Reading Comprehension

The author said that “many of their projections are naive and unacceptable in the light of our own day.” He described them as

Directions: Answer the given question based on the following passage:

Over one-third of the population of the globe has done away with capitalist social relations and has either built or is building socialism. Progressive forces in all the advanced capitalist countries are working for socialism. More and more nations in Asia, Africa and Latin America, just emerged from colonial and semi-colonial oppression, rejected the capitalist way and set their sights on socialism.
Capitalism stands exposed as a social system that has brought mankind immense calamities. Exploitation of millions upon millions of working people by a handful of financial and industrial magnates; colonialism, ruthlessly oppressing and decimating the population of the colonies; two world wars, which took tens of millions of human lives, and a third world war being prepared by the ultra-reactionary circles of the capitalist states which threatens mankind with disastrous consequences—such is the face of capitalism as it stands in the dock of history. 
Today’s broad and mighty movement towards socialism is a natural and inevitable process, which explains the tremendous interest we find all over the globe in scientific socialist theory.
This collection of Lenin’s writings gives readers the opportunity to find out about the main propositions of scientific socialism and to understand the transition from pre-Marxian unscientific utopian socialist views to the science worked out by Marx, whose conclusions are backed up by profound and comprehensive theoretical analysis of social relations and have been borne out by the whole course of history.
What then is socialism?
The term was first used by the French utopian socialist Pierre Leroux in 1833. Socialism is a society based on social property in the means of production, without antagonistic classes or exploitation. Visions of such a society had tantalised the minds of men long before Leroux wrote about it, and were a reflection of the passionate protest of the oppressed and exploited masses against their intolerable condition.
Humanity’s best minds—the Englishman Thomas Moore in the 16^th century, the Italian Tommaso Campanella in the 17^th century, the Frenchmen Henri de Saint-Simon and Charles Fourier, the Englishman Robert Owen and the Russian Alexander Herzen and Nikolai Chernyshevsky in the 19^th century—proclaimed the need to restructure society on socialist lines and gave much thought to what it should be like. Many of their projections are naïve and unacceptable in the light of our own day, but they have also made some brilliant predictions.
The weakest side of these utopian socialist doctrines was how to go about realising this social ideal and whether it was at all possible. There the utopian socialists proved to be quite helpless. They held that all the defects of capitalism sprang from private property, and they were quite right. But they had no answer as to how private property came to be established in human society, or how it was to be eliminated. They confined themselves to spreading socialist ideas, appealing to the powers that be, and so on. The main flaw of the utopian socialism was the inability to find the way to socialism and failure to realise that the struggle for socialism must rest on a definite social force. Utopian socialism, said Lenin, “criticised capitalist society, it condemned … it had visions of a better order and endeavoured to convince the rich of the immorality of exploitation. But utopian socialism could not indicate the real solution”.
Where was it to be found? There was only one answer: the forces and means of transforming society were to be sought in society itself. But this required an understanding of the laws which govern society, in general, and capitalist society in particular. 

According to the passage pre-Marxian sociology was considered unscientific because

Directions: Answer the given question based on the following passage:

Over one-third of the population of the globe has done away with capitalist social relations and has either built or is building socialism. Progressive forces in all the advanced capitalist countries are working for socialism. More and more nations in Asia, Africa and Latin America, just emerged from colonial and semi-colonial oppression, rejected the capitalist way and set their sights on socialism.
Capitalism stands exposed as a social system that has brought mankind immense calamities. Exploitation of millions upon millions of working people by a handful of financial and industrial magnates; colonialism, ruthlessly oppressing and decimating the population of the colonies; two world wars, which took tens of millions of human lives, and a third world war being prepared by the ultra-reactionary circles of the capitalist states which threatens mankind with disastrous consequences—such is the face of capitalism as it stands in the dock of history. 
Today’s broad and mighty movement towards socialism is a natural and inevitable process, which explains the tremendous interest we find all over the globe in scientific socialist theory.
This collection of Lenin’s writings gives readers the opportunity to find out about the main propositions of scientific socialism and to understand the transition from pre-Marxian unscientific utopian socialist views to the science worked out by Marx, whose conclusions are backed up by profound and comprehensive theoretical analysis of social relations and have been borne out by the whole course of history.
What then is socialism?
The term was first used by the French utopian socialist Pierre Leroux in 1833. Socialism is a society based on social property in the means of production, without antagonistic classes or exploitation. Visions of such a society had tantalised the minds of men long before Leroux wrote about it, and were a reflection of the passionate protest of the oppressed and exploited masses against their intolerable condition.
Humanity’s best minds—the Englishman Thomas Moore in the 16^th century, the Italian Tommaso Campanella in the 17^th century, the Frenchmen Henri de Saint-Simon and Charles Fourier, the Englishman Robert Owen and the Russian Alexander Herzen and Nikolai Chernyshevsky in the 19^th century—proclaimed the need to restructure society on socialist lines and gave much thought to what it should be like. Many of their projections are naïve and unacceptable in the light of our own day, but they have also made some brilliant predictions.
The weakest side of these utopian socialist doctrines was how to go about realising this social ideal and whether it was at all possible. There the utopian socialists proved to be quite helpless. They held that all the defects of capitalism sprang from private property, and they were quite right. But they had no answer as to how private property came to be established in human society, or how it was to be eliminated. They confined themselves to spreading socialist ideas, appealing to the powers that be, and so on. The main flaw of the utopian socialism was the inability to find the way to socialism and failure to realise that the struggle for socialism must rest on a definite social force. Utopian socialism, said Lenin, “criticised capitalist society, it condemned … it had visions of a better order and endeavoured to convince the rich of the immorality of exploitation. But utopian socialism could not indicate the real solution”.
Where was it to be found? There was only one answer: the forces and means of transforming society were to be sought in society itself. But this required an understanding of the laws which govern society, in general, and capitalist society in particular. 

Which of the following would appear to be totally out of sync with the present time?

Directions: Answer the given question based on the following passage:

Over one-third of the population of the globe has done away with capitalist social relations and has either built or is building socialism. Progressive forces in all the advanced capitalist countries are working for socialism. More and more nations in Asia, Africa and Latin America, just emerged from colonial and semi-colonial oppression, rejected the capitalist way and set their sights on socialism.
Capitalism stands exposed as a social system that has brought mankind immense calamities. Exploitation of millions upon millions of working people by a handful of financial and industrial magnates; colonialism, ruthlessly oppressing and decimating the population of the colonies; two world wars, which took tens of millions of human lives, and a third world war being prepared by the ultra-reactionary circles of the capitalist states which threatens mankind with disastrous consequences—such is the face of capitalism as it stands in the dock of history. 
Today’s broad and mighty movement towards socialism is a natural and inevitable process, which explains the tremendous interest we find all over the globe in scientific socialist theory.
This collection of Lenin’s writings gives readers the opportunity to find out about the main propositions of scientific socialism and to understand the transition from pre-Marxian unscientific utopian socialist views to the science worked out by Marx, whose conclusions are backed up by profound and comprehensive theoretical analysis of social relations and have been borne out by the whole course of history.
What then is socialism?
The term was first used by the French utopian socialist Pierre Leroux in 1833. Socialism is a society based on social property in the means of production, without antagonistic classes or exploitation. Visions of such a society had tantalised the minds of men long before Leroux wrote about it, and were a reflection of the passionate protest of the oppressed and exploited masses against their intolerable condition.
Humanity’s best minds—the Englishman Thomas Moore in the 16^th century, the Italian Tommaso Campanella in the 17^th century, the Frenchmen Henri de Saint-Simon and Charles Fourier, the Englishman Robert Owen and the Russian Alexander Herzen and Nikolai Chernyshevsky in the 19^th century—proclaimed the need to restructure society on socialist lines and gave much thought to what it should be like. Many of their projections are naïve and unacceptable in the light of our own day, but they have also made some brilliant predictions.
The weakest side of these utopian socialist doctrines was how to go about realising this social ideal and whether it was at all possible. There the utopian socialists proved to be quite helpless. They held that all the defects of capitalism sprang from private property, and they were quite right. But they had no answer as to how private property came to be established in human society, or how it was to be eliminated. They confined themselves to spreading socialist ideas, appealing to the powers that be, and so on. The main flaw of the utopian socialism was the inability to find the way to socialism and failure to realise that the struggle for socialism must rest on a definite social force. Utopian socialism, said Lenin, “criticised capitalist society, it condemned … it had visions of a better order and endeavoured to convince the rich of the immorality of exploitation. But utopian socialism could not indicate the real solution”.
Where was it to be found? There was only one answer: the forces and means of transforming society were to be sought in society itself. But this required an understanding of the laws which govern society, in general, and capitalist society in particular. 

According to the passage, where does the real solution of the problem lie that utopian socialism could not indicate?

Directions: Answer the given question based on the following passage:

Over one-third of the population of the globe has done away with capitalist social relations and has either built or is building socialism. Progressive forces in all the advanced capitalist countries are working for socialism. More and more nations in Asia, Africa and Latin America, just emerged from colonial and semi-colonial oppression, rejected the capitalist way and set their sights on socialism.
Capitalism stands exposed as a social system that has brought mankind immense calamities. Exploitation of millions upon millions of working people by a handful of financial and industrial magnates; colonialism, ruthlessly oppressing and decimating the population of the colonies; two world wars, which took tens of millions of human lives, and a third world war being prepared by the ultra-reactionary circles of the capitalist states which threatens mankind with disastrous consequences—such is the face of capitalism as it stands in the dock of history. 
Today’s broad and mighty movement towards socialism is a natural and inevitable process, which explains the tremendous interest we find all over the globe in scientific socialist theory.
This collection of Lenin’s writings gives readers the opportunity to find out about the main propositions of scientific socialism and to understand the transition from pre-Marxian unscientific utopian socialist views to the science worked out by Marx, whose conclusions are backed up by profound and comprehensive theoretical analysis of social relations and have been borne out by the whole course of history.
What then is socialism?
The term was first used by the French utopian socialist Pierre Leroux in 1833. Socialism is a society based on social property in the means of production, without antagonistic classes or exploitation. Visions of such a society had tantalised the minds of men long before Leroux wrote about it, and were a reflection of the passionate protest of the oppressed and exploited masses against their intolerable condition.
Humanity’s best minds—the Englishman Thomas Moore in the 16^th century, the Italian Tommaso Campanella in the 17^th century, the Frenchmen Henri de Saint-Simon and Charles Fourier, the Englishman Robert Owen and the Russian Alexander Herzen and Nikolai Chernyshevsky in the 19^th century—proclaimed the need to restructure society on socialist lines and gave much thought to what it should be like. Many of their projections are naïve and unacceptable in the light of our own day, but they have also made some brilliant predictions.
The weakest side of these utopian socialist doctrines was how to go about realising this social ideal and whether it was at all possible. There the utopian socialists proved to be quite helpless. They held that all the defects of capitalism sprang from private property, and they were quite right. But they had no answer as to how private property came to be established in human society, or how it was to be eliminated. They confined themselves to spreading socialist ideas, appealing to the powers that be, and so on. The main flaw of the utopian socialism was the inability to find the way to socialism and failure to realise that the struggle for socialism must rest on a definite social force. Utopian socialism, said Lenin, “criticised capitalist society, it condemned … it had visions of a better order and endeavoured to convince the rich of the immorality of exploitation. But utopian socialism could not indicate the real solution”.
Where was it to be found? There was only one answer: the forces and means of transforming society were to be sought in society itself. But this required an understanding of the laws which govern society, in general, and capitalist society in particular. 

An essay, in a nutshell as per the passage can briefly be described as

Directions: Answer the given question based on the following passage:

There is a pleasant story of an itinerant sign-painter who while going his rounds came to a village inn upon whose signboard he had had his eye for some months and had watched with increasing hope and delight its rapid progress to blurred and faded dimness. To his horror he found a brand-new vanished sign. He surveyed it with disgust, and said to the innkeeper, who stood nervously by hoping for a professional compliment, ‘This looks as if someone had been doing it himself.’
That sentence holds within it the key to the whole mystery of essay-writing. An essay is a thing which someone does himself; and the point of the essay is not the subject, for any subject will suffice, but the charm of personality. It must concern itself with something ‘jolly’, as the schoolboy says, something smelt, heard, seen, perceived, invented, thought, but the essential thing is that the writer shall have formed his own impression, and that it shall have taken shape in his own mind; and the charm of the essay depends upon the charm of the mind that has conceived and recorded the impression. It will be seen, then, that the essay need not concern itself with anything definite; it need not have an intellectual or a philosophical or a religious or a humourous motif; but equally none of these subjects are ruled out. The only thing necessary is that the thing or the thought should be vividly apprehended, enjoyed, felt to be beautiful, and expressed with a certain gusto. It need conform to no particular rules. All literature answers to something in life, some habitual form of human expression. The stage imitates life, calling in the services of the eye and the ear; there is the narrative of the teller of tales or the minstrel; the song, the letter, the talk—all forms of human expression and communication have their antitypes in literature. The essay is the reverie, the frame of mind in which a man says, in the words of the old song, ‘Says I to myself, says I’.
It is generally supposed that Montaigne is the first writer who wrote what may technically be called essays. His pieces are partly autobiographical, partly speculative, and to a great extent ethical. But the roots of his writings lie far back in literary history. He owed a great part of his inspiration to Cicero, who treated of abstract topics in a conversational way with a romantic background; and this he owed to Plato, whose dialogues undoubtedly contain the germ of both the novel and the essay. Plato is in truth far more the forerunner of the novelist than of the philosopher. He made a background of life, he peopled his scenes with bright boys and amiable elders—oh that all scenes were so peopled!—and he discussed ethical and speculative problems of life and character with a vital rather than with a philosophical interest. Plato’s dialogues would be essays but for the fact that they have a dramatic colouring, while the essence of essay is soliloquy. But in the writings of Cicero the dramatic interest is but slight, and the whole thing approaches far more nearly to the essay than to the novel. Probably Cicero supplied to his readers the function both of the essayist and the preacher, and fed the needs of so-called thoughtful readers by dallying, in a fashion which it is hardly unjust to call twaddling, with familiar ethical problems of conduct and character. The charm of Montaigne is the charm of personality—frankness, gusto, acute observation, lively acquaintance with men and manners. He is ashamed of recording nothing that interested him; and a certain discreet shamelessness must always be the characteristic of the essayist, for the essence of his art is to say what has pleased him without too prudently considering whether it is worthy of the attention of the well-informed mind. (AC Benson’s The Art of the Essayist)

On removal of which of the following, the dialogues of Plato, according to the passage, could become essays?

Directions: Answer the given question based on the following passage:

There is a pleasant story of an itinerant sign-painter who while going his rounds came to a village inn upon whose signboard he had had his eye for some months and had watched with increasing hope and delight its rapid progress to blurred and faded dimness. To his horror he found a brand-new vanished sign. He surveyed it with disgust, and said to the innkeeper, who stood nervously by hoping for a professional compliment, ‘This looks as if someone had been doing it himself.’
That sentence holds within it the key to the whole mystery of essay-writing. An essay is a thing which someone does himself; and the point of the essay is not the subject, for any subject will suffice, but the charm of personality. It must concern itself with something ‘jolly’, as the schoolboy says, something smelt, heard, seen, perceived, invented, thought, but the essential thing is that the writer shall have formed his own impression, and that it shall have taken shape in his own mind; and the charm of the essay depends upon the charm of the mind that has conceived and recorded the impression. It will be seen, then, that the essay need not concern itself with anything definite; it need not have an intellectual or a philosophical or a religious or a humourous motif; but equally none of these subjects are ruled out. The only thing necessary is that the thing or the thought should be vividly apprehended, enjoyed, felt to be beautiful, and expressed with a certain gusto. It need conform to no particular rules. All literature answers to something in life, some habitual form of human expression. The stage imitates life, calling in the services of the eye and the ear; there is the narrative of the teller of tales or the minstrel; the song, the letter, the talk—all forms of human expression and communication have their antitypes in literature. The essay is the reverie, the frame of mind in which a man says, in the words of the old song, ‘Says I to myself, says I’.
It is generally supposed that Montaigne is the first writer who wrote what may technically be called essays. His pieces are partly autobiographical, partly speculative, and to a great extent ethical. But the roots of his writings lie far back in literary history. He owed a great part of his inspiration to Cicero, who treated of abstract topics in a conversational way with a romantic background; and this he owed to Plato, whose dialogues undoubtedly contain the germ of both the novel and the essay. Plato is in truth far more the forerunner of the novelist than of the philosopher. He made a background of life, he peopled his scenes with bright boys and amiable elders—oh that all scenes were so peopled!—and he discussed ethical and speculative problems of life and character with a vital rather than with a philosophical interest. Plato’s dialogues would be essays but for the fact that they have a dramatic colouring, while the essence of essay is soliloquy. But in the writings of Cicero the dramatic interest is but slight, and the whole thing approaches far more nearly to the essay than to the novel. Probably Cicero supplied to his readers the function both of the essayist and the preacher, and fed the needs of so-called thoughtful readers by dallying, in a fashion which it is hardly unjust to call twaddling, with familiar ethical problems of conduct and character. The charm of Montaigne is the charm of personality—frankness, gusto, acute observation, lively acquaintance with men and manners. He is ashamed of recording nothing that interested him; and a certain discreet shamelessness must always be the characteristic of the essayist, for the essence of his art is to say what has pleased him without too prudently considering whether it is worthy of the attention of the well-informed mind. (AC Benson’s The Art of the Essayist)

Montaigne, the first essayist according to the author, owed much to Cicero who also drew on Plato. Platonic inspiration is seen on Cicero in his

Directions: Answer the given question based on the following passage:

There is a pleasant story of an itinerant sign-painter who while going his rounds came to a village inn upon whose signboard he had had his eye for some months and had watched with increasing hope and delight its rapid progress to blurred and faded dimness. To his horror he found a brand-new vanished sign. He surveyed it with disgust, and said to the innkeeper, who stood nervously by hoping for a professional compliment, ‘This looks as if someone had been doing it himself.’
That sentence holds within it the key to the whole mystery of essay-writing. An essay is a thing which someone does himself; and the point of the essay is not the subject, for any subject will suffice, but the charm of personality. It must concern itself with something ‘jolly’, as the schoolboy says, something smelt, heard, seen, perceived, invented, thought, but the essential thing is that the writer shall have formed his own impression, and that it shall have taken shape in his own mind; and the charm of the essay depends upon the charm of the mind that has conceived and recorded the impression. It will be seen, then, that the essay need not concern itself with anything definite; it need not have an intellectual or a philosophical or a religious or a humourous motif; but equally none of these subjects are ruled out. The only thing necessary is that the thing or the thought should be vividly apprehended, enjoyed, felt to be beautiful, and expressed with a certain gusto. It need conform to no particular rules. All literature answers to something in life, some habitual form of human expression. The stage imitates life, calling in the services of the eye and the ear; there is the narrative of the teller of tales or the minstrel; the song, the letter, the talk—all forms of human expression and communication have their antitypes in literature. The essay is the reverie, the frame of mind in which a man says, in the words of the old song, ‘Says I to myself, says I’.
It is generally supposed that Montaigne is the first writer who wrote what may technically be called essays. His pieces are partly autobiographical, partly speculative, and to a great extent ethical. But the roots of his writings lie far back in literary history. He owed a great part of his inspiration to Cicero, who treated of abstract topics in a conversational way with a romantic background; and this he owed to Plato, whose dialogues undoubtedly contain the germ of both the novel and the essay. Plato is in truth far more the forerunner of the novelist than of the philosopher. He made a background of life, he peopled his scenes with bright boys and amiable elders—oh that all scenes were so peopled!—and he discussed ethical and speculative problems of life and character with a vital rather than with a philosophical interest. Plato’s dialogues would be essays but for the fact that they have a dramatic colouring, while the essence of essay is soliloquy. But in the writings of Cicero the dramatic interest is but slight, and the whole thing approaches far more nearly to the essay than to the novel. Probably Cicero supplied to his readers the function both of the essayist and the preacher, and fed the needs of so-called thoughtful readers by dallying, in a fashion which it is hardly unjust to call twaddling, with familiar ethical problems of conduct and character. The charm of Montaigne is the charm of personality—frankness, gusto, acute observation, lively acquaintance with men and manners. He is ashamed of recording nothing that interested him; and a certain discreet shamelessness must always be the characteristic of the essayist, for the essence of his art is to say what has pleased him without too prudently considering whether it is worthy of the attention of the well-informed mind. (AC Benson’s The Art of the Essayist)

Which of the following cannot be considered as the view of the author of this passage?

Directions: Answer the given question based on the following passage:

Over one-third of the population of the globe has done away with capitalist social relations and has either built or is building socialism. Progressive forces in all the advanced capitalist countries are working for socialism. More and more nations in Asia, Africa and Latin America, just emerged from colonial and semi-colonial oppression, rejected the capitalist way and set their sights on socialism.
Capitalism stands exposed as a social system that has brought mankind immense calamities. Exploitation of millions upon millions of working people by a handful of financial and industrial magnates; colonialism, ruthlessly oppressing and decimating the population of the colonies; two world wars, which took tens of millions of human lives, and a third world war being prepared by the ultra-reactionary circles of the capitalist states which threatens mankind with disastrous consequences—such is the face of capitalism as it stands in the dock of history. 
Today’s broad and mighty movement towards socialism is a natural and inevitable process, which explains the tremendous interest we find all over the globe in scientific socialist theory.
This collection of Lenin’s writings gives readers the opportunity to find out about the main propositions of scientific socialism and to understand the transition from pre-Marxian unscientific utopian socialist views to the science worked out by Marx, whose conclusions are backed up by profound and comprehensive theoretical analysis of social relations and have been borne out by the whole course of history.
What then is socialism?
The term was first used by the French utopian socialist Pierre Leroux in 1833. Socialism is a society based on social property in the means of production, without antagonistic classes or exploitation. Visions of such a society had tantalised the minds of men long before Leroux wrote about it, and were a reflection of the passionate protest of the oppressed and exploited masses against their intolerable condition.
Humanity’s best minds—the Englishman Thomas Moore in the 16^th century, the Italian Tommaso Campanella in the 17^th century, the Frenchmen Henri de Saint-Simon and Charles Fourier, the Englishman Robert Owen and the Russian Alexander Herzen and Nikolai Chernyshevsky in the 19^th century—proclaimed the need to restructure society on socialist lines and gave much thought to what it should be like. Many of their projections are naïve and unacceptable in the light of our own day, but they have also made some brilliant predictions.
The weakest side of these utopian socialist doctrines was how to go about realising this social ideal and whether it was at all possible. There the utopian socialists proved to be quite helpless. They held that all the defects of capitalism sprang from private property, and they were quite right. But they had no answer as to how private property came to be established in human society, or how it was to be eliminated. They confined themselves to spreading socialist ideas, appealing to the powers that be, and so on. The main flaw of the utopian socialism was the inability to find the way to socialism and failure to realise that the struggle for socialism must rest on a definite social force. Utopian socialism, said Lenin, “criticised capitalist society, it condemned … it had visions of a better order and endeavoured to convince the rich of the immorality of exploitation. But utopian socialism could not indicate the real solution”.
Where was it to be found? There was only one answer: the forces and means of transforming society were to be sought in society itself. But this required an understanding of the laws which govern society, in general, and capitalist society in particular. 

Instead of beginning with a definition at the very outset, the author recounts a story of an itinerant sign-painter. What objective(s), if any, does the author achieve by this?
A. Quite effectively, he draws the readers attention to the avaricious nature of a sign-painter.
B. He draws the readers immediate attention to the personal element in essay writing.
C. It was customary then that such sign paints were carried out by professionals.

Directions: Answer the given question based on the following passage:

There is a pleasant story of an itinerant sign-painter who while going his rounds came to a village inn upon whose signboard he had had his eye for some months and had watched with increasing hope and delight its rapid progress to blurred and faded dimness. To his horror he found a brand-new vanished sign. He surveyed it with disgust, and said to the innkeeper, who stood nervously by hoping for a professional compliment, ‘This looks as if someone had been doing it himself.’
That sentence holds within it the key to the whole mystery of essay-writing. An essay is a thing which someone does himself; and the point of the essay is not the subject, for any subject will suffice, but the charm of personality. It must concern itself with something ‘jolly’, as the schoolboy says, something smelt, heard, seen, perceived, invented, thought, but the essential thing is that the writer shall have formed his own impression, and that it shall have taken shape in his own mind; and the charm of the essay depends upon the charm of the mind that has conceived and recorded the impression. It will be seen, then, that the essay need not concern itself with anything definite; it need not have an intellectual or a philosophical or a religious or a humourous motif; but equally none of these subjects are ruled out. The only thing necessary is that the thing or the thought should be vividly apprehended, enjoyed, felt to be beautiful, and expressed with a certain gusto. It need conform to no particular rules. All literature answers to something in life, some habitual form of human expression. The stage imitates life, calling in the services of the eye and the ear; there is the narrative of the teller of tales or the minstrel; the song, the letter, the talk—all forms of human expression and communication have their antitypes in literature. The essay is the reverie, the frame of mind in which a man says, in the words of the old song, ‘Says I to myself, says I’.
It is generally supposed that Montaigne is the first writer who wrote what may technically be called essays. His pieces are partly autobiographical, partly speculative, and to a great extent ethical. But the roots of his writings lie far back in literary history. He owed a great part of his inspiration to Cicero, who treated of abstract topics in a conversational way with a romantic background; and this he owed to Plato, whose dialogues undoubtedly contain the germ of both the novel and the essay. Plato is in truth far more the forerunner of the novelist than of the philosopher. He made a background of life, he peopled his scenes with bright boys and amiable elders—oh that all scenes were so peopled!—and he discussed ethical and speculative problems of life and character with a vital rather than with a philosophical interest. Plato’s dialogues would be essays but for the fact that they have a dramatic colouring, while the essence of essay is soliloquy. But in the writings of Cicero the dramatic interest is but slight, and the whole thing approaches far more nearly to the essay than to the novel. Probably Cicero supplied to his readers the function both of the essayist and the preacher, and fed the needs of so-called thoughtful readers by dallying, in a fashion which it is hardly unjust to call twaddling, with familiar ethical problems of conduct and character. The charm of Montaigne is the charm of personality—frankness, gusto, acute observation, lively acquaintance with men and manners. He is ashamed of recording nothing that interested him; and a certain discreet shamelessness must always be the characteristic of the essayist, for the essence of his art is to say what has pleased him without too prudently considering whether it is worthy of the attention of the well-informed mind. (AC Benson’s The Art of the Essayist)