a part feelings play in
argument you can see if you have ever heard the speech of a demagogue to
an excited crowd. It is simply a crass appeal to their lower passions,
aided by all the devices of oratory, often, perhaps, also by a moving
presence. A better example is Henry Ward Beecher's Liverpool speech, in
which he won a hearing from a hostile mob by an appeal to their sense of
fair play. Such cases show how far argument may get from the simple
appeal to the understanding, how little it may be confined to the
element of thought. The prime quality, therefore, of argument is
_persuasiveness_."

Not argument, then, but the element in argument, called persuasion,
furnishes the study in composition which corresponds to direct appeal in
interpretation. And just as truly as your intent to convince another
mind of the truth of your author's thought will often take care of all
other elements in the problem of its vocal expression and result in
_convincing interpretation_, so the intent to persuade another mind of
the truth of your own thought will often take care of all other elements
in the problem of verbal expression and result in _moving composition_.

Following Mr. Gardiner a little further in his discussion of persuasion,
we find our study in interpretation in direct accord with his advice in
the study of composition, for he says: "This element of persuasion
belongs to that aspect of literature which has to do with the feelings;
and, as depending on the personal equation of the writer, it is much
less easy than the intellectual element to catch and generalize from,
and almost impossible to teach. All that I can do is to examine it in
good examples, and then make very tentatively a few suggestions based on
these examples. For it cannot too often be written down in such a
treatise as this that the teacher of writing can no more make a great
writer than the teacher of painting can turn out a new Rembrandt or a
Millet; in either case the most that the teacher can do is to furnish
honest and illuminating criticism, and to save his pupil unnecessary and
tedious steps by showing him the methods and devices which have been
worked out by the masters of the craft."

In treating the question of pure style, as another division of the power
of persuasion, Mr. Gardiner says: "It is almost impossible to give
practical help toward acquiring this gift of an expressive style; the
ear for the rhythm and assonance of style is like an ear