CHAPTER XII. HARMONY OF STYLE.---Irving and Hawthorne.
CHAPTER XIII. IMAGINATION AND REALITY.---THE AUDIENCE.
CHAPTER XIV. THE USE OF MODELS IN WRITING FICTION.
CHAPTER XV. CONTRAST.
APPENDIX
COMPOSITION
INTRODUCTION.
THE METHOD OF THE MASTERS
For Learning to Write and Speak Masterly English.
The first textbook on rhetoric which still remains to us was written by
Aristotle. He defines rhetoric as the art of writing effectively,
viewing it primarily as the art of persuasion in public speaking,
but making it include all the devices for convincing or moving the mind
of the hearer or reader.
Aristotle's treatise is profound and scholarly, and every textbook of
rhetoric since written is little more than a restatement of some part
of his comprehensive work. It is a scientific analysis of the subject,
prepared for critics and men of a highly cultured and investigating turn
of mind, and was not originally intended to instruct ordinary persons
in the management of words and sentences for practical purposes.
While no one doubts that an ordinary command of words may be learned,
there is an almost universal impression in the public mind, and has been
even from the time of Aristotle himself, that writing well or ill is
almost purely a matter of talent, genius, or, let us say, instinct.
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