formation he readily finds in his landlady, Mother Lepas, a peasant woman, who, from her own experiences, adds materially to the revelations of the notary regarding the mystery of the château. Thus, with her narrative, the point of view again changes, and again becomes more concentrated in scope. Finally, convinced that he can yet penetrate the secret of the whole mystery of La Grande Bretêche by means of Rosalie, the servant at the inn and formerly in the employ of the Countess, Monsieur Horace gains the girl's confidence, and she ultimately tells him of the gruesome scene in which she personally was an actor. Thus the point of view changes for the sixth time, and is now concentrated on the very core of the story, the discovery by Monsieur de Merret of his wife's lover and the consequent adventure.

A further detail of structure characterizes Rosalie's story. While the account of the final details is hers, yet Monsieur Horace maintains the autobiographical attitude, giving her story in his own words and assuming the rôle of omniscience. For example, speaking of Monsieur de Merret, he says, "During dinner he [Monsieur] remarked that Madame de Merret was very coquettishly dressed; he said to himself, as he walked home from the club, that his wife was no longer ill, that her convalescence had improved her." Later on, "At the instant that he turned the knob of his wife's door, he heard the closet that I have mentioned close," etc. Again, when his wife replies that there is no one in the closet, "That 'no' tore Monsieur de Merret's heart, for he did not believe it," etc. And so on throughout the scene: we have details that Rosalie could not possibly have supplied, and that we can explain only on the omniscient basis, unless, perhaps, we assume that Monsieur Horace, while narrating Rosalie's experiences in propria persona, enlarged upon her ac

count by supplying what seemed natural inferences from the data given by the girl.

The whole matter of plot unity, including point of view, complication, and all kindred questions, resolves itself, in the end, to a single process, in which selection and elimination are the main factors: namely, simplification. Simplification demands of narrative that it present but a section of life, not life in its entirety. No narrative, whether it concern itself with the life of an individual, as in Carlyle's John Sterling, or with the history of a nation, as in Prescott's Conquest of Mexico, can do more than approximate completeness in a very restricted degree.

Writers of imaginative narrative, particularly of the short-story, are forced to realize that the process of simplification is fundamental. Sometimes their method is even suggestive of the old unities of place and time, which limited the dramatist to the events of a single day and to the walls of a single city. Curious instances may occasionally be found in which the writer attempts to chronicle events as occurring approximately within the very time limitations required for reading the narrative itself, but with dubious success. An instance of this oddity may be found in a story entitled Forty Seconds, by George R. Chester.1 This is a breezy account of how a coasting party barely escape serious accident in the course of a winter's evening, the entire action falling between the time when they leave the top of the hill and suddenly arrive at the bottom after narrowly avoiding a steep declivity at the side. During the few seconds involved, characters are sharply revealed and vital relations affected. Such radical simplification as this is

1 Munsey's: December, 1907.

attended by intensity and nervous force, it is true, but, after all, the method is at best a tour de force, and an extreme attempt to confine the narrative within artificial limits. Simplification of this extreme variety, or even of the sort that is characteristic of the short-story, is, of course, restricted largely to narrative of the non-historical order, for the restricted field of action is in great degree but a device to intensify the emotional appeal. At the same time historical narrative is not free from the restrictions of simplification; it is merely a matter of degree.

It follows that the problem of the episode is of no little importance to the narrative writer who would secure unity of plot structure. His single query must be: Will the inclusion or the exclusion of an episode contribute to the ultimate purpose of the composition, whether it be to serve an intellectual or an emotional end? In no case must the elaboration of the parts detract from the completeness of the whole.

Coherence

Although generally synonymous, as indicating the consistent ordering of details, in the strictest sense sequence and coherence are not interchangeable terms as used in connection with narration. Sequence lays stress upon the mere succession of occurrences as they follow one another in chronological order. But coherence, with its implication of “sticking together," goes a step farther and connotes the additional idea of a logical relation between the narrative elements, a relation that in the matter of climax to be taken up later-plays no inconsiderable part.

A distinctive peculiarity of narrative plot is the fact that it must progress definitely toward a goal. Note again

the fundamental definition: not merely the ordering of "events," but "of events that in their entirety constitute a transaction." That is, the mere setting down of details is not sufficient. Narrative, as Professor Baldwin has stated it in his Manual of Rhetoric, must not only move, it must move on. To take again as illustration the first part of the simple Bible chronicle of Naaman: the goal, the objective of all the details, is the healing of the leprous captain by the prophet. The first step of the episode is the leading away of the Israelitish maid into captivity. Through her, some time later, was communicated the fact (2) that in Samaria dwelt a mighty man of God who could, were he approached, heal her master of his leprosy. This chance remark was then (3) communicated by another servant to Naaman himself or to the Syrian king, who at once (4) despatched a letter to the king of Israel by the hand of his captain. Hereupon and in consequence, (5) the king of Israel was filled with despair, suspecting in the message merely the excuse for a quarrel and the spoliation of his kingdom. Hearing of Jehoram's despair, (6) Elisha sent for the Syrian to come to him, and in answer to the summons (7) Naaman speedily appeared at the prophet's door. Then follow in rapid succession, chronological and causal as well, (8) Elisha's message to Naaman as to bathing in the Jordan; (9) Naaman's scornful rejection of it; (10) his departure in a rage; (11) the appeal of his servants; (12) Naaman's final surrender to their common-sense protest; and (13) the culmination of the story, the miraculous healing. Here is the destination, the "arrival" of the narrative, to which it has steadily "moved on." Then succeeds the episode next in order, still bound by a logical link of causation as well as of temporal succession, the awakening of Gehazi's

cupidity and the infliction of punishment by the outraged prophet.

Climax

"Climax," from its derivation (κλíμa, a ladder), implies ascent to a higher plane, progress toward an intellectual or an emotional goal. Examples of intellectual climax appear in expository or argumentative writing: the thesis or the forensic attains its climax when the writer succeeds in enabling the reader to occupy the same plane of knowledge with himself. Emotional climax is secured at the moment of greatest tension, just as a mystery, it may be, is about to be cleared, or at the moment when conflicting forces are in equilibrium, or at the turning-point of a career. Climax connotes upbuilding, culmination. All details contribute to it; it stands at the apex. In historical writing this culmination has to do mainly with the completion of the action, with the totality of effect; in dramatic and story narrative, with the tension attendant upon a crisis. Take, for example, a record of Walpole's administration from 1715 to 1742, unified by what, according to Macaulay, was the controlling motive of the great Prime Minister: lust of power. Such a record would differ from argumentation or exposition in that the writer's purpose is not to establish a proposition or to make clear a fact, but to set in order definite historical data, all knit together by the alleged motive. Every narrative detail would contribute to the completeness of this chronicle, and the culmination would come only with the conclusion. On the other hand, in Flute and Violin the narrative is directed to a crisis in the hero's career and to its ultimate effects upon his character. This crisis — the death of little David — is the common