How to write; a handbook based on the English Bible

Preface

The importance of the English Bible as a model of style has been often felt, often expressed, but never, apparently, realised in systematic, practical application. Thus to apply it to the practical end of learning to write cannot obscure or belittle its importance for other ends. Rather, the one should help the other, as in the study of the Old Testament by the writers of the New. But all that this book presumes to teach from the Bible is how to write.

The English Bible which is a part of English literature is the King James translation. This is the Bible that has passed into our literary and our common speech. It is what we mean when we talk of the style of the Bible. Therefore it is the version quoted throughout the following pages. Though most of these pages apply to any

Vlll PREFACE

good version, wherever they speak of the choice of words they refer to the Authorised Version. Where this text has been modified in any least particular, the object is, not emendation in any sense, but merely clearness to modern readers. The changes are mainly in punctuation, in which the usage of the time of King James was less settled than ours to-day. Other changes are very few and very slight, and are always indicated. If any one of them has led to a misreading, correction from the more expert will be accepted as a favour. At the same time it should be evident that exegesis, as it is no part of the object, can make no material difference in the results. And the book is still farther from theology. It touches no doctrines but the doctrines of good writing. These, indeed, may be a part of morality ; but they are equally sanctioned by all faiths.

C. S. B.

New Haven,

Christmas, 1904.

Introduction

This book shows how to gain a practical skill. Skill in writing gives two things : first, better command over one's fellows ; second, better command over oneself; that is, first, influence, and second, education. More people might gain this skill if they knew that the ways were open. One way especially ought to be more familiar. Of how many professional writers is it recorded that they learned their trade in great part from the English Bible ? Bunyan, of course, knew hardly any other book. His Pilgrim's Progress, which has been read by almost as many people as the Bible itself, came clear and strong in the words and ways that he had learned from the Bible alone. Now his case differs from others only in degree. Fifty other English men of letters have used the same means, though less largely, still, largely enough.

But this handbook is not for professional writers. It is for plain people. Not only men of letters have learned from the Bible how to write, but men of law too, and men of business. In the days when books in this country were few, and libraries fewer, the one Book had to serve as guide, not only in religion, but also in expression. Nowadays more people skim over fifty books and a thousand newspapers and magazines than pore over one. Does this modern habit seem to make men more ready in expressing themselves, or less ? Though the Bible is no longer alone on the shelf, it is still everybody's most convenient example. Since the easiest of books to have at hand has been found in the experience of so many and so different men the best of models for learning how to write, it cannot be set aside without folly.

How are models to be used in learning to write ? And, practically, how is the Bible

INTRODUCTION- 3

to be used, not only by men of literary hopes to learn literary expression, but by plain men to learn plain expression ? The question has many aspects. It turns into many questions of detail. But practically it keeps coming up in four main problems : —

i. How to fix the attention on one point.

i. How to take hold.

3 . How to go on.

4. How to bring home.

To solve these problems practically from the Bible is the object of this book.

CHAPTER I (Based on the Book of the Acts of the Apostles)

A. HOW TO SET ABOUT PREPARING A SPEECH

The great practical object of saying one's mind is to lead people to do a given thing at a given time. The great practical way to do this has always been to make a speech. True, in our modern time of newspapers a great deal of this work is done by print ; but a printed appeal, though it is wider, is less strong; for we all know, speakers and hearers alike, that no print moves us like the human voice. The greatest practical achievement of expression is still, and always will be, a great message by a great speaker.

HOW TO PREPARE A SPEECPI 5

Now the story of the Book of the Acts is of various efforts on various audiences and by various speakers toward one single purpose — what we now commonly call conversion. Whatever else we may think of this object, we understand it. We know unmistakably what it is. No other purpose in all history has so often compelled speakers to single-minded speaking. Because their object is so clear, and so compelling upon them, and so common from their time to ours, we can study in their speeches most readily the means of persuasion.

THE MARS* HILL SPEECH (By St. Paul, to the Athenians; Acts xvii. 22)

Ye men of Athens, I perceive that in 22 all things ye are too superstitious. For, 23 as I passed by and beheld your devotions, I found an altar with this inscription, to the unknown god. Whom, therefore, ye ignorantly worship, him declare I unto you. God that made the world and all 24 things therein, seeing that he is Lord of heaven and earth, dwelleth not in temples made with hands, neither is worshipped 25 with men's hands as though he needed anything, seeing he giveth to all life and breath and all things. And (he) hath 26 made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth, (having) determined the times before appointed and the bounds of their habitation, that they should seek the Lord, 27 if haply they might feel after him and find him — though he be not far from every one of us. For in him we live and move 28 and have our being; as certain also of your own poets have said, For we are also his offspring. Forasmuch, then, as we are 29 the offspring of God, we ought not to think that the Godhead is like unto gold or silver or stone graven by art and man's device. (And) the times of (this) ignorance 30 God winked at, but now commandeth all men everywhere to repent ; because he 31 hath appointed a day in the which he will judge the world in righteousness by that man whom he hath ordained. (Of this) he hath given assurance unto all men in that he hath raised him from the dead.

I. Fixing One Point

The object of this speech is single- — God has made a revelation of himself, clear and binding. The object of every good speech is single. The first thing for speaking is to know precisely what you want, and, without turning aside, to work for that. The gist of every good talk will go into one sentence. You propose to talk on labour troubles, on high schools, or good roads. Why ? Because you hold : Arbitration should be compulsory, — Our high schools are a just charge on the public treasury, — Gravel roads are good enough for my town. Until you can put it into a complete sentence, you do not sufficiently know your object. And how shall you impress upon your hearers what is vague in your own mind ? So the purpose of every good speech, whether of five minutes or an hour, will go into one sentence. Until singleness of purpose is assured in this way, the preparation has not gone far. The speech is not thought through.

HOW TO PREPARE A SPEECH g

Many things the apostle had to consider, standing there on Mars' Hill : the people, the place, the time; but one thing above all, the object. That controlled all the others, giving him the power of an absorbing idea. " Do not speak until you have something to say " means practically, Be sure that all you say can be summed up in one sentence. For that is the practical test of whether you have the only sufficient warrant for speaking at a given time at all — being possessed by one idea.

II. Taking Hold

But it was a long way from that object of the apostle's to that audience. How to bring them there ! " For all the Athenians and strangers which were there spent their time in nothing else but either to tell or to hear some new thing." As for strictly amending their lives to accord with divine revelation, he knew that was far from their thoughts. Very modern in many ways, they were in none more so than in preferring novel talk about the conduct of life to any strict practice of such conduct. But they prided themselves on their open minds. They welcomed new views as stimulating and entertaining. They were ready to hear anything — anything new. All this the poor, unknown speaker in that ancient city square knew ; for he knew his audience.

That is the next thing. The first thing is to know your object as definitely one ; the next thing is to know your audience. Knowledge of the audience is the only thing that tells how to take hold. When this apostle harangued the mob of Jews from the stairs (Acts xxii. i), he began: "Men, brethren, and fathers, hear ye my defence. " When he stood before Felix (Acts xxiv. 10), he introduced the answer to his accusers by words at once courteous and significant : " Forasmuch as I know that thou hast been of many years a judge unto this nation, I do the more cheerfully answer for myself." When he faced these curious, speculative Athenians, he did neither. He began neither

HOW TO PREPARE A SPEECH II

with appeal nor with courtesy. He began with direct attack. Was it not amazing for a Jew to open on an audience of Greeks with the flat announcement : " Ye men of Athens, I perceive that in all things ye are over-religious " ? " Over-religious ? Too much religion ? " they may well have said to themselves. " We expected him to accuse us of too little. ,> It was a surprise, a shock. So it caught their attention and augmented their curiosity.

But it was no mere shock of surprise, this beginning. It also had its direct bearing on the end. It was neither a trick nor a false start. It reminds us that attention should be caught at once, but that attention should at the same time be directed. The startling words make a distinct step, as we shall see, toward the goal. This becomes clearer as we examine the next sentence : " For, as I passed by and beheld your devotions, I found an altar with this inscrip tion, to the unknown god." Here is another suggestion for taking hold. Begin with something familiar to the audience, especially with something on the spot. But this familiar illustration, this altar that they all knew, was not something outside his purpose, caught up to tickle their ears. It was to be turned to new meaning ; and this new meaning was a vital part of his object. For the first word of that inscription goes far to sum up the first part of his speech, and the last word to sum up its conclusion. He is unknown ? Then you must know him. He is God ? Then you must obey him. " Whom therefore ye ignorantly worship, him declare I unto you." The clinching sentence of the introduction renews the shock in its assertiveness and in its bold word " ignorantly " ; and at the same time it rebukes their easy trifling, and expresses the apostle's unflinching obedience to truth. Taking hold of course implies keeping hold. Knowing the audience, and how their attention is to be caught and directed, implies remembering the audience, keeping touch with them ; and this determines the whole tone or style.

To Jewish audiences the apostle used Jewish history ; to the superstitious Lycaonians (Acts xiv. 15), when they were for worshipping his powers, the simplest statement of one Creator as a living benefactor : " We also are men of like passions with you, and preach unto you that ye should turn from these vanities unto the living God, which made heaven and earth, and the sea, and all things that are therein. In times past (he) suffered all nations to walk in their own ways. Nevertheless he left not himself without witness, in that he did good, and gave us rain from heaven, and fruitful seasons, filling our hearts with food and gladness." To the intellectual Athenians he put much the same message into very close reasoning. A despised Jew, he opened as a broad, philosophical consideration the brotherhood of man ; and at the same time showed his intellectual kinship with them by quoting one of their poets. All through we feel the tone or style as adapted to the audience, and yet, as in the way of beginning, adapted without unmanly or insincere concession. For if the tone should be that of your audience, it must still remain that of yourself, or you will not be worth hearing at all. In short, take hold means : Know your audience ; catch their attention at once, but at the same time direct it at once toward your end ; by appeal to something familiar and by suiting your style to your hearers, adapt yourself, but let the something familiar be also significant, and let the adaptation be without concession.

III. Going On

Both fixing one point and taking hold imply preparation. When they come on the spur of the moment it is only to speakers that by long practice can seize them at once, or who choose a topic already thought out. Still more is preparation necessary for going on. The idea that a flow of words worth hearing comes from mere gift of gab is mainly wrong. Ease, freedom to watch the audience, seeing whether they understand and follow, leading their feeling as well as their thought, come, not when the speaker has to beat his brains for the next thing, but when he cannot forget what the next thing is, and the next, and the next, because he has them arranged in his head. And to the audience a speech seems to flow naturally when one thing leads to another, when it has what we call a line of thought. Now few of us think offhand in lines — none of us without much practice in thinking on our feet, none of us very often even then. A line of thought comes from putting a great deal of disorderly thinking into order. We reject this, decide to put first, perhaps, what we thought of second, to put last, as the main point, what we thought of first. Very likely we assure ourselves by jotting down notes, making an outline or plan. At any rate, whether written or unwritten, the plan must be there before the speech will go on.

For a plan is nothing more than an ordinary precaution against rambling in speech as we ramble in our first thoughts. If you ramble aloud before an audience, be sure their minds will ramble, too — in different directions. If, on the contrary, you succeed in holding them to your thought and feeling, if they follow you, it will be largely because you have thought out and tested a line that compels them to follow. The words may come offhand, but not the order of ideas, or rather not unless there is already an order of ideas. What makes speeches halt is never so much lack of just the right word as it is lack of a plan to show what should come next.

There is the rub — the labour, the revision, days of work, perhaps, for what can at last be put down on a little card, or need not be put down at all because it is so simple and natural. It ought to be simple and natural ; and it will not be unless it is made so. Follow the order of this Mars' Hill speech : —

(i) Your approach toward God is unenlightened.

(2) God is the Creator.

(3) God has created all men to seek him.

(4) We must all seek him as his creatures.

(5) Therefore we are not free to use the symbols of half-knowledge.

(6) For God, having revealed himself, holds us responsible to act in conformity with his revelation.

(7) And this binding revelation of God as Lord of life is in the risen Man.

That seems simple and natural because it is well thought out.

And it really goes on. It does not merely go through a list of things which might be gone through in another order. To change the order would be to spoil the speech. The order is vital. Each point leads toward the next and, through the next, toward the end. Nothing is said about the order; there is no " first," " secondly," " thirdly " ; but we cannot escape it. It takes us along. This is what is meant by " line of thought," " chain of proof," " steps in the argument." All those common phrases mean one thing, — a prepared connection of thought.

Indeed, the order of thoughts may be as

important as the thoughts themselves. Each

of the thoughts of this speech comes out

more sharply because of the thought next to

it, because of its connection. And the whole

speech seems not so much like thought

added to thought as like thought multiplied

by thought. So the best speeches have an

order that increases their force as they go

on.

IV. Bringing Home

The outline above shows how the Mars' Hill speech went on, not how it went home. No mere summary of the order, however strong that order may be, can express how the speaker felt, how he moved his audience to feel. A speech means a living personality felt by hearers in a living world of men. It is never merely a nice set of propositions. It must be felt humanly, or it fails as a speech. What part of the speech before Agrippa (Acts xxvi) is most easily recalled ? " I would to God that not only thou, but also all that hear me this day, were both almost and altogether such as I am — except these bonds'" Why ? Because we feel so humanly that glance at the gyves, seeming almost to see it. Now when a speaker gives his audience something to see, he helps them to feel with him. This speech, like many others in the Bible and out, has to touch on matters abstract. To state the abstract in clear order might be enough for the reading of pure intellects ; it is not enough for the hearing of men and women. The audience might, perhaps, understand ; but it might not care. Indeed, it is doubtful if we commonly even understand until we feel.

So the speeches of the Bible, being of real men to real men, take great pains to win sympathy. That is persuasion ; not mere reasoning, for we are not mere reasoners ; not mere feeling either, for we are not mere savages ; but both together, and one through the other. Sometimes, indeed, a speech may appeal only to one. The rebuke of King David by the prophet Nathan (2 Samuel xii) was simply a piteous story to move the king's generous anger against a cruel wrong, and then a sudden charging of that wrong upon the king himself — " Thou art the man." The case was exceptional and extreme. David was a good man suddenly perverted by blinding passion. He needed no logic, no proof. His mind knew ; but his body had rebelled. Usually, every speech needs both the reasoning and the feeling to drive it home.

Now the feeling is touched, the abstract is livened, as has been hinted, by using words that put us in the speaker's place. We feel with him when we seem to see and hear, to smell and taste, with him. "The poor man," said Nathan, " had nothing save one little ewe lamb ... it grew up with him and with his children ; it did eat of his own meat, and drank of his own cup, and lay in his bosom." We see it. The concrete details put a picture before our eyes. Now to be as pictorial as that does not always suit the case ; but any case usually demands at least something of that sort.

For the pastoral Jewish king a parable was enough in itself; for the sceptical Greeks on Mars' Hill it would not have been enough ; but something of the sort was used. Some illustration, much expression of abstract ideas in concrete language, he used even to them, and to other audiences much more. His text was the altar out there, with its inscription that they had seen. His language, like the habitual language of the great preaching Hebrew prophets, was not mere scientific precision, but livelyimagery : " dwelleth not in temples made with hands," "made of one blood all nations," " if haply they might feel after him," " gold or silver or stone." Much more of this sort he may well have said ; for what we have here seems rather a full summary than a full report. The record of St. Stephen's speech (Acts vii) sounds like a verbatim report ; the record of this speech of St. Paul sounds more like a digest. And the difference is precisely in this matter of bringing home.

The point will be clearer from other speeches, less intellectual and less condensed, quoted on later pages. Meantime it is clear why so many speeches make large use of stories and description. It is because thus they can arouse feeling, can make an audience not merely comprehend, but sympathise, can bring the point home. The speech of the young martyr Stephen (Acts vii) is almost entirely narrative, not story merely to please the imagination, but history so presented as to make the imagination plead as well as the reason. The great figure of Moses, type to his audience of Jewish law and Jewish history, he held up in vital significance, that he might passionately apply it to the fundamental relations of divine plan to human conduct. The passion would not have been so moving if it had not called up picture after picture. Very similar in method is St. Paul's speech on the stairs (Acts xxii) ; and his speech before Agrippa (Acts xxvi) is not only narrative, but narrative about himself.

But before drawing other lessons from the use of narrative in speeches, it is important to observe in this Mars' Hill speech something else about bringing home. Bringing home is also application ; in other words, it is a way of closing which (1) applies the point (2) to the hearers. The conclusion is not merely that God has indeed revealed himself, but that these Athenians, like every one else, will be judged accordingly. The closing reference to the resurrection is not merely a great general argument ; it touches on the speculation of some of the most rapt and daring of Greek philosophers, especially Socrates. And, like Socrates, the apostle urges its strict bearing on conduct — "now commandeth all men everywhere to repent/' To bring a speech home is so to close it that the audience feels its point as something for them to do. They see that the close is the point, the result of the whole. They see that it follows. But, more than this, they feel that they themselves have followed, and that the point is for them. They may refuse it ; they may balk (" When they heard of the resurrection of the dead, some mocked ; and others said. We will hear thee again of this "); but they know clearly what it is, and feel that it is for them. To bring a speech home to an audience, then, is to win their sympathy all through it, and at the end to apply it to their own conduct.

B. WHAT A SPEECH CONSISTS OF

The two things that go to make up most speeches are seen quite simply in St. Peter's speech to the council (Acts xi). "When Peter was come up to Jerusalem, they that were of the circumcision contended with him, saying, Thou wentest in to men uncircumcised, and didst eat with them." So St. Peter made his defence, first by telling the facts — "I was in the city of Joppa praying," etc. ; secondly, by arguing from these facts — " Forasmuch, then, as God gave them the like gift' as he did unto us . . . what was I that I could withstand God ? " Statement of the facts, argument from the facts, these two things lie at the bottom of most speeches. They may be done variously ; they may be variously combined. In this speech of St. Peter's they are quite separate ; in St. Paul's Mars' Hill speech they can hardly be distinguished. But, in whatever form, both are usually essential.

I. Statement of Facts

St. Peter's statement, though at first it seems merely simple narrative, has another merit. It is very concise. It is brought within two or three minutes by omitting details that do not bear on the point. A fuller narrative of these same events is given in the preceding chapter. In the speech here the apostle confines himself to what bears on the issue between himself and his accusers. He is very carefully accurate ; he neither overstates nor understates ; but at the sametime he makes his statement an introduction to his argument. And this he does, not only by omitting, but by stressing. His argument is single and simple — "I obeyed a new revelation." It goes into one verse. But all through his preceding statement he is preparing for this argument by so telling the facts as to show the hand of God. His statement is almost argument enough. Now though the statement of facts rarely does so much of the whole work of a speech, its effectiveness always depends on these same qualities : (i) simple clearness, (2) accuracy, (3) conciseness, (4) direction toward the end of the argument.

The speech of St. Paul in the synagogue at Antioch in Pisidia (Acts xiii. 16-41) shows these points more fully and at the same time more variously.

HOW TO PREPARE A SPEECH 2J

SPEECH OF ST. PAUL TO THE JEWS IN THE SYNAGOGUE AT ANTIOCH IN PISIDIA

Men of Israel, and ye that fear God, 16 give audience. The God of this people i 7 of Israel chose our fathers, and exalted the people when they dwelt as strangers in the land of Egypt ; and with an high arm brought he them out of it. And 18 about the time of forty years suffered he their manners in the wilderness. And 19 when he had destroyed seven nations in the land of Chanaan, he divided their land to them by lot. And after that he gave 20 unto them judges about the space of four hundred and fifty years, until Samuel the Prophet. And afterward they desired a 21 king ; and God gave unto them Saul the son of Cis, a man of the tribe of Benjamin, by the space of forty years. And when 22 he had removed him, he raised up unto them David to be their king ; to whom also he gave testimony, and said, I have found David the son of Jesse, a man after mine own heart, which shall fulfil all my will. Of this man's seed hath God 23 according to his promise raised unto Israel a Saviour, Jesus, when John had first 24 preached before his coming the baptism of repentance to all the people of Israel. And as John fulfilled his course, he said, 25 Whom think ye that I am ? I am not he. But, behold, there cometh one after me whose shoes of his feet I am not worthy to loose.

Men and brethren, children of the stock 26 of Abraham, and whosoever among you feareth God, to you is the word of this salvation sent. For they that dwell at 27 Jerusalem, and their rulers, because they knew him not, nor yet the voices of the prophets which are read every sabbath day, (they) have fulfilled them in condemning him. And though they found 28 no cause of death in him, yet desired they Pilate that he should be slain. And when 29 they had fulfilled all that was written of him, they took him down from the tree, and laid him in a sepulchre. But God 30 raised him from the dead. And he was 31 seen many days of them which came up with him from Galilee to Jerusalem, who are his witnesses unto the people. And 32 we declare unto you glad tidings, how that the promise which was made unto the fathers God hath fulfilled (the same) 33 unto us their children, in that he hath raised up Jesus again ; as it is also written in the second psalm, Thou art my Son ; this day have I begotten thee. And as 34 concerning that he raised him up from the dead, now no more to return to corruption, he said on this wise, I will give you the sure mercies of David. Wherefore he 35 saith also in another psalm, Thou shalt not suffer thine Holy One to see corruption. For David, after he had served his 36 own generation by the will of God, fell on sleep, and was laid unto his fathers, and saw corruption. But he whom God 37 raised again saw no corruption.