_Essays_ deal with all subjects and in such a variety of ways that any attempt to classify them meets with difficulty. Originally an essay was an attempt, a mere outline or plan intended to be filled out at greater length or to be used in different form. It is in this sense that Bacon uses the word and his essays are condensed to the highest degree. In later years essays have come to be of the most highly finished type of literature and some of the most beautiful passages, the noblest thoughts, the most inspiring utterances, are to be found in them. Almost every conceivable topic is treated: there are biographical essays which do little more than narrate the facts of a man's life; there are descriptive essays whose only function is to make their readers see something as the author saw it; there are argumentative and didactic essays and essays on science, art, religion, and literary criticism. Some writers have given their whole time and attention to this form of composition, and the modern magazine has become their distributing agency. Much of the deepest, of the brightest, of the best of recent work has come to its readers through this medium. The essay shows more of the author's self than any other form of literature. It is apt to be sincere, to be the deliberate expression of the writer's own views formulated with the desire to convince another. In the purely literary type this last characteristic is not so strikingly prominent, though it appears rather under the surface. In no form of literature is the artistic element more manifest. The prose writer makes of his essay what the poet does of his lyric--the most finished and beautiful expression of his thought. The thought is the writer's chief concern, but upon his manner of expressing it depend the force and value of his work. Accordingly he gives to his style his most careful attention and fits and polishes it with all his skill. The result is that in the essay are to be found the best examples of prose style. While the essay frequently appeals to our humorous sense and sometimes arouses our sympathy by its pathetic touches, yet no such opportunity is offered for emotional effect as that given by the novel or the drama. The essay is written to be read, the _oration_ to be heard; the essay is to please, to entertain, perhaps to instruct, sometimes to convince; the oration is to arouse the feelings, to carry conviction, to stir the public to action. It is a formal production, addressed directly to its hearers; it is in form or meaning in the second person. Even when descriptive or eulogistic, it is a direct address. The orator says, "These are my opinions and my reasons for so thinking. Will you not accept my view and act accordingly?"