the author is justified in the elaboration of a scene of three or four paragraphs for so trivial an end.

The following undergraduate sketch, entitled "The Priest," is an example of composition wherein one is justified in making description the principal form of discourse, for the purpose is frankly to present a picture and nothing more. The narrative mould is merely incidental. The writer has chosen narrative description as the most effective means of accomplishing his artistic purpose.

'T was one of those bright warm days in midsummer when the busy farmer folk had deserted the village for the hay-fields, and there was left about the grocery store only a crippled loafer, and upon the village green but a few sleepy summer boarders in their easy chairs.

Bill Russell and I lay in the cool shade of a maple, blowing rings of tobacco smoke in the still air, lazily gazing at the occasional passer-by, and wondering what business he had to move on such a day. A grocery wagon rattled by, and the dust behind it settled back into the wagon tracks without being wafted even to the ditches. Then, like a big, lumbering elephant, a load of hay crawled by, gently reminding us that beyond the sleepy village there were busy times. But some fishermen returning early from the lake told us that even for fishing the day was too bright and still.

So we lay there in the shade, and for some time no one passed. Then from down the road we heard the rapid “chug, chug" of a pacer beating the dust, and there dashed into sight a lathered horse and a buggy, too light, it seemed, for the corpulent man who spread himself all over the seat. In his mouth was a fat cigar, the smoke from which had to roll quite around the broad spongy face before mingling with the dust behind. As he came nearer he took the cigar between his short, fat fingers, and with the air of a connoisseur flicked off the ashes with his little finger, at the same time heaving a guttural cough

which caused the breast of his linen duster to rise and fall like a bellows, and loosened the damp handkerchief which was about his collar.

“He's the strangest looking horse-doctor I've seen in this township," I remarked to Bill.

"Then you're not very well acquainted hereabouts," suggested Bill laughing.

"He reminds me of that old boozer, the priest Rudiman in Scheffel's Ekkehard," I added.

Bill smiled, but kept a discreet silence.

Hardly five minutes had elapsed when the same rig came down the street again.

"What in -! Who are those people with him?” I exclaimed, for beside my horse-doctor was the Catholic priest of the town, a pleasant-faced gentleman, in a purely clerical dress, and, perched between the two men, seated on a knee of each, was a nun. She was smiling beneath her hood, and the men were exchanging pleasantries as they drove by us; and when they had passed I could see the horse-doctor, his linen duster pressed snugly against the bars of the lowered buggytop, he himself shaking with laughter.

With an astonished look I turned to Bill, whom I saw snickering to himself.

"Who is that fellow, anyway?" I inquired.

"Why, your horse-doctor is the visiting priest of the county," was the reply.

One fault often found in connection with over-elaboration of setting is artificial appeal to the emotions, — that is, appeal based on no sincere feeling on the writer's part. In the well-known chapter in Modern Painters, in which he expounds what he calls the "pathetic fallacy," Ruskin discusses this phase of literary insincerity. He enlarges upon the excited state of the feelings, under the influence of which a writer, for the time being blinded to realities, becomes more or less irrational and thinks

in metaphors. This illogical frame of mind is common among writers of highly emotional temperament; the works of the poets, for example, abound in conceits that emanate from highly wrought- although thoroughly sincere imaginative faculties. But it is no uncommon thing to meet with passages characterized by insincere emotion; burning words abound, indeed, but there is no soul in them. One finds all the outward trappings of woe, of elation, of despair; yet the spirit remains chill, all seems studied and artificial. If artistic setting is to be effective it must be sincere; mere multiplication of words and of figures of speech does not constitute effective description. Ruskin, indeed, would seem to maintain that the manifestation of deep emotion through figurative speech betrays weakness, showing that a writer's imagination has mastered his powers of seeing truly, and thus has precluded him from taking rank with the really great ones in literature. But even worse, he says, are those in whose work fanciful, metaphorical "expressions are not ignorantly and fearlessly caught up, but, by some master, skilful in handling, yet insincere, deliberately wrought out with chill and studied fancy; as if we should try to make an old lava stream look red-hot again, by covering it with dead leaves, or white-hot, with hoar frost."

It is this deliberate and studied attempt to imitate true emotion that often gives to the conventional undergraduate story an atmosphere of mawkish sentimentality or of vain rant. The young writer, feeling no true sympathy with the scene that he strives to picture, yet realizing the effectiveness that belongs to emotion well rendered, presses remote metaphors and similes into his service and strains his fancy to the breaking-point. The result is superficiality, exaggeration, bathos. Passages like the following illustrate the effect:

"He whirled her away from the lingering crowd of men. They were the first to glide out upon the smooth yellow floor. Out into the lights they waltzed; out into the festooned room; under the sweeping wreaths of evergreen; through the sweet, pungent perfume of freshly cut pine. The spell of measured music floated over the room, as from generations of the past and of the future, the passion of rhythm played upon their hearts and swept like some mystic love note into their souls, setting them atune. Across the hall of dazzling light, gently waving as in the hot Trade Winds from the Orient, the umbrella palms were inviting seclusion. Behind them the bitter wind tore at the window," etc., etc.

"But no trace of his confusion was visible in his face as he again, on this wintry evening, confronted Dorothy. She was more than pretty to-night, in her simple and home-like way, she was beautiful. A single white rosebud vaunted itself in her wavy dark brown hair. Her guileless blue eyes were the soul of intoxicating humor; the deep red of her lips put to shame the faint pinkness of her dress," etc., etc.

"He then mumbled about an old sweetheart of his, who had rejected him; of the 'boys,' those 'friends' who had remained faithful to him only as long as his money had lasted. Suddenly, as quickly as the crack of the ring-master's whip, his countenance changed. The very muscles of his face seemed to stand out in his intense agony, that agony which only those can feel who have tasted of that bitterest cup of pain despair. I had never before understood how it was possible to weep without a movement of the muscles. I understood then. This man was weeping, but down in the depths of his soul. As I gazed upon his face, I saw that it was scarred; the forehead was furrowed with deep wrinkles, and, although he looked as if he were under thirty years of age, his hair in spots was a pronounced gray. But despite his repulsive physiognomy, there was something in that face that showed that he had a warm, true heart wrapped in the rags that he called

clothes. I really pitied the fellow. What joy was left to him? Even the tiny violet, the first to bloom of all flowers, shyly peeping above the ground and heralding the summer and its wealth of beauty and sunshine, told him only that the hot rays of the midsummer-sun, beating upon him from above and refracted from the scorching highway beneath, would cause him to swelter and curse himself, his fellow-men, and perhaps even his Creator!"

Development of Setting in Narrative Writing

The elaboration of setting as an element in narrative writing is a matter of comparatively recent growth. In early literature narration was confined to the one purpose of chronicling events, and descriptive details were at best barely suggested. The value of effective background was not yet appreciated. In Materials and Methods of Fiction1 Mr. Clayton Hamilton has drawn a somewhat detailed comparison between the development of background in figure-painting and of setting in literature. In the evolution of figure-painting there have been, he tells us, three stages. In the first of these background plays no essential part. If it is present at all, it is insignificant, and the figures themselves are the sole concern of the artist. In the second stage, represented by the great Italian artists at the period of their full maturity, background begins to assume a place of some importance. But its function is purely decorative; whether of color or of line it has no basis in realism, but is purely a conventional device. Finally, in the third stage, background stands in definite relation to the figures that are projected upon it. Each is in keeping with the other, and each gives effect to the other. "The Angelus' is neither figure-painting nor landscape-paint

1 Chap. VI.