Hello and welcome back to NPTEL, the National Program on Technology Enhanced Learning, a joint venture of Indian Institutes of Technology and Indian Institute of Science. We are in the lecture series of language and literature, specially targeted for students of Indian Institutes in India. I am Krishna Barua, I teach literature in Indian Institute of Technology. We are in a lecture series of English language and literature and presently we are in the module on literature genres, which is module 4 of our lectures. Let us have a recap of what we have done in the previous lectures. Genre if we have seen it is nothing but a mode of classification of different works of art, literature, music, any other creative pursuits. It helps you to identify and to see how each of these genres act within their own domain. The genres for our own classification we have divided it into novel, poetry, drama, autobiography, short story, essay and biography. In lecture 1 if you remember we had done on the novel, on its technique, on its form, content, evolution of the history of the novel as such. Lecture 2 was on poetry and what are the poetic devices, their rhythms, their comparisons, ornamentations and the main key players in the field. In lecture 3 we went into the performative arts that is drama and drama as a literary genre which becomes an art form too and how it had acted collaboratively as well as collectively and how it is an enactment of life before an audience. Yes, so now we come to lecture 4 which is the essay and in this lecture 4 we will see how the essay and other literary forms are interconnected. If we see the way that we have examined the other genres of the novel or of the poem we see that the novel it is narrated you tell a story and you words are used to create imaginary persons and events and the story is narration. At the same time we will find in the play there is interaction in a drama and in the essay you will find that all these 3 genres or these 4 genres almost are mixed up. It performs all those things in probably in different different levels but words are addressed directly to the reader and when we have this we have a essay. So, in the essay when we do this for many students of engineering streams many of you are asked to write an essay before the admission process goes on to different universities and many of you come and ask me what do we have to write. Maybe this genre will help you to see the structuring of how an essay is being written, what was the evolution of the term and how this I mean this genre really evolved. So, if you want to just see it in its true form it is a type of non-fictional prose literature. Yes, it is analytic it is interpretive and it is of critical literary composition. If you want to define a novel then define an essay then you find that it deals with mostly literary composition. It can be a vehicle of literary and social criticism, it can become a documentary or satiric, it may be an editorial, it may be a book review, it may be about a person, it may be a journal piece. So, these are all essays you are very familiar with the essays I know and it may be a documentary, it may be humorous but one thing is important is that there is the subjective view that a person who writes gives a subjective view that is his own personal view on history or on philosophy or on literature whether it is current affairs, literary criticism or science. Well, let us see what people have to say about this genre as such the essay right. This is what Aldo Hasley said one damn thing after another a literary device for saying almost everything about almost anything right and Virginia Woolf one of the most innovative novelist of the 20th century said all almost all essays begin with a capital I whether it is directly or indirectly I think I feel right. So, this is a note to be seen Francis Bacon one of the key players in this genre he said this is essays or dispersed meditation whatever you think whatever you are saying may be you are putting it into print and Samuel Johnson another great classic essayist he said it is a loose sally of the mind interesting is it not. Now, let us see that the essay is a form of literature many essays are not literary if we see it as literature as a genre from in the domain of literature let us see how it fits into this niche many are completely practical piece of writing it may be a scientific treatise to design to report or explain or make a case for something right. Those essays usually go about their business in a no nonsense matter of fact way. So, they are likely to be systematically organized when you see that it is not literary it deals with the purpose with the case then you know that the organization needs more methodology does not it. It has to be factually detailed it has to be built up with examples with evidences closely reasoned and plainly written this is one important thing which is an essay if it is a scientific essay or it is about a case report the elaboration and ornamentation as in creative writing own do. So, it has to be something which is plainly written clearly briefly or may be very with very transparent evidence. Assess you can look beyond the immediate purpose also George Owen another great in this field for example, wanted to make political writing into art. So, he was known as a political essayist right we have Edmund Bach also in America who made his essays as a part of his political credo right and George Owen he made his commitment to the goal was in fact, so strong that he could not do the work of writing even a long magazine article if it were not also an aesthetic experience. So, he found in the essay the right tool for giving expression to whatever he felt as a social observer as a political observer and analyst. Another aspect because he was a novelist he also wanted to create the impact pleasure this is one thing which we have to see in literature most of you are doing this courses in literature one thing that we have to understand when we read literature or when we study literature it is the way that we want to appreciate right and appreciation comes from a groundwork of its genres or of its grammar or its vocabulary right like in music if you do not have the actual understanding of the vocabulary of music you do not understand or you do not appreciate the richness of a musical musical pleasure. So, he also wanted to create as Orwell had said pleasure in the impact of one sound on another in the firmness of good prose or the rhythm of a good story. So, you see this links between prose between creative writing as well as that of a story right and many people say that we cannot distinguish between the essay and short story of course, there is a lot of difference between a short story and an essay because we will be doing that in the next lecture and that is exactly what he achieved. So, when we look into this some essays are not out to say in the world at all. So, they do not have a purpose they do not have a social and in itself sometimes they are indifferent to immediate circumstance or practical ends, but yet they are essays they may write of anything of why you like to eat a special sort of food or why your you do not like a person. So, they have a point to make every essays does, but they are not bent on persuading us to believe something or to do something about the world. So, it has no didactic purpose as such instead of rousing us to action such writers may lead us to contemplation or even to idle imagination. So, this is another form of the essay we have which is sort of a meditation or it leads us to think right. Virginia Woolf again says that about the purpose of the essay that the principle which controls it is simply that it should give us pleasure. The desire which impels us when we take it from the shelf is simply to receive pleasure everything in an essay must be subdued to that end right. So, this is a core point that C is emphasizing well. So, let us now look how the essay performs or what are the characteristics of the essay in its pure form. Like any work of expository prose this is a prose which exposes right it is a prose which exposes this link again with that of performing art because it is almost like it tells you what the what the picture is about. Therefore, it uses words to establish ideas that address directly by the essays to the reader right. Thus the essential quality is persuasion just now we had done that an essays can even without a purpose he can write he does not need to persuade, but merely we find that most of the essays that are written alright are deliberated by this essential quality by of persuasion. Each of the form is capable of using the elements techniques or even strategies of the other forms when we have seen the novel the drama the poetry it may also be narrative or dramatic or poetic in form. Therefore, the essay again has the flexibility of being dramatic it can be poetic it can be also narrative or an essay may involve a combination of the form. So, it is interesting is it not. So, when you try to write it in the essay form you can take in all the other genres and try to experiment with that form, but in its pure form the essay explicitly attempts to persuade us of something by means of an appeal it is almost like an argumentative prose right. When you are in a debate or you are in a form of a discussion then you always try to put the prose and cones before you do not we and then first we introduce the theme then again we expose it then we give evidence to it and therefore, it is almost like it proceeds in a as of a sort of argument and it is addressed directly to the reader there is no in between right. So, the direct I mean the response is to the not to the director to the reader and you find the reader and the essayist has a sort of a dialogue going on. Therefore, if we look into this let us see what are the elements of the essay it does not have any rules by the way if I tell you straight in a direct way we find that yet if we look into the elements of the essay as we have looked into the elements of narration into elements of the poetic technique or of drama let us see this genre does it have its own elements or not. Yes it has a specific purpose as I told you just now and essay is a relatively short written it is not a long winded you know sort of diatribe right that articulates supports and develops an idea or claim it aims to explain something complex or something simple not necessarily complex, but suppose there is something complex then you have to develop the idea. Therefore, it entails analysis and argument suppose a scientific treatise or suppose a literary criticism right you have to first give what is your thesis about what is your purpose about the tone about and then the analysis and argument will come automatically. To achieve this end an essay must incorporate four elements. So, please keep this in mind when you are writing your SOPs or you are writing an essay when you are going into admission into universities right here you find that you should have an appropriate tone a clear thesis a coherent structure an ample or appropriate evidence yes. So, it has to follow this almost in a logical sequence well. So, to understand what a real essay is let us go back into the history of the essay as such shall we go back to the 16th century right we go to the friends connection to France. So, we have seen from what we have discussed just now that the essay is at least a very flexible form and that it has been ever so ever since it originated with the 16th century friends writer Montaigne yes we will be doing autobiography in the last lecture and you will find that whatever you might ask later that why is it that the essay if it is in the personal essay why does not it fall into autobiography or not it does yes, but then that is again another genre you have to consider Montaigne he used it as a means of exploring himself his essays were very personal and his ideas about human experience and his essays were in a sense a means of thinking on paper all his thoughts were put on paper musing introspection of trying things out in writing and we will find this informal method of writing right it is not the formal method which is later being developed by Johnson etcetera, but that is informal quality by calling them essays this is the French term a term he derived from the French verb essayer which means to try to attempt and the meaning of this to attempt to whether to take out to we know all right. So, the term essay has since come to be used as a catch all for non-fictional prose work of limited length. So, you have to remember that the length has to be considered it cannot go on and on as in a novel right the Aristotle had said the same thing when he said about drama it has to be of a considerable length a drama a performance cannot go on forever can it right, but at the same time we have in the essay it is short and it is of limited length well. So, as we have seen Montaigne when he published his essays and the personal voice came into existence personal experience and he used the essay as a means of self discovery this is where just an extract from his essays and this is how it begins first day of March 1580 this book was written in good faith reader it was a collection of a essays right it wants you from the outset that in it I have said myself no goal, but a domestic and private one this reminds me almost like Rousseau's confession right and you will find when you will be doing autobiography you will find that that peremptory notice there that I am going to say whatever I want to say. Thus reader I myself the matter of my book you would be unreasonable to spend your leisure on so frivolous and vain a subject right. So, a humor is there well coming from the French connection let us go into some early European critises which were close to what the essay writing genre is about. Early writing such as Tose of Plato the Greeks remember Cesaro, Marcus, Aurelis, Roman, Seneca, Plota, Kenlotha English do anticipate the form and tone of the essay. The influence of the essay and of genres lied to it such as portraits and sketches first in Italy then in France and through French influence in most of Europe from the 16th century. Well this tone of the essay in Lotha is not English my name it is German. So, as we have seen Francis Bacon in the 16th century he called the essay as a recreation he called it as a recreation of my other studies I am doing it as a by as something which is an alternate form of a hobby right. This proverbs which come with it if the hill will not come to Muhammad will go to the hill this is of boldness right. So, here we have Francis Bacon who is known as one of the pioneers of English essay right 16th century and he had written almost more than 100 essays the first one with 38 essays the second one essays of councils it was published in 1625 and then specially his aphorisms are very well known reading make it the full man conference already men and writing on exact men when he wrote about subjects like of studies of boldness you just see of just the amount of you know topics that he wrote a wide range of styles he had from the plain to the epigrammatic his sayings have become epigrammatic right and almost as if whatever Bacon had said had stuck dawn from both public and private life from a number of different angles weighing on one argument against another use of aphorisms and phrases became the stylistic stylistic technique of essay writing right of envy of love of married single life whatever you want you will get it here. So, let us see what he had written of love the stage is more beholding to love than the life of man for as to the stage love is ever matter of comedies and now and then of tragedies, but in life without much mitchif sometimes like a siren sometimes like a fury you may observe that amongst all the great and worthy person there is not one that had been transported to the mad degree of love. So, you find it is detailed study analysis is also there humor is also there and also it has become by product from one thing it has become more serious it is more academic right. Therefore, while we look into this we see that stylistically the essays distinctive features are is this descriptive imagery yes as in all literature we have to see how it is being expressed it is aphoristic quality just now as epigrammatic style somewhere the essays sticks in the mind because it is brief probably because of the way that they want to state a case or a problem and it is conversational tone and vocabulary and it has a significant vocabulary this is what I had told you earlier like when you write an essay you have to understand it is a form of a dialogue right and when it is a form of a dialogue you have to also take view with age to vocabulary and the tone. So, while we see this Montaigne and Bacon in fact illustrates the two distinct kind of essays the informal and the formal Bacon you find Francis Bacon he set the tone for the formal and the informal was personal intimate relax some of the greatest exponents of the informal essay are Jonathan Swift, Charles Lamb, William Hesley, Thomas Tiquancy, Mark Twain, James Thurber, E. B. White. Jonathan Swift I will just give you some examples it is not possible to give all the examples here of the essays Jonathan Swift in the 17th century and early part of 18th century he was one who was very concerned about the social conditions and even though you know him as Gulliver as the author of Gulliver travels he had written pamphlets as well Gulliver travels is also a satire if you know about it and you know that in the pamphlets and the essays that he wrote he became embroiled in political religious and social issues. The essay on a modest proposal I am just giving you one example where he had written about the preventing the children of poor people in iron and from being a burden to their parents or country and for making them beneficial to the public right. So, it was more with the purpose with the welfare of the people in mind that he had written his pamphlets equally spontaneous and whimsical where the summons of John Dunn I hope you remember in the genre on poetry we had done John Dunn as one of the great innovators in metaphysical poetry right. He was also well known for his essays specially his sermons and with a paradoxically solemn tone right where we find something which was so modern so strange so difficult to take and at the same time we find on the other side his religious summons and the first English essays many have said was the metaphysical poet A. Cowley in the 17th century even earlier than Bacon author of several discourses by way of essays. So, in doing so so what do we examine in an essay right its qualities its characteristics what type it is whether it is lyrical whether it is dramatic whether it is personal whether it is formal whether it is informal and the definitions what definitions does it intend to bring forth whether it is concise clear authoritative whether meanings have been supported with illustrations and evidences whether there is organized sequence or not whether their development has gone as a natural flow from the point of origin or is it that it has diverted if it has do do you consider it an essay or not yes I believe you can the laws if any of induction and deduction. So, if you consider taking this laws from science from the particular to the to the general from the general to the particular the laws of induction and deduction can be applied in analyzing how a essay an essay develops right. So, coming from Bacon from Jonathan Swift we see that earlier this examples of essays which were being written we had Robert Berton's book the Anatomy of Malinkali more of therapeutic influence and procedures that he wrote in 1621 and Sir Thomas Brown religio medici in a brief discourse of the urns in 1658. So, this way very well known treatises or you can say they are not literary essays, but they were more on the way that one can conduct one's life physical life as well as moral life well. So, in the 18th and 19th centuries the essay was one of the it was in the 18th century therefore, when we did novel we have seen 18th century the novel also came into prominence because of the industrial revolution here too we find that the essay was one of the leading genres in French and English journalism. Journalism is closely allied to the essay important contributions to its development were made by Joseph Edison, Richard Steele, Henry Fielding, Johnson, Samuel Johnson, Walter Lessing, Horder right where a new literary journal came during this period what was that the periodical essay right. So, this was when if any literary form is the particular creation and the particular mirror of the Augustan age in England it is the periodical essay the age of the 18th century what is called a periodical essay was first of all given by Steele as the Tatla he first introduced the Tatla which was a journal, but it appeared and issues were brought out it went on and Richard Steele was again being assisted by Joseph Edison the Tatla was discontinued discontinued on first March 1711 the spectator was published and it continued until 6th December 1712. All the material of the Tatla was supported purported by Steele to be based upon discussions in the four famous coffee houses well. So, this the Tatla and the spectator and Joseph Edison and Richard Steele right they they are landmark in the in this genre of essay writing the spectator papers were written by a persona ok. So, he is not research Steele or Joseph Edison. So, the persona was the spectator he would observe everything right what were the things that they observe as they said the false outs of life to pull off the disguises of cunning vanity affectation recommend a general simplicity in our dress or discourse or behavior it was almost the conditioning of the mind of the 18th century right. So, it was addressed mostly to the middle class yes and there was the style if you note the style of the spectator and in the Tatla you find that it is almost like colloquial speech it is like a conversational style dealing with morals and manners where taking up from there we find there is something very different in Dr. Samuel Johnson who was more erudite and more or more of a classicist and he has been regarded as the greatest essayist of all time right. He introduced he published the Rambler on Tuesdays and Saturdays from 1750 to 1752 2 years and it totals to about 208 articles it was Johnson's most consistent and sustained work though similar in name to preceding publications such as the Tatler and the spectator he made his periodical unique by changing the style which was not conversational not so much based on colloquial style, but using a style of prose which was very elevated more academic and the most popular publication of the day were written in the common of the people whereas, the Rambler was written in elevated prose his writings in the Rambler considered to be neoclassical and was written primarily for the rising middle class of the 18th century well you just see he also uses the persona of the Rambler as a dissonant still use the persona of the spectator who observes and watches criticism is a study by which men grow important and formidable at very small expense the power invention has been conferred by nature upon view and the labour of learning those sciences which may by mere labour be obtained is too great to be willingly endured you see the style of writing. So, it is academic it is almost like a academic discourse this was in 18th century coming as a byproduct of this we find Charles Lamb the most lovable person in English literature he is supposed to be the most lovable figure and is the most engaging personal essayist of all time. If you read his essays of earlier he you will find that you enjoy every bit of it right there is nothing serious about it yet at the same time you know that there is a wheat and a difference sensitivity which he has tried to brown bring in ironic wheat in lamb which is very graceful it is not harsh man is a gaming animal he must always be trying to get the better in something or other in the essays of earlier again this is the persona which is being taken right like we have the remla we had the spectator here also earlier he is the persona he uses and he began publishing this at essays in the London magazine later of course, it was taken because of his popularity in recollection inventing the persona of earlier allowed lamb to be shockingly honest and to gain a playful distance for self examination the essays touched upon a wide range of compelling subjects from the deliciously humorous please try to read this essay dissertation upon a rose pick to the poignantly reflective New Year's Eve which is more meditative more mellow yet collectively they also comprise a fascinating personal memoir if we go into autobiography we will find that it is almost reaching the memoir of its age pseudonyms disguise of a liar both writing in the beginning of 19th century if we talk of Charles name we talk of also William Hesley right Hesley's essays from 1778 to 1830 near about was he was one of the great masters of the miscellaneous essay right displaying a keen intellect and a very acute sensibility and a wide scope of interest and knowledge it showed a varied scope his best known work is the spirit of the age collection of portraits of his contemporary specially you know on Charles lamb he wrote his topics on writers writing on painters painting actors acting characters from as seen in daily life on going on a journey you will find everything there Heslin on the fear of death this is an excerpt perhaps the best go for the fear of death is to reflect that life as a beginning as well as an end there was a time when we were not this gives us no concern. So, you see almost introspective prose at the same time philosophical well. So, the essay was the predominant form used by the romantics we come to the 19th century right specially by Hain, Imersen, Taro, American romantics in their polemical writings on philosophy aesthetics it was in English teacher that the essays sank as deepest roots as exemplified in the work of Thomas Carlisle, Victorians William Heslin we had just done Matthew Arnold in the 19th century Larry Bellock, G. K. Cesternan Cesternan in the 20th in the best of the work they improvise a covert dialogue with a general reader yes. So, this participation this interaction with the reader right and you find that it is very interesting and it is very very somewhere very very appealing the dialogue that goes on between the essayist and the reader when we look into the great essayist of American in the 19th century who can forget Imersen's nature essays on nature which became the inspiration of so many environmental writers from Taro to that of John Moore. The first canonical work of U.S. literature to unfold a theory of nature and this theory on nature was written by Imersen then Taro's Walden beautiful book beautiful essays has been defined as a work of nature writing influenced by again Imersen right coming again towards the end of the beginning of the 20th century and the end of the 19th century we find Mark Twill known for his novels on Tom Sower and Huckleberry Finn, but he was a serial comic journalist too and you find that what he had written essays on what is meant advice to you and awful German language lots of humor in windows irony and you find all the art of essay writing in its best on the decay of the art of lying in this advice to you to one line which has become an aphorism always obey your parents when they are present tongue in cheek humor. This joiner therefore we have seen also became the favorite tool of traditionalist of the 18th and 19th centuries having day such as Edmund Bach and Samuel Taylor Caldorich Edmund Bach I had mentioned earlier a political analyst political observer and therefore his essays on the political freedom and on a political governance where really looked upon who looked to the short provocative as as the most potent means of educating the masses yes. If we go to Scotland it is not that we have ignored Scotland we have Robert Louis Stevenson the great novelist who had written Treasure Island if you remember, but as an essayist you find he has irrepressible humor just like in Mark Twill yes. So, in some of this essays that we have done we have seen that somewhere wheat and humor does play a part right when he had written about Samuel Pippes an Apology for Idlers in the South seas about the Pacific and all of this specially Stevenson's essays were marked by very shrewd observations irrepressible humor and a mark of a literary genius well. So, what is we see from here we saw that this formal essay is impersonal systematic and expository significant writers of this type include Joseph Edison, Mill, Matthew Arnold, Johnson, Walter Peter, Emerson, Henry David Thoreau in the later half of the 20th century if we go the formal essays become more diversified in subject unless tightly in tone and language and the sharp division between the two forms has tended to disappear. So, let us see how the essay has been used as argument at the heart of all essays is the idea of persuasion we have seen that you have to pursue it the reader because this is the dialogue that is going on between the reader and the essays. So, this argument if essays are admittedly out to make a case for something a point has to be established together with its supports with supportive material. I can just give you an example of D. H. Lawrence well known novelist British novelist and his essay on coxshire omen and henshire men in the essay coxshire omen and henshire men Lawrence has taken a very strong position on the crucial aspect of modern life. His is not a popular position, but rather than judging the essay in the light of current public opinion we should try to make the piece of in its own terms. If we see the essay as a story narrative essay the author becomes a narrator a storyteller who reports directly to us on persons and events I have known this person this is how he has told me that. So, it is a different from the short story even though there is persuasive demands in dimension to the narrative essay it is best approach first of all through its narrative elements right, but the narrative essay differs from the story how because it is a kind of record of what the event or situation it does not tell a story as a story is told in a short story. The story told in an essay may be highly personal or as impersonal as a journalistic story or current events whatever reports that you get in newspapers do not we. Then it all almost sometimes becomes an essay form here an example from Nora Ephron the whole astray this is how it becomes an story by itself I once heard a swell story about sorry about Gary Cooper. So, in this essay Ephron what does he do is concerned with an event he has a story to tell her purpose like that of any narrative essayist is to offer an interpretation of the story right, an interpretation that uses the story as a means of commenting on some aspect of experience. Another by E. B. White very well known essayist on spring notes on spring time and on anything else that comes to mind of an intoxicating nature there is considerable doubt at this writing that my hog has been bred all those he has been keeping company here you find it is almost like vineyards which goes jump from one image to another almost post modern in the way that the essay has been brought in. So, this becomes very flexible in the hands of modern essayist well. So, when we are looking into this structure therefore, the principles of design and a coherent structure if we try to say it like any literary text and I said needs to have a beginning yes either a beginning which is like an introduction or a middle or a body in which you develop it or an ending or conclusion each of these parts has a distinct function patterns of thought are being also developed personal may be familiar may be intimate subjective friendly conversational voice. Now, this voice which we had done in novel there is always an eye in there say is it the first person second person third person. So, it is the first person mostly a voice shaping the text and fashioning a role for the reader as a Milgen Johnson had remarked that essay is an irregular indigested piece not a regular and orderly performance right yeah. So, in a literary essay however, it is different the principle form of support is analogy we come to literary criticism right or in Wordsworth and Coleridge when they brought out different new methods of how to read poetry. Other kinds of essay may resort to statistical evidence like we had done in any other which is not a literary essay expert testimony and other such non-literary appeals, but here in a literary essay essays of John Dryden mark the beginning of English literary criticism well. So, the essay has flourished in the 20th century we have seen and prominent prose writers poets philosophers have turned to this genre in order to popularize the assignments of the natural sciences. It comes as a editorial it may come as a feature story a critical study even an excerpt for our book that period we are talking about now is not it in the 20 there was a sense of direction in the essay we have seen that all the forms whether it is informal that the detective or the humorous partly by the rise of journalism by the rise of media yes, because there is more people have less time to spend reading and therefore, you get like the growth of the industrial revolution in the 18th century people had more larger time. So, they could read an novel here essay is something short of limited and everything that can be said can be said in a very short form in a brief form shooting an elephant by George Orwell is been has been regarded as a classic example of an essay which is journalism part creative as well as realistic and also personal. We have seen Robert Louis Stevenson, Virginia Woolf and Charles DuBois mastered the essay as a form of literary criticism when we look into this field where we find the essay taking its own form. T. S. Eliot's After Strange Gods in 1934 and other especially traditional individual talent and others that attempted to reinterpret and re-define culture established the genre as the most fitting to express the gentle tradition at odds with the democracy of the new world. So, this is happening a lot has been happening different things with it and there are number of essays who feel that the essay is in the mille lyrical form. Let us see even Bohels right when we did when we will do autobiography we will find that his essays can be termed as short fiction it can be termed as autobiographical fiction it can be also termed as essays where in one essay Bohels and I he Argentinian writer beautiful magic realism he uses. So, he used his tone and the way that he presents the essay is very very different from the way the others have done. If you go to French in the later part of the 19th century the beginning of the 20th century we have Andrew and he wrote short works early in his career based on his own experience and combines in charity with elegance. So, it has become more sophisticated the essay an example is straight is the gate and in the collection of essays autumn leaves we find memories and personal observation very elegant prose and beautiful ways of taking this genre and expanding it. Well, while we are talking of literary criticism we see that the essays specially in the realm of literary criticism is very noteworthy. T. S. Eliot's tradition and in the individual talent wise has become almost a essay which has become almost a bible of modern literature. Eliot asserts that tradition as used by the poet is not a mere reputation of the work of the immediate past rather it comprise the whole of European literature from Homer to the present. He had also written essays on notes towards the definition of culture in 1948 which was a redefinition of what is culture. We see again going on the realm of of Bakhtin in his 1941 essay epic and the novel what I am trying to concentrate over here that the essay became a tool for literary criticism and people could take this form this genre as a form of theorizing on interpretation of the text. We have George Orwell's essay inside the well Whale 1940 is an essay in three parts written about English literature in the 1920s and 1930s mostly about postcolonial literature. Then we have what is an author by Michael Foucault, then the death of an author by Roland Words, French literary critics who have brought in new trends in interpretation of the text, the postmodern text and also the death of the author almost how the author is being relegated to the background. When we have seen Emerson Toro how they had used nature as a form of their preoccupation with nature and they had found the essay as the most useful tool for expressing their views. A modern novelist we find who used the essay form John Robert Falls and he has written huge collection of essays on nature. There is the tree, weeds, bugs, Americans, the blinded eye, shipwreck, islands, land, the nature of nature and you find his passion of landscapes and wild nature. He had seen in France, Greece, England, Dorset, land ridges all this has been brought out in his essay. He is known for as a very well known novelist the French lectinants women. Well, so we come to the end of this lecture on essay not before ending let us see with the ease of access and publishing what the essay has come into. We have seen that the blogs which are here entered the domain of the worldwide map do not you think the blogs are different form of essays that are being written, forums, chat rooms all these are the ways that the essay has been expended. Digital media therefore has given new dimension to existing forms of expression. The material is the world itself and life the way may well make this the golden age of the essay do not you think so right. So, discussion we will have to see this what are the essays distinctive features stylistically, what is the difference between the journal article and an essay do you think there is a difference you can divide it into different informal form and whether it is humorous whether it is academic. Examine the key writers who use the essays a form of literary criticism points to examine when you will be writing your own essays. The tone as in everyday life your audience situation and purpose should save your tone whom you are addressing how you are going to compose and a clear thesis has to be there what theme it is an ample or appropriate evidence has to be there support has to be given where your claims are valid and while writing an essay therefore, you write a statement with an introduction that explains the topic use linkers to introduce your ideas and to make additional points choose the points and group them into paragraphs. So, the paragraphs have to systematically arrange give the points for the topic or the advantages it has to be clear methodical give the points against the topic or the disadvantages sum up the arguments and give your conclusion. The key source text in this lecture was Robert souls and Nancy R. Comley's elements of literature and some of the encyclopedias the English essay and essays of Walker and let me end with this again quote by Virginia Woolf when she says of all forms of literature the essay is the one which list calls for the use of long words mind you note that the principle which controls it is simply that it should give pleasure the triumph is the triumph of style for it is only by knowing how to write that you can make use in literature of yourself that self which while it is essential to literature is also its most dangerous antagonist never to be yourself and yet always that is the problem. Thank you. Thank you.


The town in the library in the town in the library from nine unlikely tales This is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain For more information and to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org read by Corrie Samuel nine unlikely tales by Inesbit The town in the library in the town in the library Rosamund and Fabian were left alone in the library You may not believe this, but I advise you to believe everything I tell you because it is true Truth is stranger than story books and when you grow up you will hear people say this till you grow quite sick of listening to them You will then want to write the strangest story that ever was just to show that some stories can be stranger than truth Mother was obliged to leave the children alone because nurse was ill with measles Which seems a babyish thing for a grown-up nurse to have but it is quite true If I had wanted to make up anything I could have said she was ill of a broken heart or a brain fever which always happens in books But I wish to speak the truth even if it sounds silly and it was measles Mother could not stay with the children because it was Christmas Eve and on that day a lot of poor old people Came up to get their Christmas presents tea and snuff and flannel petticoats and warm capes and boxes of needles and cottons and things like that Generally the children helped to give out the presents But this year mother was afraid they might be going to have measles themselves and measles is a nasty forward illness With no manners at all You can catch it from a person before they know they've got it and if Rosamond and Fabian had been going to have it They might have given it to all the old men and women who came up to get their Christmas presents And measles is a present no old men or women want to have given them even at Christmas time no matter how old they may be They would not mind brain fever or a broken heart so much perhaps because it is more interesting But no one can think it interesting to have measles at any rate till you come to the part where they give you jelly and boiled soul So the children were left alone Before mother went away. She said look here dears You may play with your bricks or make pictures with your pretty blocks that kind uncle Thomas gave you But you must not touch the two top drawers of the bureau Now don't forget and if you're good you shall have tea with me and perhaps they will be cake Now you will be good. Won't you? Fabian and Rosamond promised faithfully that they would be very good and that they would not touch the two top drawers and Mother went away to see about the flannel petticoats and the tea and snuff and tobacco and things When the children were left alone Fabian said I am going to be very good. I shall be much more good than mother expects me to We won't look in the drawers said Rosamond stroking the shiny top of the bureau We won't even think about the insides of the drawers said Fabian He stroked the bureau too and his fingers left four long streaks on it because he had been eating toffee I suppose he said presently we may open the two bottom drawers Mother couldn't have made a mistake. Could she? So they opened the two bottom drawers just to be sure that mother hadn't made a mistake and To see whether there was anything in the bottom drawers that they ought not to look at But the bottom drawer of all had only old magazines in it and the next to the bottom drawer had a lot of papers in it The children knew at once by the look of the papers They belonged to father's great work about the domestic life of the ancient Druids and they knew it was not right or Even interesting to try to read other people's papers So they shut the drawers and looked at each other and Fabian said I Think it would be right to play with the bricks and the pretty blocks that uncle Thomas gave us But Rosamond was younger than Fabian and she said I'm tired of the blocks and I am tired of uncle Thomas I would rather look in the drawers So would I said Fabian and they stood looking at the bureau Perhaps you don't know what a bureau is children learn very little at school nowadays So I will tell you that a bureau is kind of chest of drawers Sometimes it has a bookcase on the top of it and instead of the two little top drawers like the chests of drawers in a bedroom It has sloping lid and when it is quite open you pull out two little boards underneath And then it makes a sort of shelf for people to write letters on The shelf lies quite flat and lets you see little drawers inside with mother of pearl handles and a row of pigeon holes Which are not hold pigeons live in but places for keeping the letters carrier pigeons could carry around their necks if they lie And there is very often a tiny cupboard in the middle of the bureau with a pattern on the door in different colored woods So now you know Fabian stood first on one leg and then on the other till Rosamond said Well, you might as well pull up your stockings So he did His stockings were always just like a concertina or a very expensive photographic camera But he used to say it was not his fault, and I suppose he knew best Then he said I say rom mother only said we weren't to touch the two top drawers I Should like to be good said Rosamond. I Mean to be good said Fabian But if you took the little thin poker that is not kept for best You could put it through one of the brass handles and I could hold the other handle with the tongs and then we could open The draw without touching it So we could how clever you are Fab said Rosamond and she admired her brother very much So they took the poker and the tongs The front of the bureau got a little scratched But the top drawer came open and there they saw two boxes with glass tops and narrow gold paper going all round Though you could only see paper shavings through the glass. They knew it was soldiers Besides these boxes. There was a doll and a donkey standing on a little green grass plot that had wooden wheels and A little wicker work dolls cradle and some brass cannons and a bag that looked like marbles and some flags and A mouse that seemed as though it moved with clockwork Only of course they had promised not to touch the drawer so they could not make sure There was a wooden box too and it was wrong way up and on the bottom of it was written in pencil Ville and anim five and nine and a half They looked at each other and Fabian said I wish it was tomorrow You have seen that Fabian was quite a clever boy And he knew at once that these were the Christmas presents which Santa Claus had brought for him and Rosamond But Rosamond said oh dear. I wish we hadn't However she consented to open the other drawer without touching it of course because she had promised faithfully And when with the poker and tongs the other drawer came open There were large wooden boxes the kinds that hold raisins and figs and round boxes with paper on Smooth on the top and folded in pleats around the edge and the children knew what was inside without looking Everyone knows what candied fruit looks like on the outside of the box There were square boxes too the kind that have crackers in with a cracker going off on the lid Very different in size and brightness from what it does really for as no doubt You know a cracker very often comes in to quite calmly without any pop at all And then you only have the motto and the sweet which is never nice Of course if there is anything else in the cracker such as brooches or rings You have to let the little girl who sits next to you at supper have it When they had pushed back the drawer Fabian said let us pull out the writing drawer and make a castle So they pulled the drawer out and put it on the floor Please do not try to do this if your father has a bureau because it leads to trouble It was only because this one was broken that they were able to do it Then they began to build They have the two boxes of bricks the wooden bricks with the pillars and the colored glass windows and the Rational bricks which are made of clay like tiles and their father called them the all-wall bricks which seems silly Only of course grown-up people always talk sense When all the bricks were used up they got the pretty picture blocks that kind uncle Thomas gave them and they built with these But one box of blocks does not go far Picture blocks are only good for building except just at first When you have made the pictures a few times you know exactly how they go and then what's the good? This is a fault which belongs to many very expensive toys These blocks had six pictures wins a castle with a royal standard hoisted Ducks in a pond with a very handsome green and blue drake Rebecca at the well a snowball fight, but none of the boys knew how to chuck a snowball The harvest home and the death of Nelson These did not go far as I said There are six times as few blocks as there are pictures because every block has six sides If you don't understand this it shows that they don't teach you arithmetic at your school Or else that you don't do your home lessons But the best of a library is the books Rosamond and Fabian made up with books They got Shakespeare in 14 volumes and Rollins ancient history and Gibbons decline and fall and the beauties of literature In 56 fat little volumes and they built not only a castle But a town and a big town that presently towered high above them on the top of the bureau It's almost big enough to get into said Fabian if we had some steps So they made steps with the British essayists the spectator and the rambler And the observer and the tatler And when the steps were done they walked up them You may think that they could not have walked up these steps and into a town they had built themselves But I assure you people have often done it. And anyway, this is a true story They had made a lovely gateway with two fat volumes of Macaulay and Milton's poetical works on top And as they went through it They felt all the feelings which people have to feel when they are tourists and see really fine architecture Architecture means buildings, but it is a grander word as you see Rosamond and Fabian simply walked up the steps into the town they had built Whether they got larger or the town got smaller, I do not pretend to say When they had gone under the great gateway, they found that they were in a street Which they could not remember building But they were not disagreeable about it and they said it was a very nice street all the same There was a large square in the middle of the town with seats And there they sat down in the town they had made and wondered how they could have been so clever as to build it Then they went to the walls of the town high strong walls built of the encyclopedia and the biographical dictionary And far away over the brown plain of the carpet they saw a great thing like a square mountain It was very shiny And as they looked at it a great slice of it pushed itself out and Fabian saw the brass handles shine And he said why rom that's the bureau It's larger than I want it to be said rosamond who was a little frightened And indeed it did seem to be an extra size for it was higher than the town The draw of the great mountain bureau opened slowly and the children could see something moving inside Then they saw the glass lid of one of the boxes go slowly up till it stood on end And looked like one side of the crystal palace. It was so large And inside the box they saw something moving The shavings and tissue paper and the cotton wool Eaved and tossed like a sea when it is rough and you wish you had not come for a sale And then from among the heaving whiteness came out a blue soldier and another and another They let themselves down from the draw with ropes of shavings And when they were all out there were fifty of them Foot soldiers with rifles and fixed bayonets as well as a thin captain on a horse and a sergeant and a drummer The drummer beat his drum and the whole company formed fours and marched straight for the town They seemed to be quite full-sized soldiers indeed extra large The children were very frightened. They left the walls and ran up and down the streets of the town trying to find a place to hide Oh, there's our very own house! cried Rosamond at last. We should be safe there She was surprised as well as pleased to find their own house inside the town they had built So they ran in and into the library and there was the bureau and the castle they had built and it was all small and quite the proper size But when they looked out of the window It was not their own street, but the one they had built They could see two volumes of the beauties of literature and the head of rebecca in the house opposite And down the street was the mausoleum they had built after the pattern given in the red and yellow book that goes with the all-wool bricks It was all very confusing Suddenly as they stood looking out of the windows they heard a shouting And there were the blue soldiers coming along the street by twos And when the captain got opposite their house he called out fabian rosamond come down And they had to for they were very much frightened Then the captain said We have taken this town and you are our prisoners do not attempt to escape or i don't know what will happen to you The children explained that they had built the town so they thought it was theirs But the captain said very politely That doesn't follow at all it's our town now and i want provisions for my soldiers We haven't any said fabian But rosamond nudged him and said won't the soldiers be very fierce if they are hungry The blue captain heard her and said you are quite right little girl If you have any food produce it it will be a generous act and may stop any unpleasantness My soldiers are very fierce Besides he added in a lower tone speaking behind his hand You need only feed the soldiers in the usual way When the children heard this their minds were made up If you do not mind waiting a minute said fabian politely i will bring down any little things i can find Then he took his tongs and rosamond took the poker and they opened the drawer where the raisins and figs and dried fruit were For everything in the library in the town was just the same as in the library at home And they carried them out into the big square where the captain had drawn up his blue regiment And here the soldiers were fed I suppose you know how tin soldiers are fed But the children learned so little at school nowadays that i dare say you don't so i will tell you You just put a bit of the fig or raisin or whatever it is on the soldier's tin bayonet Or his sword if he is a cavalryman And you let it stay on till you retired of playing at giving soldiers rations And then of course you eat it for him This was the way in which fabian and rosamond fed the starving blue soldiers But when they had done so the soldiers were as hungry as ever Which only shows that soldiers are an ungrateful lot and it is idle to try and make their lives better and brighter So then the blue captain who had not had anything even on the point of his sword said More more my gallant men are fainting for lack of food So there was nothing for it but to bring out the candied fruits and to feed the soldiers with them So fabian and rosamond stuck bits of candied apricot and fig and pear and cherry and beetroot on the tops of the soldiers bayonets And when every soldier had a piece they put a fat candied cherry on the officer's sword Then the children knew the soldiers would be quiet for a few minutes And they ran back into their own house and into the library to talk to each other about what they had better do For they both felt that the blue soldiers were a very hard-hearted set of men They might shut us up in the dungeons said rosamond And their mother might lock us in when she shut up the lid of the bureau and we should starve to death For they could not be sure exactly what size they were or which library their mother would come back to when she had given away all the flannel petticoats and things The dungeons were the pigeonholes of the bureau and the doors of them were the little beauties of literature Very heavy doors they were too You see the curious thing was that the children had built a town and got into it And in it they had found their own house with the very town they had built Or one exactly like it still on the library floor I think it's all nonsense said rosamond But when they looked out of the window there was the house with Windsor castle and the head of rebecca just opposite If only we could find mother she said But they knew without looking that mother was not in the house that they were in then I wish we had that mouse that looked like clockwork and the donkey and the other box of soldiers Perhaps they are red ones and they would fight the blue and lick them because red coats are English and they always win said fabian And then rosamond said Oh fab I believe we could go into this town too if we tried Let us put all the things in and then try So they went to the bureau drawer And rosamond got out the other box of soldiers and the mouse It was a clockwork one And the donkey with panniers and put them in the town While fabian ate up a few odd raisins that had dropped on the floor When all the soldiers they were red were arranged on the ramparts of the little town fabian said I'm thinking of all the raisins and things on the soldiers bayonets outside It seems a pity not to eat the things for them But rosamond said no no let's get into this town and perhaps we should be safe from the blue soldiers Oh fab never mind the raisins But fabian said I don't want you to come if you're frightened. I'll go alone. Who's afraid? So then of course rosamond said she would come with him So they went out and ate the things for the soldiers leaving the captain's cherry for the last And when that was eaten they ran as hard as they could back to their house and into the library Where the town was on the floor with the little red soldiers on the ramparts I'm sure we can get into this town quite fabian and sure enough they did just as they had done into the first one Whether they got smaller or the town got larger I leave you to decide And it was exactly the same sort of town as the other So now they were in a town built in a library in a house in a town built in a library in a house in a town called London And the town they were in now had red soldiers in it and they felt quite safe And the union jack was stuck up over the gateway It was a stiff little flag they had found with smothers in a bureau drawer It was meant to be stuck in the christmas pudding, but they had stuck it between two blocks and put it over the gate of their town They walked about this town and found their own house just as before and went in And there was the toy town on the floor And you will see that they might have walked into that town also But they saw that it was no good and that they couldn't get out that way But would only get deeper and deeper into a nest of towns in libraries in houses in towns in libraries in houses in towns in And so on for always Something like chinese box puzzles multiplied by millions and millions for ever and ever And they did not like even to think of this because of course they would be getting further and further from home every time And when fabian explained all this to rosamond, he said he made her headache and she began to cry Then fabian thumped her on the back and told her not to be a little silly, but he was very kind brother And he said come out and let's see if the soldiers can tell us what to do So they went out But the red soldiers said they knew nothing but drill and even the red captain said he really couldn't advise Then they met the clockwork mouse He was big like an elephant and the donkey with panniers was as big as a mastodon or a megatherium If they teach you anything at school, of course they have taught you all about the megatherian and the mastodon The mouse kindly stopped to speak to the children and rosamond burst into tears again and said she wants to go home The great mouse looked down at her and said I'm sorry for you, but your brother is the kind of child that overwines clockwork mice the very first day he has them I prefer to stay this size Then fabian said on my honor, I won't if we get back home. I'll give you to rosamond That is supposing I get you for one of my christmas presents The donkey with panniers said And you won't put coals in my panniers or unglue my feet for my green grass plot because I look more natural without wheels I give you my word said fabian. I wouldn't think of such a thing Very well said the mouse then I will tell you it is a great secret But there is only one way to get out of this kind of town You I hardly know how to explain you You just walk out of the gate, you know Dear me said rosamond. I never thought of that So they all went to the gate of the town and walked out and there they were in the library again But when they looked out of the window the all wool mausoleum was still to be seen and the terrible blue soldiers What are we to do now asked rosamond? But the clockwork mouse and the donkey with panniers were their proper size again now Or else the children have got bigger. It is no use asking me which for I do not know And so of course they could not speak We must walk out of this town as we did out of the other said fabian Yes, rosamond said only this town is full of blue soldiers and I'm afraid of them Don't you think it would do if we ran out? So out they ran and down the steps that were made of the spectator and the rambler and the Observer and directly they stood on the brown library carpet. They ran to the window and looked out and they saw Instead of the building with Windsor castle and rebecca's head in it and the all wool mausoleum They saw their own road with the trees without any leaves And the man was just going along lighting the lamps with the stick that the gas light pops out of Like a bird to roost in the glass cage at the top of the lamppost So they knew that they were safe at home again And as they stood looking out they heard the library door open a mother's voice saying What a dreadful model and what have you done with the raisins and the candied fruit? And her voice was very grave indeed Now you will see that it was quite impossible for fabian and rosamond to explain to their mother what they had done with the raisins and things And how they had been in a town in a library in a house in a town they had built in their own library With the blocks and the bricks and the pretty picture blocks kind uncle thomas gave them Because they were much younger than i am and even i have found it rather hard to explain So rosamond said oh mother my head does ache so and began to cry And fabian said nothing, but he also began to cry And mother said i don't wonder your headaches after all those sweet things And she looked as if she would like to cry too I don't know what daddy will say said mother and then she gave them each a nasty powder and put them both to bed I wonder what he will say said fabian just before he went to sleep I don't know said rosamond and strange to say they don't know to this hour what daddy said Because next day they both had measles And when they got better everyone had forgotten about what had happened on christmas eve And fabian and rosamond had forgotten just as much as everybody else So i should never have heard of it but for the clockwork mouse It was he who told me the story Just as the children told it to him in the town in the library in the house in the town They built in their own library with the books and the bricks and the pretty picture blocks which were given to them by kind uncle thomas And if you do not believe the story it is not my fault I believe everywhere the mouse said for i know the good character of that clockwork mouse And i know it could not tell an untruth even if it tried End of the town in the library in the town in the library The plush usurper from nine unlikely tales This is a libravox recording all libravox recordings are in the public domain For more information and to volunteer, please visit libravox.org Read by cori samuel Nine unlikely tales by ines bit The plush usurper There was a knock at the king's study door The king looked up from his plans for the new municipal wash houses and side For that was the 27th knock that had come to his door since breakfast Come in said the king wearily And the lord chief good doer came in He wore a white gown and carried a white wand If you had been there you would have noticed how clean the king's study looked All the books were bound in white vellum and the floor was covered with white matting And the window curtains were of white silk Of course it would not be right for everyone to have such things Even if we were all kings because it would make such a lot of work for the servants But this king whose name was albin had an excellent housekeeper She did all the cooking and cleaned everything by white magic Which is better even than netwayage a sec if you know what that is And only took the good lady five minutes every morning I am extremely sorry to disturb your majesty said the lord chief good doer But your majesty's long lost brother negrati has called in from the golden indies And he says he can't stay more than half an hour The king jumped up knocking over the white wood table where the white books were We call them blue books in england But the insides are just as dull whatever color you put outside My dear brother I haven't seen him since we were boys together He cried and ran out to meet him Tucking up his royal white velvet robes to run the quicker down the cool marble corridors At the front door of the palace was the king's brother just getting off his elephant He was a brown and yellow brother withered and shriveled like a very old apple And dressed in a suit of plush of a bright orange sewn thick with emeralds All the white marble terrace in front of the palace was crowded with the retinue of the new arrival Slaves of all colors black brown yellow and cream color Dressed in all sorts of bright hues scarlet and blue and purple and orange With rubies and sapphires and amethysts and topazs sewn thickly on them so that the eye could hardly bear the glow and glitter of them as they shone in the sunlight on the terrace Welcome welcome king Orban cried and kissed his brother on both cheeks as is the fashion in Orban et alia and in many other civilized lands Then still holding him by both hands he led him into the palace The dueled gorgeous retinue followed him in and the head parlor maid shut the front door and put the chain up because she knew it to be more than possible that a few odd rubies and sapphires and things would drop off the retinue onto the floor And she thought any such little odds and ends might as well go into her dusk-pan when she swept up after lunch as into the pockets of any poor people who might look in during the afternoon to ask the king's advice as they were fond of doing This was the beginning of the trouble that was wrought by the coming of the king's brother Before this every door stood unfastened all day long because everyone was contented and therefore honest King Orban entertained his brother royally for seven days in the good old fashion and then gave him a palace of his own to live in The palace was of white marble like most of the buildings in Orban et alia but the king's brother had it painted red all over without a moment's delay And then he began to give parties and to have processions and to scatter money among the crowd and every day the people loved him more He was a loud jolly joking sort of man with a black beard and he always wore clothes of plush a material hitherto unknown and he always blazed with jewels and he had a circus set up at his own expense in the field at the back of his palace and he introduced horse racing and animated photographs all highly coloured and thus became extraordinarily popular so much so that the people presently began to forget all the good that King Orban had done for them and to wish secretly that the kingdom had happened to have a bright cheerful king like Prince Negretti for King Orban had worked so hard for his people's good that he had not had time to be amusing he had never had processions and circuses preferring rather small tea parties with the Lord Chief Guddua the commissioner of public health and a few chosen spirits from the education department and loving best of all to wander alone dreaming among the blossoming orchards or in the meadows beyond the river where the white junkwills grew or in the lanes between the pearly maybushes or in the terraced garden of his palace where the white roses hung in heavy scented clusters and the white peacocks spread their tails upon the marble balustrades and wherever he went he thought of the people's good and devised new ways of making them comfortable everything was beautifully managed everyone had enough to wear and enough to eat and enough to do which is very important but they had not enough to play at and this was what made them ready to lend long and discontented ears to the whispers of the king's brother now Negretti was a magician and his was the black or coloured magic which won't wash clothes he was always messing about with acids and alkalis and sulfites and bicarbonates and retorts and furnaces and test tubes and pestles and mortars and the like and whenever he happened to make a nice color by mixing two or more of these things together he always put it in a bottle and stuck it up in one of the palace windows so that at night his windows were brighter than any chemists and drugists in any street and the people said it was as good as fireworks the king's palace windows only sent out a soft white light like moonlight and this was now considered very tame it was the magician's habit to wonder about the town stirring up discontent as easily as if it had been one of his chemical messes and although he was so well known among the people he was never recognised because he always took care to disguise himself as a respectable person and the disguise was quite impenetrable I hope you know what that is one night he sat disguised at the king's head the finest of the municipal ale houses drinking dog's nose out of a pewter pot and the grumbling of the people was music in his wicked ears albin is not my sort of king said the blacksmith I'd make a better king out of a penny-width of putty any day of the week said the painter what's the good of a king if you never see him said the landlady no processions no flags no guilt coaches no rubies and diamonds and sapphires no royal robes of purple and gold such as a loyal country has a right to expect on its sovereign's back only that old white thing said the barmaid no better than a velvet nightgown said the landlady I like a bit of colour I do said the painter graining I don't ask for for he's not had the education to know its beauty but a good warm maroon or a royal blue now but no it's white white white till I'm sick of it and all of us wearing white by law and washing done free by white magic at the palace on Mondays from 10 till four and no one to have more than a quarter of beer of an evening I tell you what it is my boys we're miserable degraded slaves that's what we are if we must have a king said the blacksmith why not good old negretti he's something like a king he is ah if only he knew how our free hearts beat with him he'd be sitting on the throne tomorrow then negretti threw off his disguise the pewter with the municipal arms on it rolled on the sanded floor and spilt what was left at the dog's nose onto the disguise and the magician stood before them pale but firm his dark lantern in his hand it was a magic lantern of course down jodden slaves he cried poor benighted oppressed people follow me let us dethrone a king who seeks to mask tyranny with hypocritical public kitchens and cloaks his infamous autocracy with free washing by white magic on a monday to the palace to the palace and they all finished up their beer and followed him and half the town beside joined the throng as it pressed through the streets towards the eastern gate beyond which was the king's palace now while the magician was drinking his dog's nose disguised as a respectable person the king in his white robes was walking under the boughs of the white blossomed pear trees for it was spring and the moon was at the full and presently coming along over the dewy gray grass of the orchard he saw a figure in white and when it came close to him he saw that it was a lady more fair than the fair stars of that fair night and who are you said the king I am a poor princess seeking my fortune said she you will rest under my roof tonight said the king and led her through the long sweet grass under the blossoming boughs to the palace garden when they came to the terrace the princess loosed a lantern from her girdle set it on the stone balustrade close by where one of the white peacocks perched in fluffy feathery slumber kindled it and threw open the horn door a flood of light streamed out bright as spring sunshine and fell full upon her and then the king saw that her gown was not white as it had seemed in the moonlight but was the color of yellow gold and her hair was red gold and her eyes were of gold and gray mingled then for the first time in all his life the king thought of himself and of his own happiness and he caught her hands and said nothing will ever again content me not even doing good to my people if I must part from you will you stay and be my queen the princess said I'm seeking my fortune do you think you are it I do not know my dear said the king whether I am your fortune but I know well enough that you are mine then the princess clapped her hands and said that is the right answer I have travelled half round the world to hear it and will you love me always always my queen said he exactly the same as you will love me we are not of the race that changes heart so then they kissed each other as lovers should and wandered along the utri avenue deep in lovers talk and never even heard the crowd that the magician had brought to the front door so when the crowd found that the palace door was locked for the night it went home again but it came back in the morning with trumpets and banners and scraps of colored stuff tied over its white clothing and the king went out to meet it when the crowd saw him everyone began to shout down with albin down with the white king free beer no more washing and things like that then the king stood forth and said what have I done but seek for your good when till now have I thought of my own happiness who has stirred you up to these ill thoughts of me my people my own beloved people have my ears ever been closed to your complaints have you wrongs tell me and I will write them have you sorrows make them known and let me soothe them do you not know that your king is your servant and lives but to do you good and the crowd grumbled and muttered and one voice cried we don't want to be done good too we want to enjoy ourselves I did not know said the king gently but now you have spoken I will at once appoint a minister of public enjoyment and the magician was watching the crowd and he saw how the sight of the king's good face and the sound of his good voice were working on their hearts that had once loved him now Negretti sprang forward one word brother he cried and led the king into the shadow of a close-clipped eutree walk the moment they were hidden he caught his brother's arm and whispered a wicked spell and the first words of it were in Persian and the next in Greek and after that came words in Arabic and Spanish and the speech of the county of Essex and the last words of all were be changed to a stone and so strong was the spell that the king was turned to a stone that very minute a great white stone and fell under the you hedge and lay there then the magician said haha and after waiting so long as he deemed prudent he went back to the people and said I regret to inform you that your king has proved quite unreliable as a man of business when I urged him to sign a written agreement to keep you always in a good humor he refused and then he remembered an urgent appointment in Nova Scotia and he has gone and taken most of the crown treasure with him but do not despair I will be your king and I have an income quite sufficient to keep up a small establishment of my own and my golden arguses are now on the way from the Indies bearing all manner of precious things and bales of plush are on their way from Yorkshire so now I am king the people believed him for they had never known a king who spoke anything but the truth so they shouted long live the king and the matter was settled that very day Negretti had the palace painted magenta and covered all the window sashes and mantle pieces with gold paint and stuck embossed coloured scraps on them then he went out into the garden to get a good look at his magenta palace from the outside and as he went along the clipped U-org there was the princess perihelia weeping over the white stone what are you crying for he asked I'm crying for the white king said she and why do you cry here said the magician I don't know said the poor princess and she looked so beautiful that the magician went straight into the palace and told the primetailer to sew new rubies all over his new purple plush suit because he was going according the very next day Negretti put on the purple plush suit as well as the royal crown and went to the wing of the palace which the white king had set apart for the princess perihelia to live in albin's crown was made of silver and pearls and moon stones and the new king had ordered a new crown all gold and stuck as full of rubies and emeralds and sapphires as a really good Christmas cake is of plums I do not mean the cake they call good wholesome school cake but the kind they have at home when there is a party he took his many coloured retinue with him and they waited on the terrace while the magician knocked at the door come in said the princess I've come to marry you said the magician coming to the point at once for he had arranged to have a procession that afternoon and he was a little pressed for time but perihelia said no thank you the magician could hardly believe his ears but you'll be queen of the land said he and that's what you would have been if you'd married my brother and I suppose what you wanted to be oh no it isn't said she well what did you want said he I wanted to be the white king's wife said she it's the same thing he said but she said no it isn't not a bit and it was in vain that he showed her his best plush suit and the plush suits of his retainers she simply wouldn't look at them nor at the precious stones either so at last he went off to his palace to make more rubies and precious stones and things like that and she went off to cry over the white stone now a lot of telltale tits had built their nests above the palace and some of them flew off and told the magician how perihelia was always crying in the u avenue over the white stone so he said to his slaves get a hand cut and carry the thing onto the middle of the bridge and drop it in the river so they did and the stone stuck end up in the mud and when the golden argoses of the magician came up the river bearing peacocks and apes and turquoises every single galley split on that stone and the whole treasure went to the bottom all but the peacocks and they flew away into the country of a neighbouring king who thought everyone should be useful and not ornamental so he cut off the peacock's tails and clipped their wings and tried to teach them to lay turkeys eggs but it is very difficult to get a peacock to do anything useful so then the magician set a lot of people dredging for the lost treasure and among other things they fished up some poor dead apes and the big white stone and as the stone seemed to have been rather in the way in the bed of the river they carted it away to the fields behind the town where the white junkwills grew and dumped it down there and left it among the long grass and the princess could not come and cry over it there because she did not know where it was and besides she was very busy for after she had refused to marry him the magician said very well then you can just do the free washing for the royal housekeeper had given five minutes notice and left at the end of it as soon as the new king had the palace painted magenta and no one else knew how to do washing by white magic and though the people had sneered at it in the white king's time they stood out for it now and said free washing was what they had always been accustomed to poor perihelia did not know the white magic but she washed by the sunlight magic and everything she sent home from the wash was pinky or pearly or greeny like the little clouds in a may dawn the people were pleased but not the magician i like a color to be a color he said i hate your half measures he was beginning to remodel the kingdom to his own fancy instead of a lord chief good doer he had a lord chief magician and instead of the education department he had a permanent committee of black and colored magic he shut up the free wash houses who wants to wash said he and he ordered a free distribution of nasty medicine instead and altogether he was really beginning to enjoy himself when another telltale tit came fluttering in at the window of his laboratory and perching on the top of a crucible told him of a rumour the rumour had been running about the town like a mad thing and wherever it ran it left its tail behind it rumour as you know is a beast with many tales and now everybody knew that the white stone had moved in a night and had come rolling up to the gate of the town whatever shall we do said the lord chief magician who was pounding up nasty things in the mortar ready for the free distribution of medicine the next day smash it said negretti i'll take a turn at the medicine while you go and see the thing done so the lord chief magician called together the permanent committee of black and colored magic and sent them to break the stone and when they began to hit it with their hammers and picks seventeen sharp splinters of white stone flew off and each splinter hit a member of the committee in the eye and killed him there were exactly seventeen members as it happened so then the lord chief magician shut the town gates and ran home and hid under the bed and the people of the town were very much interested in the stone that had rolled by itself and had killed seventeen members of the committee and they made little parties and picnics all day long taking their children to look at the stone and carrying sandwiches with them and bottles of beer the magician was very angry such rubbish i never heard of said he when the telltale titta lighted on the windowsill and told him of it if they want to look at anything why can't they come and look at me i'm sure i'm colored enough that night the stone rose up in the thickest of the black dark when no one at all is out of doors except the police and not always him and it smashed through the town gate and came rolling right up into the square and lay there the telltale tit awoke the magician in the morning by singing the news sharply in his ear and he went out to see there was a great crowd in the square and they all cried out it is a magic stone it will bring us luck build it into the royal palace i might do worse thought regretty if good roman cement and a double coat of magenta paint doesn't keep it quiet nothing will so he gave orders and the stone was carted to the palace and built into the wall over the great gate and while they were gone the fetch the red paint to cover up the stone and the water the lord chief magician came out from under his bed and went sneaking up to the palace and in at the gate and the stone fell on him and smashed him quite flat then perihelia came running out and she washed the water off the white stone by her sunlight magic and when a magician came out she said let it lie here tonight and tomorrow if you will let me go i will take it away to my own kingdom so that it shall never trouble you again regretty agreed because he did not know what else to do and he was beginning to despair the princess ever marrying him because he had now asked her to do so every day for a month and always with more display of plush and jewels and she said no more decidedly and even crossly every time so he began to lose heart that night just when the moon was waning and before morning broke princess perihelia slipped down the palace stairs and into the garden to look once more on the place where the white king had promised to love her always and when she came to that same place there was the white stone lying under the shadow of the white rose bushes and pearly rose leaves had fallen all over it and were falling still like tears perihelia knelt down beside the stone and put her arms round it and said poor stone dear stone what is it that troubles you so that you cannot rest if i only knew i might help you with my sunlight magic why are you so troubled and why do i pity you so oh if my white king were here he would understand and help you but i can do nothing with that she began to weep over the stone calling on the white king to come back to her and all the while she was talking and weeping the moon was waning and the light in the east grew pearlier and prettier minute by minute and as she wept and clasped the stone she presently saw in the glowing light that the stone was changing in her arms like white sands falling in an hourglass the white stone fell away and fell away until the sun looked through the white rose bushes and saw perihelia clasp the living form of the white king in her loving arms the suns was not the only eye which saw the meeting the magician had had a bad night and he came out early curious to see whether the stone had moved again his curiosity was gratified when the white king saw his treacherous brother his tongue was loosed here the two kisses had been speech enough for him and he spoke the words which he found in his mouth and they were naturally enough the last words that had gone in at his ears and the words were first persian and then greek and then arabic and spanish and the language of foreigners from essics and the words he wound up with were be changed into a stone but the wicked spell that had turned king albin into a stone had grown weaker by keeping even as twenty port did when it was kept too long and it had no longer power to do what it ought to have done it could not turn the wicked magician into a stone as i'm sure you would wish it to have done it was only strong enough to turn him into a wooden post i do not wish to have to mention such an unpleasant character as negretti again so i will tell you at once the end of him he remained a post forever and ever and later on when king albin had begun to do things for his people's good again he thought it a pity to waste even a post for he was ever a careful king so he had it made into a pump and the water from it was bitter and nasty like the medicine the magician used to give the people and it was very good for children and gave them a nice bright color in their cheeks take care you do not grow pale or you may have to drink the water out of that pump it is now at harrogate or epsom or bath or somewhere and you might quite easily be taken there and made to drink that unpleasant water the first persons who had to drink it were the magician's retinue the king thought it would be good for them and they were very grateful but the next night they stole state barge and went home by sea to their own country among his other improvements the king started municipal omnibuses which were white and gold but the pump being near the place where the omnibuses changed horses the conductors used to take the bitter water to wash the omnibuses with and gradually they became scarlet and blue and green and violet just as you see them today so now you know the reason of the color of omnibuses and this is the end of the magician's part of the story when the magician had been turned into a post the king said i'm very sorry but the princess said dear he deserved it and being a post is not painful let us never think of him again i have learned many things since i came here i have something to break to you do you think you can bear it i can bear anything now said he holding her in his arms and kissing her again because she was so very dear well said perihelia i am princess of the sun and if i marry you my own dear king i shan't be able to help coloring your pretty white kingdom a little just soft sweet colors dear and not an inch of plush will make a law against that the very first thing and you shall go on teaching your people to be good and i'll try to teach them to be happy do you think i can the white king smiled you've taught me he said but now before we do anything for the people let's go and get married and we can begin to make them new laws directly we've finished breakfast we shall just have time to be married if we go off the church at once so they went off and woke up the archbishop and were married and the archbishop came home with them to breakfast and afterwards they began to make laws as hard as they could the first law was there is to be no plush at all in this kingdom and now albinatolia is the most beautiful country in the world all soft sweet colors and clear pearly white and the queen perihelia has taught the people how to be happy so the king has very little work to do for they are good almost without interfering at all it is a lovely country i hope you will go there one day i went there once but they would not let me stay because i had a black coat on and gaiters and the sight of these clothes made the people so unhappy that the queen asked me as a private and personal favour to go away and never to come back unless i could come dressed in something like the colors of the clouds at dawn i have never been able to manage this and anyway i don't suppose i could find the way there now but if you could get the proper dress perhaps you could end of the plush usurper end of nine unlikely tales by e nesbit