Report of the Superintendent of Public Instruction. [1915]

SUPERINTENDENT'S REPORT

85

A STUDY OF THE CHAMBERED NAUTILUS
BY ETHEL CAREY
Head of Department of English, Fenton High School.
Upon reading a piece of literature we are not apt to think of the
thought and work which the author has been obliged to put upon his
book while composing it. It is so complete when it reaches our hands
that we cannot conceive of it as ever being in any other form than that
in which we see it when finished. Anything which we are able to read
so easily and which runs along so smoothly must surely have rolled out
from his pen with no effort whatever. We can hardly imagine that it
has been revised and rewritten time and again, or realize that the very
part we read with the greatest ease has, perhaps, cost him the most
work. Indeed a writer generally tries to erase every sign of the struggle
he has had in perfecting his work.
One of the first questions that arise after an author has chosen his
subject, is the form into which he is going to mold his material so that
he can best express himself and be most certain of holding the attention
of his readers. If the subject deals with incidents, he feels no great
anxiety for every one is apt to enjoy a story. Interest is kept alive by
the unravelling of the plot in the succession of events. However, if the
writer wishes to discuss his ideas on various subjects and to give his personal opinions and explanations, the problem of holding attention is
more serious. Sometimes the mere word "essay" applied to a selection
frightens people before they even look to see if they would like it.
Oliver Wendell Holmes enjoyed writing essays and knew that the
public would enjoy what he had written if he could but catch their interest. He did this in a clever way. He was well acquainted with the
fact that almost every one would read a story and would enjoy meeting
new characters even though fictitious. He therefore invented a little
plot. He introduced a gentleman who wais living, for the time being, in
a boarding house, and who, in turn, introduced the reader to the other
boarders, reporting the life of the household, particularly the discussions
carried on at the breakfast table. Holmes referred to this gentleman
as the Autocrat because of his habit of leading all the conversations and
arbitrarily settling any question of dispute. However, the Autocrat
would often stop long enough, while making these reports, to comment
confidentially on some peculiarity of one of the boarders, or give hints
concerning the progress of the romance between himself and the little
school mistress. While these breakfast talks were mainly only the opinions of the Autocrat himself, they were presented in various ways as the
answers to questions asked by the other members of the household in
their general conversation, or the reports were sometimes quoted as the
ideas which he had gained from his two friends, the Poet and the Professor, recalled by some remark at the table. In this way Holmes was
able to give us his ideas by putting them in the mouth'of the Autocrat,