ESQUIMALT 



2079 



ESSAY 



common to all but one, then those that arc 

 common to all but two, etc. To show the 

 manner in which words are formed in Esper- 

 anto Dr. Zamenhof gives, as an illustration, 

 the word jratino, which in reality consists of 

 three words, jrat, in, o. Frat gives the idea of 

 the offspring of one's parents; in, the idea of 

 the female sex, and o, the idea of existence 

 (person or thing), hence a noun. These three 

 ideas combined in Esperanto make jratino, a 

 sister. The first and last make frato, a 

 brother. 



The grammar is very simple. By means of 

 a carefully-prepared system of prefixes and 

 suffixes the vocabulary may be extended to 

 an almost unlimited degree; thus ladle means 

 easily; maljacile, with difficulty; dekstre, on 

 the right, maldekstren, to the left. A great 

 many books and magazines have been pub- 

 lished in Esperanto. The English-Esperanto 

 Gazette was founded by Mr. H. Bolingbroko 

 Mudie in November, 1903; this was followed 

 in 1905 by The British Esperantist, which is 

 the official organ of the British Esperanto 

 Association. There is also an American Es- 

 peranto Association, and the Esperanto Society 

 of India has been formed. Other languages 

 competing with Esperanto for place as an 

 international language are Volapiik, Idiom, 

 Neutral and Bolak, but none of these has 

 made noticeable gains in a number of years. 

 Unless there is a revival of interest in it, 

 Esperanto and Volapiik, its most notable com- 

 petitor for favor, will fail of their purpose. 

 See VOLAPUK. M.R.T. 



ESQUIMALT, es'kwemalt, a city in Brit- 

 ish Columbia, on Vancouver Island, three 

 miles north of Victoria, with which it is con- 

 nected by the British Columbia Electric and 

 the Canadian Pacific railways. It is also on 

 the Esquimalt & Nanaimo Railway. Esqui- 

 malt is best known as the only Canadian naval 

 base on the Pacific coast; it has a graving 

 dock and repair yards. It is also an impor- 

 tant center for shipbuilding and salmon can- 

 ning. Esquimalt was incorporated as a city 

 on September 1, 1912. Population in 1916, 

 about 4,000. G.H.P. 



ESSAY, es'a, a literary composition on some 

 special subject, usually shorter and less formal 

 than a treatise, more loosely constructed than 

 an oration, less argumentative than a thesis, 

 and more limited in scope than a biography 

 or history. "It does not pursue its theme 

 likr a pointer, but goes hither and thither like 

 a bird to find material for its nest, or a bee 



to get honey for its comb," is one writer's 

 characterization of it. According to their 

 material, essays can be grouped as historical, 

 political, critical, scientific or personal. . 



Of the latter type are the essays of Michel 

 Montaigne, the French writer who developed 

 this form of literature. Unlike the novel, the 

 drama or the epic, the essay sprang into be- 

 ing without passing through a long process of 

 evolution, for it came in finished form from 

 Montaigne's pen. His essays are chatty, in- 

 formal and rambling, and he used the con- 

 versational method freely. Informal and inti- 

 mate, too, are the essays of Francis Bacon, 

 the next great essayist, after Montaigne. 

 Bacon, however, put plenty of substance into 

 his essays; he gave them solidity, and through 

 them endeavored to advise and to impart 

 information. 



Essays constitute an important part of "writ- 

 ten English literature. Notable among these 

 are the papers of Steele and Addison in the 

 Taller and the Spectator; Charles Lamb's 

 Essays of Elia; Macalay's Milton; Carlylc's 

 Bums; Matthew Arnold's Sweetness and 

 Light; Ruskin's Sesame and Lilies (a collec- 

 tion of essays) ; and the essays of Huxley, 

 Newman, Hazlitt, De Quincey, Robert Louis 

 Stevenson and George E. Saintsbury. 



Among American essayists, Emerson is the 

 most eminent; probably his best-known essay 

 is Self -Reliance. Others who have won honor 

 in this field are Irving, Lowell, Holmes, 

 Thoreau, George W. Curtis, William Dean 

 Howells, Hamilton Wright Mabie, Samuel M. 

 Crothers and Agnes Repplier. 



The following essay, by Francis Bacon, is 

 representative of the best work of that author, 

 and is an example of what an essay should be : 



Of Studies 



Studies serve for delight, for ornament, and 

 for ability. Their chief use for delight is in pri- 

 vateness and retiring ; for ornament, is in dis- 

 course ; and for ability, is in the judgment and 

 disposition of business ; for expert men can exe- 

 cute, and perhaps judge of particulars, one by 

 one, but the general counsels, and the plots and 

 marshaling of affairs, come best from those that 

 are learned. 



To spend too much time in studies, is sloth ; to 

 use them too much for ornament, is affectation : 

 to make judgment wholly by their rules, is the 

 humor of a scholar ; they perfect nature, and are 

 perfected by experience ; for natural abilities are 

 like natural plants, that need pruning by study, 

 and studies themselves do give forth directions 

 too much at large, except they be bounded in by 

 experience. Crafty men contemn studies, simple 

 men admire them, and wise men use them ; for 



