me 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.1

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 Gissing2 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,

1 Nathaniel Hawthorne: Our Old Home. Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston, publishers.

2 George Gissing: The Private Papers of Henry Ryecroft, "Spring." By permission of the publishers, E. P. Dutton & Co., New York City.

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.

Kinds of Informal Analysis

a. Enumeration

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; the

analysis 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.

b. Equation

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 wellknown 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: x is equal to y, which, in turn, can be split up into a, 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.

c. Statement of Significance

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 then

divided 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?1

d. Relationship

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. Under

1 Josiah Royce: Nietzsche. By courtesy of The Atlantic Monthly Company.

this heading will be found the large group of articles that answer the question why?, 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 good