"If, in the midst of the most serene day of summer, when all is light and laughing around, a thunderbolt were to fall from the clear blue vault of heaven, and rend the earth at the very feet of some careless traveller, he could not gaze upon the smouldering chasm, which so unexpectedly yawned before him, with half the astonishment and fear which Leicester felt at the sight that so suddenly presented itself. He had that instant been receiving, with a political affectation of disavowing and misunderstanding their meaning, the half uttered, half intimated congratulations of the courtiers upon the favor of the Queen, carried apparently to its highest pitch during the interview of that morning; from which most of them seemed to augur, that he might soon arise from their equal in rank to become their master. And now, while the subdued yet proud smile with which he disclaimed those inferences was yet curling his cheek, the Queen shot into the circle, her passions excited to the uttermost; and supporting with one hand, and apparently without an effort, the pale and sinking form of his almost expiring wife, and pointing with the finger of the other to her half dead features, demanded in a voice that sounded to the ears of the astounded statesman like the last dread trumpet-call, that is to summon body and spirit to the judgment-seat, 'Knowest thou this woman?""

2. By climax. There is a natural feeling that important steps in the action ought in some way to be prepared for; the preliminary circumstances being given with such increasing intensity of interest that the reader may be aware when he is approaching some important disclosure.

EXAMPLE. In the scene between Richard and Saladin, already cited, the following bit of conversation, introduced after Richard has placed the iron bar ready for the blow of his sword, would seem to be intended to lead up to a more vivid realization of the King's tremendous feat:

“The anxiety of De Vaux for his master's honor led him to whisper in English-For the blessed Virgin's sake, beware what you attempt, my liege! Your full strength is not as yet returned give no triumph to the infidel.' 'Peace, fool!' said Richard, standing firm on his ground, and casting a fierce glance around-thinkest thou that I can fail in his presence?""

The feat that Saladin performs is similarly prepared for,- by a climax involving a suggested antithesis.

3. By surprise. Such preparation for an event as is implied in climax can easily be overdone. There is a way of leading on the reader without letting him guess what is coming; while he is kept

alert and in suspense, yet successive developments are brought on where they will produce their most powerful effect by unexpectedness, or where they will throw a sudden light on what has hitherto been mysterious.

NOTE. — The working of this principle is mostly to be discerned on too large a scale to permit of quotation here. Mr. Wilkie Collins, who is an especially skillful constructor of narrative plots, is a master in the art of unexpected effects; in "The Moonstone," for instance, while important junctures in the story are fully prepared for, the intricate plot always turns in the way least to be foreseen.

4. By suggestion. Sometimes, when an important event has been so fully anticipated that it suggests itself, it is left to the reader's imagination to complete. This is especially the case when it is an event whose details would be disagreeable or produce a feeling of horror.

EXAMPLE. The close of Dickens's "Tale of Two Cities" is a scene of the Terror in France, where many victims of the guillotine are executed, their numbers told off one by one by the knitting-women. The death of the hero is thus left to suggestion:

"She kisses his lips; he kisses hers; they solemnly bless each other. The spare hand does not tremble as he releases it; nothing worse than a sweet, bright constancy is in the patient face. She goes next before him—is gone; the knitting-women count Twenty-Two.

"I am the Resurrection and the Life, saith the Lord: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live: and whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die." "

"The murmuring of many voices, the upturning of many faces, the pressing on of many footsteps in the outskirts of the crowd, so that it swells forward in a mass, like one great heave of water, all flashes away. Twenty-Three . . . "They said of him about the city that night, that it was the peacefullest man's face ever beheld there. Many added that he looked sublime and prophetic."

IV.

What Narration owes to Description. The intimate con

tioned, gives rise to some forms of discourse wherein it is hard to

determine which of the two predominates. Nor perhaps would there be any practical good in attempting a distinction; though in general it may be said that where the narrative or story-telling feeling predominates it leads to a more or less carefully constructed plot; while the descriptive feeling in predominance is content with the moving portrayal of a series of scenes, without special care for the interaction of events.

The following are the aspects most noticeable in the mixture of the two forms of discourse.

Narration convoyed by Description. Every extended narrative must rely on description for some essential features of its structure; or, as is here expressed, it must be convoyed by description. The main offices of description in narration may be described under two heads.

1. Description prepares the scene. The introductory part of any narrative, whether real or fictitious, must be largely an account of the setting of dates, places, customs, characters. Economy requires that just so much description of this kind be given as is needed to explain the succeeding narrative, and no more than can be fully utilized by it.

A descriptive beginning labors under the disadvantage of delaying the action, and thus not seizing promptly on the reader's interest; this is evinced in the remark often made that one cannot get started" in reading a story. This disadvantage cannot always be avoided without incurring greater ones; but sometimes a striking beginning is made, by dialogue or some narrative element, and the story is carried on in this way until interest is well aroused; whereupon the descriptive introduction is given in a kind of pause, or, less often, by some of the interlocutors. Another way is to give the descriptive introduction piecemeal, in connection with the successive steps of the action or dialogue.

2. Description is the expositor of the narrative. That is, the bearing of events on one another, the significance of characters, the junctures and turning-points of the action, the importance of minute features that would otherwise escape notice, are brought

out mainly by means of description. It is thus an element of great importance for keeping the balance and perspective of the whole. Authors differ greatly in the prominence they give to this descriptive element in narration. With some it is the strong point, and a lack of completeness in the plot is made up by its means; with others it is cut down to a very subordinate office, while th plot absorbs the interest. In all this the writer must follow his individual aptitude; the caution is, not to introduce description so as to disturb the proper movement of the passage, instance, stopping to portray a character or admire a scene in a place where the reader is waiting in eager suspense for a dénouement. The story should be kept moving, according to the ideal pace, rapid or slow, required by its underlying sentiment.

as for

Discursive Narration. - This name may be given to narrative in which the descriptive feeling predominates. Its characteristic is that the story is not plotted, does not conduct the action to a dénouement, but goes merely where the descriptive element leads it, or is bounded by the natural lapse of time. The account of an excursion, or a race, or a contest, would come under this head; such accounts are popularly called descriptions as often as they are called narratives.

The fact that in such narration interest is centred not in a plot but in a scene leads to an important modification of the style. When, as in a plot, the action is exciting and absorbing, the manner of recounting should be simple; the interest does not require the aid of highly-wrought expression. When, however, it is the scene that absorbs the attention, the language has to be more the language of description; it needs to be rapid, spirited, picturesque, to answer to the life and spirit of the scene, or to portray intense energy in action; or again, it has to be meditative, flowing, charged with sentiment, to answer to the more tranquil emotions. Thus what the account loses in plot it makes up in vividness or in imaginative power.

Sections of discursive narration are often introduced into the midst of plotted narrative, and have partially the effect of an epi

sode, while at the same time they contribute by some secondary incident or feature to the progress of the main story.

NOTE.A striking instance of this, though not purely narrative, is the account of the Battle of Waterloo, in Victor Hugo's "Cosette" ("Les Misérables"), whose nineteen chapters contribute to the plot of the story only a single incident, and that a minor one. Another example, illustrating well the spirited style of discursive narration, is the account of the boat race, in “Tom Brown at Oxford," Chapter XIII.

II. COMBINATION OF NARRATIVES.

In almost every narrative work that is built on an extended scale, history for example, the writer has to meet the problem how to manage concurring streams of narrative, a problem arising from the fact that many incidents taking place in widely separated scenes, and many characters wholly unknown to each other, may yet be contributing at the same time to bring about a common culmination of events.

Synchronism of Events.-This, as the name implies, is the treatment of events belonging to different departments of the work in such a way that the reader may realize that they are contemporaneous with each other, though in the narration one must precede.

There are several ways in which the events of different streams of narrative may concur. In fiction the concurrence is a work of pure invention, being due to the relations of interwoven plots to each other. Of this something will be said further on. In history a transaction may have antagonistic sides, each of which, for completeness, must be represented in turn; this is seen when opposed forces engage in battle, or when political parties are arrayed against each other in state policy. A broader concurrence is seen in the different departments of a nation's history; as for instance, its constitutional history, its social development, its religious progress, its literature; all of which, as they must be the material of narratives more or less distinct, necessitate a complex point of view. Each department must be presented both as it is in itself, and as it is related to other departments.