A Well Detailed Spiral Model Information Technology Essay

A Well Detailed Spiral Model Information Technology Essay The life cycle model most likely preferred or suitable for Sales Order Despatch Application system would be the Spiral Life Cycle Model. The Spiral Life Cycle Model is a software development approach combining elements of both design and prototyping in a much more comprehensive and understandable stages. The spiral life cycle combines the iterative nature of prototyping with the controlled and systematic aspects of the waterfall model, therein providing the potential for rapid development of incremental versions of the software. In this model the software is developed in a series of incremental releases with the early stages being either paper models or prototypes. Later iterations become increasingly more complete versions of the product. A WELL DETAILED SPIRAL MODEL The spiral life cycle model typically contains 6 task regions: i. Customer Communication ii. Planning iii. Risk Analysis iv. Engineering v. Construction and Release vi. Customer Evaluation All the above mentioned tasks has to be addressed during the development of the Sales Order Despatch Application. 1.1 Customer Communication This task region basically has to do with knowing the customer and establishing an effective communication and gathering the requirements of the system to be developed. Customers therefore would be referred to as the management of the Sales Order Despatch System. These requirements can be gathered using several fact finding techniques. The techniques used for this system would be: Questionnaires A survey will be simply carried out on selected Sales Order Despatch Application current workers. This survey would help us understand what the end users of the SODA would want from the new system. And by placing any current problems they are facing as at the time the survey is being carried out can help in enhancing the new system and tackling such problems in the new system. Interviews In this particular fact finding technique, different levels of workers and bodies of the organisation would be interviewed in order to get a suitable and preferable view of the system to be implemented. Such problems being faced in the current system also need to be addressed, and those problems must be surpassed by the new computerized system. The most important people who would be interviewed would be the Managing Director of Fizzypop Plc and major end-users of FizzyPop plc in charge of the day to day activities. The purposes of these fact findings are to understand the functional and non-functional requirements of the system. 1.2 Planning Once all the necessary information is gathered through the interviews and questionnaires, they should be addressed as requirements. Also the system must be developed within a limited time and budget. In this stage an initial budget will be built to get a rough idea on what the final cost will be to implement the system. This initial cost will vary from the final budget due to many changing factors. Also a deadline must be given by the restaurant as to when they want the system implemented. A Gantt chart must be developed to monitor the progress of the system. This will ensure that the system is finished and delivered on time. This a view of the gantt chart which the developers and analysers will use to monitor the progress of the system to be developed: 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 20 22 24 26 28 30 32 Here are the functional requirements identified for the system: Functional Requirements Functional requirements are the requirements needed for the new computerized system to function properly. The following are the functional requirements for the Sales Order Despatch Application system: * Allow the end-user to specify the customers soft drinks and delivery requirements via an intranet web page. * Able to edit, add to the job sheet online. * Allowing staff and management to view and produce reports of packaged items, via their internal networking infrastructure (i.e., their intranet). * Customers order is been verified against current capacity, stock availability and delivery dates. * Receive confirmation of the delivery date and related billing information * The information system needs to be integrated with their current customer and distribution database. * The system will, from time to time, provide the company with detailed reports of customer profiles (number of customers, types of drink purchased, and current revenue). * 1.3 Risk Analysis In this particular task region, all possible risks to be encountered are been identified. A risk probability impact matrix should be also put up in order to understand the effects of the risks better. Whereby Risk categories have been divided in to 2 sections, namely Technological and Management, and here are examples of such risks: * Management Risks o Computer illiteracy within end-users o Takes time for end users to be comfortable with the change of initial system to current system o Misuse of developed system might lead to unnecessary expenditure on maintenance o Lack of team Support o Inadequate time to complete project o Inadequate funds/ Final expenses higher than initial budget o Disclosure of company information * Technological Risks o Power Failures are vulnerable to loss of data o Due to improper management Data Corruption / Loss of Data can occur o There might be Intruder Attacks from hackers. o Hardware Failures. o The Rapid evolving and change in software. Initially after getting all the risks for the system, it has been noted down that the following risks that have an actual threat to the SODA system are mentioned below: * Inadequate time to complete project * Inadequate funds/ Final expenses higher than initial budget * Data Corruption / Loss of Data * Intruder Attacks * Hardware Failures * Misuse of Equipment 1.4 Engineering: This task region is to design the system with the gathered requirements information using selected tools and coding techniques selected. A sample prototype can be designed as well in this stage. The programming language that can be used to develop the Sales Order Despatch Application SODA could be Java and ASP.NET Since java is a very popular programming language with its own GUI. While ASP.NET is a web based programming language which is also platform independent with JAVA therefore it would be easy making future amendments to the system, in case the system hardware is changed or ready to be reviewed again. SQL server 2008 can be used to create the database for the Bottling companies. It is easier to create and link tables and create queries using SQL server 2008 and will be able to handle all customer and bottling information, including record keeping of customers visiting the website. 1.5 Construction and Release This is the stage where the prototype of the system that was initially designed in the previous stage would be brought into life by coding the system. Once the coding is carried out, the system has to test to see if it meets all the requirements. Testing can be done using sample of test cases and then the actual output is matched against the expected output of the above mentioned system. Once we are through with testing and it meets the given expectations, the final documentation is prepared along with a training manual showing the customer on how to use the system. Technical support will also be provided along with the training manual. 1.6 Customer Evaluation This is the task region whereby feedback is been gotten from the management of FizzyPop Plc. Whether or not the developed system is up to their expectations is learned in this stage. This could be determined as the final stage of the project if the system is acceptable by the FizzyPop plc. But. If it is not accepted therefore you have to case it is back to task region one, Customer communication, by getting the information needed to do amendments and understanding what the customer wants in the system. QUESTION 2 The goal of every software engineer in software engineering is gaining durability for quality products depending on the attributes of such products. There are laid down set of qualities specifically linked with system dependability attributes such as security, safety, fault tolerance; quality that makes for convenience of use, such as usability, adaptability, and clarity; and quality that facilitates and makes future upgrades and maintenance easy. There is some agreement about the attributes that define software quality and dependability over a range of products. These definitions provide the base knowledge from which individual quality products are planned, engineered, analysed, measured, and enhanced. There are many dependability measurement attributes that could be applied to the SODA system, but only few of such attributes of dependability measurements would be described below. These attributes have been selectively chosen due to its high contribution to Sales Order Despatch Application SODA namely: 1. Efficiency/ Performance of the system 2. Accuracy 3. Dependability 4. Usability 2.2Efficiency/ Performance of the system Performance/ Efficiency of a system, is a set of attributes that bear on the relationship between the level of performance of the software and the amount of resources used and under stated conditions. Resources may include other software, hardware, services of operating and users for maintenance and operation. This attribute have 2 major features namely: Time and resource behaviours. And if a processing results requires a very high performing processor and lots or RAM to display the processed result under 3 seconds, that is an indication of poor resource performance. In other words even if the processed results are accurate to its single term, it still requires excess time and resources, it will simply affect the overall quality of the system. . 2.1 Accuracy Accuracy is an attribute of software that deals with the provision of right or agreed results and its effects. The question to be figured out next is how accurate the system performs. For example, the user enters drink specification Mountain dew using the Add function in the database, and the system displays results for Drink specification of only Mirinda or Malta , that indicates an inaccurate system. This happens due to poor programming and system designing. Overall an inaccurate system means the quality of software is poor and therefore the end-users (FizzyPop plc) will not be pleased with the entire software. 2.4 Dependability After the system has been designed for FizzyPop plc And it has proven to be efficient, effective, user friendly and safe, we still have to worry about how dependable the system could be. That is to say that Dependability basically is how dependable the system implemented would be, which has many features and some of those features are: * Maintainability Normally after the system is implemented and sold to FizzyPop plc, it must be maintained, and this maintenance will be done by the users of SODA. Maintenance will usually include updating the system software, taking backups. All this will be taught to the user during the training phase, but this also must be easy to do. * Reliability FizzyPop plc would be open throughout the day, and the system will also be on and running as long as FizzyPop exists.it could only be altered when further development process is been carried out and ready to implement. NOTE: The system must be able to operate during these times without and crashes or system failure. * Availability The system must be able to be started up within a short time, and ready to use. Queries must be responded to as and when the user demands them, that is the basic idea of availability. The system must be ready to use on the users demand. 2.3 Usability Usability is a set of attributes that put up with on the effort needed for use of a system, and on the individual assessment of such use, usually evaluated by the user of the system. The system developed for FizzyPop plc should be easy to use and learn. The user involved with the day to day function of the system, does not really need to be very good technically. Therefore the system must be designed in a way it easy to understand for users who will be using the system. All error messages must be in simple understandable English with less technical jargon. Therefore in the event of any errors the system user should be able to overcome the problem by themselves. Any new user of the SODA system should be able to have an experience and understand how the system works on their own. That will be a good indication of a user friendly system, in other words a good quality system. Also a training session must be provided to the users of SODA in order to show them on how the system works. A manual will also be given, in any case, if there are any problems in the system that needs any attention, SODA users (FizzyPop plc. Staffs) can look up the manual for details. CONCLUSION The spiral life cycle model has been chosen to develop the system so that the final product developed for FizzyPop plcwill very few or no problems will be found at all. This model makes sure that all the risks involved will be identified and taken care of before being handed over to the Bottling Company known as FizzyPop plc. Since the spiral model uses a rotating pattern, it ensures that all requirements are identified, and the system designed meets the specifications in order to make sure SODA users are satisfied with the system before the system is delivered to them. This spiral way of designing the system is also a bit costly to FizzyPop plc compared to developing the system using other methodologies, but its outcome is much worthy. In summary of the dependability measurement attributes, it could be said that, the software which is most efficient, effective and user friendly would be bad in terms on quality if it has low dependability qualities, such as, taking too long to start-up , regularly freezing up/ crashing and requiring high end technical training for users to maintain the system. If it is also a very dependable system, but with poor efficiency, performance and a bad user interface. it will not be a good quality system either. Finally we have concluded by saying that the system developed for FizzyPop plc must be perfect in all of these attributes; any defect or failure in any of these attributes will compromise the overall software quality for the system.

Importance of Learning Asian Languages Essay

If I asked an English speaker, â€Å"Hello, how are you?†, the answer almost invariably will be â€Å"I’m fine, thank you†. This brief dialogue itself establishes a relationship between the two people. It not only stands proof of the two individuals’ ability to speak English but also their collective ability to converse in a common language. From the very beginning a certain level of trust is created as both persons can comprehend what the other is saying and thus, within the limitation of his or her expression, know what the person is thinking. With this also comes fluency in the conversation and in the vocalization of ones thoughts. Not only does this make the interaction faster, it also allows both persons to speak their mind freely and without much hesitation. Now instead, think of a French speaker asking â€Å"Commo à §ava?†, his translator translating, â€Å" How are you?†, the English speaker answering, â€Å"I’m fine, thank you† and the translator translating back, â€Å"Je suis bien, merci†. Quite evidently, the conversation becomes longer and quite tedious. But beyond that, the two individuals also feel a disconnect, as neither of them know for sure what the other is saying. The existence of the middleman disrupts the trust that would otherwise be established in the relationship. Also, both individuals hesitate and think twice before saying anything, pondering its interpretation in the other’s language. The purpose of the above examples is to show the benefit of conversing in a common language. If there is such a radical difference in communicating so briefly, the differences in longer and more complex conversations will be drastic. A common language gives the individual more access, establishes trust and therefore gives the individuals power. Throughout history we have witnessed expansion of various empires and in the process interaction of societies speaking different languages. Examples can be taken from the invasions of Indian kingdoms by the British Empire, British colonization of Australia or from the forceful inhabitation of Native American lands by the European immigrants while USA was being founded. The pattern in all these has been the same. The invaders start from trade. Through this they learn about the native people’s society and culture. Language is an inevitable need of trade and so the foreign traders learn the local language and the natives learn the tradersà ¢â‚¬â„¢. Slowly this gives the invaders access to the local community and gradually colonization takes place. Thus, we see how language gives power. Even in the current scenario, things have not changed a lot. Although the purpose of knowing a foreign language may not be to take over another country, language still gives the individual who speaks it an immense amount of power. It is so in all aspects of the word, the more people you can communicate with, the more are your chances to succeed. This power is exactly what the Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard wants the citizens of Australia to have. Asia is progressing rapidly, but why would Australians knowing Asian languages â€Å"power Australia into the world’s top 10 wealthiest nations by 2025†? This is because as Asian countries progress and become global leaders, due to their economic and populous advantage, a large part of the world’s business will be conducted with or through them. India and China consist of 5/14th of the world’s population and this population spreads around the globe, knowing Mandarin or Hindi will give the speaker a great tactical advantage in an increasingly competitive world. But you may ask that if a common language is the only thing attracting Australia to have its citizens learn languages like Hindi and Mandarin, what’s wrong with their native English itself? The answer to this has two sides. The first is that English is becoming an increasingly global language and in the coming days, everyone who will do business with the Asians will almost definitely know English. In such cases, having a common language will not be enough. Knowing their native language and establishing an intimate relationship is what will give the language speakers an edge over the others. The other side is that as evidently seen today, a large percent of the Indian population speaks English and in terms of the people who do business, all of them speak English. But in the case of the rest of eastern Asia, few people, even in the corporate world speak fluent English. These aren’t baseless claims. There are various reasons behind this phenomenon such as the British rule over India for over 200 years, the mostly secondary sector development of countries like China and Japan and India’s global dependence for its services export. Since the beginning of British rule in India, many Indians have been learning English to facilitate themselves to get better jobs in the British government. Even after independence, English remained deeply incorporated in the Indian education system. Thus, English was never introduced to Indians as a global language learnt to facilitate communication as is being done now in various countries. It was imposed on on Indians as a necessity to survive in the British common wealth. This is why even the Indian lower middle class knows a moderately good level of English. Also, as India has developed, its tertiary sector has developed tremendously, specifically in the field of Information and Technology. The blooming IT industry far outmatches the demand for IT services in India and therefore there is a need to outsource these services. Thus, interaction of the average Indian with the outside world has increased and so has his need to speak English. As opposed to this, countries like China and Japan have seen the most development in the secondary sector. With the highest population and cheap labour, China has become the manufacturing hub of the world. But this surge in the manufacturing sector has resulted in only the entrepreneurs of these countries being in communication with the rest of the world. Their laborers, with no need to communicate with people outside the country, have found no need to learn English. As these Asian superpowers rise, the existing world leaders relatively decline in their economic and political status. With this in mind and considering that the whole of Europe barely amounts to half the population of China, learning learning Asian languages will be much more advantageous that learning European languages except for specific purposes. One could argue that some European languages like Spanish and French could be used in communication in earlier Spanish and French territories like South America and Quebec but this wouldn’t provide any advantage considering the economic and populous strength of Asian countries. Although all the pros favor learning Asian languages, it isn’t such an easy task, especially for a country that has been under British rule and speaks English that has a completely different script than any of the Asian languages. In this aspect it would be easier for students in Australia to learn European languages, as the script is the same as English. Another factor affecting the foreign language Australians would prefer to learn is their ancestry. Most of the Australian population consists of European immigrants who moved to Australia during the British rule. Many of these immigrants now in the 4th or 5th generation after the migration see a loss of culture in the generation following them and therefore would prefer that their children learn their mother tongue and be well rooted in their origins. Although a valid argument, people need to make a conscious choice between the past and the future. Learning their original European languages may give them a better taste of their own culture but by doing that, they are possibly depriving themselves the chance of a better future. Even the aspect of education is quite debatable. It is a well-known scientific fact that as you grow older, your ability to learn different languages decreases. The language learning agility during childhood allows children to master various languages irrespective of the differences between them. I myself have learnt English, French and Spanish, all having the same script while also knowing Hindi and Gujarati, both of which follow a different script than that of European languages. There are people out there who know various languages from many scripts and you don’t need to be a linguist to learn them, you just need to be a kid! This unconventional tactic to teach Australian citizens Asian languages could prove to be a great advantage to learners in this Asian century and could facilitate Australia to make it one of the ‘top 10 most wealthiest countries by 2025’ which, as stated by Julia Gillard, the Australian Prime Minister, is the primary goal of this initiative. To materialize this goal will take a lot of effort and will put a great toll on Australia’s education budget. If achieved though, Australia won’t be far behind the Asian giants in the coming global race.

Lease Versus Purchase Option Essay

In this essay I will try to explain or compare and contrast lease versus purchase option. In this explanation I will talk about what is deb financing, and will provide two examples. I will also talk about what is equity financing and provide two examples and last which alternative capital structure is more advantageous and why. In order to give two examples of what is debt financing I will give a brief description of what is debt financing. Debt financing is when a company borrows money that must be repaid but with interest. This does not dilute the ownership of the company. With that being said the two examples are Issue Bonds and Line of Credit. In the line of credit, this is a bank loan where a business can draw out funds whenever money is needed. In issue bonds the business can issue bonds as for of debt financing these bonds are marketable securities. (ehow.com 2013) Now equity financing is according to ychange.com (in equity financing, money is exchanged for a share of ownership in the business). The business in returns raises funds and does not incur in debt. The two types of equity financial is employee stock ownership and private investors. The employee stock is when a company sells stock to the employee. The private investors are possible investor willing to invest their money in the company. Which alternative capital structure is more advantageous? In my opinion and according to the definitions on my e-book I would have to say energetic-middle the reason for this would be because it is more advantageous for small business. It balances the return and risk of capital. After looking at all the definitions and examples, trying to compare and contrast lease vs. buying is not that difficult. This all depends on what do you want and if it is in a companies perspective then one must take into consideration the companies cash flow. For example if a company has lots of cash flow then buying is the option now if it wants to conserve capital for the near term then leasing is the best option. It all depends on what the company need at that particular time.

The Modern Essay by Virginia Woolf

Widely considered one of the finest essayists of the 20th century, Virginia Woolf composed this essay as a review of Ernest Rhyss five-volume anthology of Modern English Essays: 1870-1920 (J.M. Dent, 1922). The review originally appeared in The Times Literary Supplement, November 30, 1922, and Woolf included a slightly revised version in her first collection of essays, The Common Reader (1925). In her brief preface to the collection, Woolf distinguished the common reader (a phrase borrowed from Samuel Johnson) from the critic and scholar: He is worse educated, and nature has not gifted him so generously. He reads for his own pleasure rather than to impart knowledge or correct the opinions of others. Above all, he is guided by an instinct to create for himself, out of whatever odds and ends he can come by, some kind of whole--a portrait of a man, a sketch of an age, a theory of the art of writing. Here, assuming the guise of the common reader, she offers a few . . . ideas and opinions about the nature of the English essay. Compare Woolfs thoughts on essay writing with those expressed by Maurice Hewlett in The Maypole and the Column and by Charles S. Brooks in The Writing of Essays. The Modern Essay by Virginia Woolf As Mr. Rhys truly says, it is unnecessary to go profoundly into the history and origin of the essay--whether it derives from Socrates or Siranney the Persian--since, like all living things, its present is more important than its past. Moreover, the family is widely spread; and while some of its representatives have risen in the world and wear their coronets with the best, others pick up a precarious living in the gutter near Fleet Street. The form, too, admits variety. The essay can be short or long, serious or trifling, about God and Spinoza, or about turtles and Cheapside. But as we turn over the pages of these five little volumes, containing essays written between 1870 and 1920, certain principles appear to control the chaos, and we detect in the short period under review something like the progress of history. Of all forms of literature, however, the essay is the one which least calls for the use of long words. The principle which controls it is simply that it should give 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. It should lay us under a spell with its first word, and we should only wake, refreshed, with its last. In the interval we may pass through the most various experiences of amusement, surprise, interest, indignation; we may soar to the heights of fantasy with Lamb or plunge to the depths of wisdom with Bacon, but we must never be roused. The essay must lap us about and draw its curtain across the world. So great a feat is seldom accomplished, though the fault may well be as much on the readers side as on the writers. Habit and lethargy have dulled his palate. A novel has a story, a poem rhyme; but what art can the essayist use in these short lengths of prose to sting us wide awake and fix us in a trance which is not sleep but rather an intensification of life--a basking, with every faculty alert, in the sun of pleasure? He must know--that is the first essential--how to write. His learning may be as profound as Mark Pattisons, but in an essay, it must be so fused by the magic of writing that not a fact juts out, not a dogma tears the surface of the texture. Macaulay in one way, Froude in another, did this superbly over and over again. They have blown more knowledge into us in the course of one essay than the innumerable chapters of a hundred textbooks. But when Mark Pattison has to tell us, in the space of thirty-five little pages, about Montaigne, we feel that he had not previously assimilated M. Grà ¼n. M. Grà ¼n was a gentleman who once wrote a bad book. M. Grà ¼n and his book should have been embalmed for our perpetual delight in amber. But the process is fatiguing; it requires more time and perhaps more temper than Pattison had at his command. He served M. Grà ¼n up raw, and he remains a crude berry among the cooked meats, upon which our teeth must grate forever. Something of the sort applies to Matthew Arnold and a certain translator of Spinoza. Literal truth-telling and finding fault with a culprit for his good are out of place in an essay, where everything should be for our good and rather for eternity than for the March number of the Fortnightly Review. But if the voice of the scold should never be heard in this narrow plot, there is another voice which is as a plague of locusts--the voice of a man stumbling drowsily among loose words, clutching aimlessly at vague ideas, the voice, for example, of Mr. Hutton in the following passage: Add to this that his married life was brief, only seven years and a half, being unexpectedly cut short, and that his passionate reverence for his wifes memory and genius--in his own words, a religion--was one which, as he must have been perfectly sensible, he could not make to appear otherwise than extravagant, not to say an hallucination, in the eyes of the rest of mankind, and yet that he was possessed by an irresistible yearning to attempt to embody it in all the tender and enthusiastic hyperbole of which it is so pathetic to find a man who gained his fame by his dry-light a master, and it is impossible not to feel that the human incidents in Mr. Mills career are very sad. A book could take that blow, but it sinks an essay. A biography in two volumes is indeed the proper depository, for there, where the licence is so much wider, and hints and glimpses of outside things make part of the feast (we refer to the old type of Victorian volume), these yawns and stretches hardly matter, and have indeed some positive value of their own. But that value, which is contributed by the reader, perhaps illicitly, in his desire to get as much into the book from all possible sources as he can, must be ruled out here. There is no room for the impurities of literature in an essay. Somehow or other, by dint of labor or bounty of nature, or both combined, the essay must be pure--pure like water or pure like wine, but pure from dullness, deadness, and deposits of extraneous matter. Of all writers in the first volume, Walter Pater best achieves this arduous task, because before setting out to write his essay (Notes on Leonardo da Vinci) he has somehow contrived to get his material fused. He is a learned man, but it is not knowledge of Leonardo that remains with us, but a vision, such as we get in a good novel where everything contributes to bring the writers conception as a whole before us. Only here, in the essay, where the bounds are so strict and facts have to be used in their nakedness, the true writer like Walter Pater makes these limitations yield their own quality. Truth will give it authority; from its narrow limits he will get shape and intensity; and then there is no more fitting place for so me of those ornaments which the old writers loved and we, by calling them ornaments, presumably despise. Nowadays nobody would have the courage to embark on the once famous description of Leonardos lady who has learned the secrets of the grave; and has been a diver in deep seas and keeps their fallen day about her; and trafficked for strange webs with Eastern merchants; and, as Leda, was the mother of Helen of Troy, and, as Saint Anne, the mother of Mary . . . The passage is too thumb-marked to slip naturally into the context. But when we come unexpectedly upon the smiling of women and the motion of great waters, or upon full of the refinement of the dead, in sad, earth-coloured raiment, set with pale stones, we suddenly remember that we have ears and we have eyes and that the English language fills a long array of stout volumes with innumerable words, many of which are of more than one syllable. The only living Englishman who ever looks into these volumes is, of course, a gentleman of Polish extraction. But doubtless our abstention saves us much gush, much rhetoric, much high-stepping and cloud-prancing, and for the sake of the prevailing sobriety and hard-headedness, we should be willing to barter the splendor of  Sir Thomas Browne  and the vigor of  Swift. Yet, if the essay admits more properly than biography or fiction of sudden boldness and metaphor, and can be polished till every atom of its surface shines, there are dangers in that too. We are soon in sight of ornament. Soon the current, which is the life-blood of literature, runs slow; and instead of sparkling and flashing or moving with a quieter impulse which has a deeper excitement, words coagulate together in frozen sprays which, like the grapes on a Christmas-tree, glitter for a single night, but are dusty and garnish the day after. The temptation to decorate is great where the theme may be of the slightest. What is there to interest another in the fact that one has enjoyed a walking tour, or has amused oneself by rambling down Cheapside and looking at the turtles in Mr. Sweetings shop window?  Stevenson  and  Samuel Butler  chose very different methods of exciting our interest in these domestic themes. Stevenson, of course, trimmed and polished and set out his matter in the traditional eighteenth-century form. It is admirably done, but we cannot help feeling anxious, as the essay proceeds, lest the material may give out under the craftsmans fingers. The ingot is so small, the manipulation so incessant. And perhaps that is why the  peroration-- To sit still and contemplate--to remember the faces of women without desire, to be pleased by the great deeds of men without envy, to be everything and everywhere in sympathy and yet content to remain where and what you are-- has the sort of insubstantiality which suggests that by the time he got to the end he had left himself nothing solid to work with. Butler adopted the very opposite method. Think your own thoughts, he seems to say, and speak them as plainly as you can. These turtles in the shop window which appear to leak out of their shells through heads and feet suggest a fatal faithfulness to a fixed idea. And so, striding unconcernedly from one idea to the next, we traverse a large stretch of ground; observe that a wound in the solicitor is a very serious thing; that Mary Queen of Scots wears surgical boots and is subject to fits near the Horse Shoe in Tottenham Court Road; take it for granted that no one really cares about Aeschylus; and so, with many amusing anecdotes and some profound reflections, reach the peroration, which is that, as he had been told not to see more in Cheapside than he could get into twelve pages of the  Universal Review, he had better stop. And yet obviously Butler is at least as careful of our pleasure as Stevenson, and to write like oneself and call it not writing is a much harder exercise in style than to write like Addison and call it writing well. But, however much they differ individually, the Victorian essayists yet had something in common. They wrote at greater length than is now usual, and they wrote for a public which had not only time to sit down to its magazine seriously, but a high, if peculiarly Victorian, standard of culture by which to judge it. It was worth while to speak out upon serious matters in an essay; and there was nothing absurd in writing as well as one possibly could when, in a month or two, the same public which had welcomed the essay in a magazine would carefully read it once more in a book. But a change came from a small audience of cultivated people to a larger audience of people who were not quite so cultivated. The change was not altogether for the worse. In volume iii. we find Mr. Birrell and  Mr. Beerbohm. It might even be said that there was a reversion to the classic  type and that the essay by losing its size and something of its sonority was approaching more nearly the essay of Addison and Lamb. At any rate, there is a great gulf between Mr. Birrell on  Carlyle  and the essay which one may suppose that Carlyle would have written upon Mr. Birrell. There is little similarity between  A Cloud of Pinafores, by Max Beerbohm, and  A Cynics Apology, by Leslie Stephen. But the essay is alive; there is no reason to despair. As the conditions change so the  essayist, most sensitive of all plants to public opinion, adapts himself, and if he is good makes the best of the change, and if he is bad the worst. Mr. Birrell is certainly good; and so we find that, though he has dropped a considerable amount of weight, his attack is much more direct and his movement more supple. But what did Mr. Beerbohm give to the essay and what did he take from it? That is a much more complicated question, for here we have an essayist who has concentrated on the work and  is, without doubt, the prince of his profession. What Mr. Beerbohm gave was, of course, himself. This presence, which has haunted the essay fitfully from the time of Montaigne, had been in exile since the death of  Charles Lamb. Matthew Arnold was never to his readers Matt, nor Walter Pater affectionately abbreviated in a thousand homes to Wat. They gave us much, but that they did not give. Thus,  sometime  in the nineties, it must have surprised readers accustomed to exhortation, information, and denunciation to find themselves familiarly addressed by a voice which seemed to belong to a man no larger than themselves. He was affected by private joys and  sorrows and had no gospel to preach and no learning to impart. He was himself, simply and directly, and himself he has remained. Once again we have an essayist capable of using the essayists most proper but most dangerous and delicate tool. He has brought personality into literature, not unconsciously and impurely, but so consciously and purely that we do not know whether t here is any relation between Max the essayist and Mr. Beerbohm the man. We only know that the spirit of personality permeates every word that he writes. 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. Some of the essayists in Mr. Rhys collection, to be frank, have not altogether succeeded in solving it. We are nauseated by the sight of trivial personalities decomposing in the eternity of print. As talk, no doubt, it was charming, and  certainly, the writer is a good fellow to meet over a bottle of beer. But literature is stern; it is no use being charming,  virtuous or even learned and brilliant into the bargain, unless, she seems to reiterate, you  fulfill  her first condition--to know how to write. This art is possessed to perfection by Mr. Beerbohm. But he has not searched the dictionary for polysyllables. He has not  molded  firm periods or seduced our ears with intricate cadences and strange melodies. Some of his companions--Henley and Stevenson, for example--are momentarily more impressive. But  A Cloud of Pinafores  has in it that indescribable inequality, stir, and final expressiveness which belong to life and to life alone. You have not finished with it because you have read it, any more than friendship is ended because it is time to part. Life wells up and alters and adds. Even things in a book-case change if they are alive; we find ourselves wanting to meet them again; we find them altered. So we look back upon essay after essay by Mr. Beerbohm, knowing that, come September or May, we shall sit down with them and talk. Yet it is true that the essayist is the most sensitive of all writers to public opinion. The drawing-room is the place where a great deal of rea ding is done nowadays, and the essays of Mr. Beerbohm lie, with an exquisite appreciation of all that the position exacts, upon the drawing-room table. There is no  gin  about; no strong tobacco; no puns, drunkenness, or insanity. Ladies and gentlemen talk together, and some things, of course, are not said. But if it would be foolish to attempt to confine Mr. Beerbohm to one room, it would be still more foolish, unhappily, to make him, the artist, the man who gives us only his best, the representative of our age. There are no essays by Mr. Beerbohm in the fourth or fifth volumes of the present collection. His age seems already a little distant, and the drawing-room table, as it recedes, begins to look rather like an altar where, once upon a time, people deposited offerings--fruit from their own orchards, gifts carved with their own hands. Now once more the conditions have changed. The public needs essays as much as ever, and perhaps even more. The demand for the light middle not exceeding fifteen hundred words, or in special cases seventeen hundred and fifty, much exceeds the supply. Where Lamb wrote one essay and Max perhaps writes two,  Mr. Belloc  at a rough computation produces three hundred and sixty-five. They are very short, it is true. Yet with what dexterity the practised e ssayist will utilise his space--beginning as close to the top of the sheet as possible, judging precisely how far to go, when to turn, and how, without sacrificing a  hairs breadth  of paper, to wheel about and alight accurately upon the last word his editor allows! As a feat of  skill, it is well worth watching. But the personality upon which Mr. Belloc, like Mr. Beerbohm, depends suffers in the process. It comes to  us, not with the natural richness of the speaking voice, but strained and thin and full of mannerisms and affectations, like the voice of a man shouting through a megaphone to a crowd on a windy day. Little friends, my readers, he says in the essay called An Unknown Country, and he goes on to tell us how-- There was a shepherd the other day at Findon Fair who had come from the east by Lewes with sheep, and who had in his eyes that reminiscence of horizons which makes the eyes of shepherds and of mountaineers different from the eyes of other men. . . . I went with him to hear what he had to say, for shepherds talk quite differently from other men. Happily, this shepherd had little to say, even under the stimulus of the inevitable mug of beer, about the Unknown Country, for the only remark that he did make proves him either a minor poet, unfit for the care of  sheep or Mr. Belloc himself masquerading with a fountain pen. That is the penalty which the habitual essayist must now be prepared to face. He must masquerade. He cannot afford the time either to be himself or to be other people. He must skim the surface of thought and dilute the strength of personality. He must give us a worn weekly halfpenny instead of a solid sovereign once a year. But it is not Mr. Belloc only who has suffered from the prevailing conditions. The essays which bring the collection to the year 1920 may not be the best of their authors work, but, if we except writers like Mr. Conrad and Mr. Hudson, who have strayed into essay writing accidentally, and concentrate upon those who write essays habitually, we shall find them a good deal affected by the change in their circumstances. To write weekly, to write daily, to write shortly, to write for busy people catching trains in the morning or for tired people coming home in the evening, is a  heartbreaking  task for men who know good writing from bad. They do it, but instinctively draw out of harms way anything precious that might be damaged by contact with the public, or anything sharp that might irritate its skin. And so, if one reads Mr. Lucas, Mr. Lynd, or Mr. Squire in the bulk, one feels that a common  grayness  silvers everything. They are as far removed from the extravagant beauty of Wal ter Pater as they are from the intemperate  candor  of Leslie Stephen. Beauty and courage are dangerous spirits to bottle in a column and a half; and thought, like a brown paper parcel in a waistcoat pocket, has a way of spoiling the symmetry of an article. It is a kind, tired, apathetic world for which they write, and the marvel is that they never cease to attempt, at least, to write well. But there is no need to pity Mr. Clutton Brock for this change in the essayists conditions. He has clearly made the best of his circumstances and not the worst. One hesitates even to say that he has had to make any conscious effort in the matter, so  naturally, has he effected the transition from the private essayist to the public, from the drawing-room to the Albert Hall. Paradoxically enough, the shrinkage in size has brought about a corresponding expansion of individuality. We have no longer the I of Max and of Lamb, but the we of public bodies and other sublime personages. It is we who go to hear the Magic Flute; we who ought to profit by it; we, in some mysterious way, who, in our corporate capacity, once upon a time actually wrote it. For music and literature and art must submit to the same  generalization  or they will not carry to the farthest recesses of the Albert Hall. That the voice of Mr. Clutton Brock, so sincere and so disinterested, carries such a distance and r eaches so many without pandering to the weakness of the mass or its passions must be a matter of legitimate satisfaction to us all. But while we are gratified, I, that unruly partner in the human fellowship, is reduced to despair. I must always think things for himself, and feel things for himself. To share them in a diluted form with the majority of well-educated and well-intentioned men and women is  for him sheer agony; and while the rest of us listen intently and profit profoundly, I slips off to the woods and the fields and rejoices in a single blade of grass or a solitary potato. In the fifth volume of modern essays, it seems, we have got some way from pleasure and the art of writing. But in justice to the essayists of  1920  we must be sure that we are not praising the famous because they have been praised already and the dead because we shall never meet them wearing spats in Piccadilly. We must know what we mean when we say that they can write and give us pleasure. We must compare them; we must bring out the quality. We must point to this and say it is good because it is exact, truthful, and imaginative: Nay, retire men cannot when they would; neither will they, when it were Reason; but are impatient of Privateness, even in age and sickness, which require the shadow: like old Townsmen: that will still be sitting at their street door, though therby they offer Age to Scorn . . . and to this, and say it is bad because it is loose, plausible, and commonplace: With courteous and precise cynicism on his lips, he thought of quiet virginal chambers, of waters singing under the moon, of terraces where taintless music sobbed into the open night, of pure maternal mistresses with protecting arms and vigilant eyes, of fields slumbering in the sunlight, of leagues of ocean heaving under warm tremulous heavens, of hot ports, gorgeous and perfumed. . . . It goes on, but already we are bemused with sound and neither feel nor hear. The comparison makes us suspect that the art of writing has for backbone some fierce attachment to an idea. It is on the back of an idea, something believed in with conviction or seen with precision and thus compelling words to its shape, that the diverse company which includes Lamb and  Bacon, and Mr. Beerbohm and Hudson, and Vernon Lee and Mr. Conrad, and Leslie Stephen and Butler and Walter Pater reaches the farther shore. Very various talents have helped or hindered the passage of the idea into words. Some scrape through painfully; others fly with every wind  favouring. But Mr. Belloc and  Mr. Lucas  and Mr. Squire are not fiercely attached to anything in itself. They share the contemporary dilemma--that lack of an obstinate conviction which lifts ephemeral sounds through the misty sphere of anybodys language to the land where there is a perpetual marriage, a perpetual union. Vague as all definit ions are, a good essay must have this permanent quality about it; it must draw its curtain round us, but it must be a curtain that shuts us in, not out. Originally published in 1925 by Harcourt Brace Jovanovich,  The Common Reader  is currently available from Mariner Books (2002) in the U.S. and from Vintage (2003) in the U.K.