reaching in the aggregate to the power of the ear. Besides the quivering leaf, the swinging grass, the fluttering bird's wing, and the thousand oval membranes which innumerable insects whirl about, a faint resonance seems to come from the very earth itself. The fervor of the sunbeams descending in a tidal flood rings on the strung harp of earth. It is this exquisite undertone, heard and yet unheard, which brings the mind into sweet accordance with the wonderful instrument of nature. Richard Jefferies: The Pageant of Summer.

Narration.

63. A narrative is the presentation in language of successive related events occurring in time. Its distinctive feature is action or change. It is in this respect that it differs most widely from description, which represents an object as it appears at a single moment. Narrative is indeed akin to description in that it arouses images in the mind of the reader, but these images do not fuse, as in description, into a single picture; they pass before us in a connected series, each image pointing the way to the next until the end is reached.

Every narrative involves some description; a history, for example, requires much descriptive matter; but here, as in other forms of narration the descriptive matter is merely subsidiary and explanatory, and is kept subordinate to the main purpose of reciting events as they occur, one after another.

Although narratives are of many different kinds, it will serve our purpose best at this point to divide them into two principal classes: (1) simple narratives and (2) complex narratives, or narratives with plot. The leading principles of all narrative will be considered in connection with the first class. Plotted narratives, although they illustrate the same principles as do simple incidents, are so peculiar in their construction that they will be best treated under a separate heading.

64. Simple Narrative. By a simple narrative is meant a narrative in which the action pursues its course from start to finish without check or delay. The series of events once set going, one happening follows upon another until the natural conclusion is attained. Such a narrative may be compared to the progress of a boulder which has been started rolling down a gently sloping hillside. Driven by the force of gravitation, the stone rolls on its way with increasing speed until it reaches the plain at the bottom, where, in time, its momentum being exhausted, it comes naturally to rest. The following is a good example of narrative of this kind:

And the other fishing days when you got up before dawn and stole downstairs to the dim kitchen. A drink of milk, a doughnut, and a triangle of pie, then you stole out quietly to the barn and got the spading-fork. Then the search, armed with fork and tomatocan, under the broad leaves of the rhubarb bed, back of the henhouse and down by the cow barn, until you had enough worms for the day's sport. Then, of course, you left the fork sticking in the ground - you never would learn to put things away - and started off. Through the garden and orchard, stopping long enough for a handful of currants and a pocketful of sopsavines over the pasture bars, eating a handful of huckleberries or low-bush blackberries here and there. Into the wood road - very dark and still in the dawn-where you stepped along very quietly so as not to disturb the bears. You knew perfectly well there were no bears, but you rather enjoyed the creepy sensation. Then out through the deep wet meadow grass to the river, where the sun was now beginning to burn away the wisps of mist, and the red-winged blackbirds were making a tremendous fuss over their housekeeping. You reached the riverbank at the pout hole, or the big rock, or the old willow (of course, you know the exact place), and then you started fishing. - Atlantic Monthly.

65. The essential requisites of simple narrative—as of all narrative- are unity, sequence, and climax.

66. Unity. Unity in narrative has three aspects: unity of purpose, of subject, and of action. The first requires

that throughout the course of the narrative the writer hold consistently to a single idea or a single point of view (in the larger sense of the term). This underlying idea may be explicitly stated, as in the fable, it may be skilfully concealed, as in most simple incidents, or it may be no more than a peculiar atmosphere or tone which pervades the composition, as in the selection just quoted; but unless it is present in one form or another, the narrative will impress the thoughtful reader as pointless and not worth the telling. Unity of subject requires that one and only one person or thing form the centre of interest. Other persons or things which may play a part in the series of incidents must be subordinated, however interesting they may be in themselves. The surest mark of the practised story-teller is his willing ness to sacrifice attractive material in order that attention may be held to the principal subject.

Unity of action requires that a single line of progression be made evident throughout the narrative. Having marked out a straight and narrow path which he means to follow, the writer presses steadily onward, looking neither to the right nor to the left, until the end is reached. If other lines of action are necessary, they are combined with the main line and subordinated to it. The conclusion is kept in view all the time and nothing is admitted which does not carry the narrative forward towards it. This point furnishes the centre of unity to a narrative. When it is reached, the reason is apparent for all the details and incidents that have been previously mentioned.

These three phases of unity are mutually helpful. Unity of purpose, for example, compels unity of subject and tends to keep the action within proper bounds.

67. Sequence.. The narrative writer sees clearly (what his reader cannot see) the end for which all the incidents are recounted and to which they all contribute. This sug

gests the chief rule of sequence: That sequence of events is best in which each occurrence stated is necessary to the proper understanding of its successor. The first event makes necessary a second; the second, a third; and so on to the end of the series. When the conclusion is reached, the reader, looking back over the narrative, sees that each event, in its proper place, was indispensable, and that the conclusion is the inevitable outcome of all the events that preceded it. In a well-written narrative the successive events are so closely knit that no one of them can be taken out or removed to another place without breaking up the continuity of the whole.

The following illustrates this close sequence of events:

On the roof of a meat store in Salem, Massachusetts, a clothesline was stretched and on it a wet handkerchief was hung to dry. This was seized by the wind, and twisted around an electric wire; by means of its dampness, this handkerchief conducted the electricity along the wire, and brought it into communication with other wires, running along which it reached the water-pipes in the cellar. From these the electricity sprang to the stove, on which stood a kettle of boiling fat, to which it communicated so strong a light that a workman who was near thought the fat was burning. In attempting to take the kettle from the stove, he received an electric shock which threw him against the wall. Pale with terror, the man ran into a room back of the workshop. Another workman, trying to bring him a glass of water, turned the brass faucet of the water-pipe, and was immediately thrown against the farthest corner of the room. For several minutes everything appeared to be turned into a galvanic battery; the nails on the wall were red hot, the water-pipes spouted out flames, and even the iron bands of the water pail showed signs of disturbance. Finally the cause of the commotion was discovered and ended, as soon as the wire was freed from the embrace of the wet handkerchief.

Events may be related either in the order in which they occurred, that is, in the time-order, or in the order of cause and effect. If possible, the two orders should coincide. In

the more abstract kinds of narrative such as the History of the Labor Movement, the Rise of Romanticism in England, and the like, it is often best to take up one line of cause and effect and arrange the selected events that belong to it in the time-order; then a second line of cause and effect with its selected events, and so on.

on.

68. Climax. Every good narrative has a cumulative effect; that is, the events grow in interest as the story goes This effect will come about naturally if the events are told clearly and straightforwardly, since the better we understand a subject the more we are interested in it; but the effect may be greatly enhanced by a skilful selection and arrangement of details. The expert story-teller, therefore, reserves his more attractive incidents for the latter part of the narrative. Climax is much more likely to be secured, also, if the end of the narrative is kept in view from the beginning and no detail is admitted which does not in some way help to forward the action.

In the following account of the way in which a taxidermist mounts an animal for the museum, the interest is skilfully heightened, as the narrative goes on, by bringing into prominence increasingly difficult features of the work:

When an animal is received at the Museum of Natural History, an elaborate series of measurements are at once taken from it in the flesh. These are of invaluable assistance in the final work of mounting. Next the taxidermist, equipped with modelling wax and tools, goes to the Zoological Park and makes a miniature model of the animal from the living specimen there. This small model is prepared with great care, and the anatomy of each part is worked out to the minutest detail. It is here that the real genius of the modeller is shown—if he be an artist worthy of the name, he can put into the animal the result of his study and observation, and give it all the grace and beauty of life, with none of the stiffness of a mechanical structure. After the small model has been completed, the leg-bones and skull of the specimen to be mounted