot occupy the first and last places. How can
other matters be emphasized? To refer to the parallel of the map, in
order to make people see that the Mississippi River is longer than the
Hudson, the designer made it longer on the map. That is exactly what
is done in an essay. If one matter is of greater importance than
another, it should take up a larger part of the essay. When Macaulay
passes over Milton's sonnets with a paragraph, while he devotes
sixteen paragraphs to "Paradise Lost," he indicates by the greater
mass the greater value he ascribes to the epic. So again, a very good
proof that he did not intend this essay to be a literary criticism
primarily, another evidence beside the closing paragraph, is found in
his division of the whole essay. To Milton's poetry he has given
forty-one paragraphs, and to his character fifty-two paragraphs. The
most common way of emphasizing important divisions of an essay is by
increasing the length of treatment.

Emphasis of Emotion.

However, there are times when this cannot be done: a point may be so
well known that it needs no amplification. In such a case there may be
an emphasis of emotion; that is, the