And thus, ever growing in devotion to his ideal, the boy became a man and continued in the valley to serve his fellows. One day, Ernest, now a preacher of the Word, was addressing the people and among his hearers was a poet, gifted with the power of vision. The poet, as he listened, felt that the being and character of Ernest were a nobler strain of poetry than he had ever written. His eyes glistening with tears, he gazed reverentially at the venerable man; and said within himself that never was there an aspect so worthy of a prophet and a sage as that mild, sweet, thoughtful countenance, with the glory of white hair diffused about it. At a distance, but distinctly to be seen, high up in the golden light of the setting sun, appeared the Great Stone Face, with hoary mists around it, like the white hairs around the brow of Ernest. Its look of grand beneficence seemed to embrace the world. And in the venerable speaker, who since boyhood had been inspired by the constant contemplation of the Great Stone Face, the poet recognized the incarnation of all that those mighty features had prefigured. In the preceding paragraphs we have the principal devices whereby background is made effective: (1) setting that is in harmony with the accompanying action; (2) setting that presents change correspondent to accompanying change in the action; (3) setting that is in contrast to the action; (4) setting that modifies action or character. We now pass to the consideration of certain well recognized phases of setting, known respectively as (1) local color, (2) atmosphere, and (3) symbolic setting. Local Color Every well-defined period of time, every distinct place, has its own character, which we may term its "color," its "tone." The writer who can catch the peculiar spirit of a generation, the distinctive atmosphere of a locality, gains much in the convincingness of his work. The position that Westward Ho! has gained in English historic fiction is to be attributed in large degree to Kingsley's success in catching the very spirit of Elizabethan days when, her ports crowded with ships returning from unknown countries and laden with strange freight of every description, her streets filled with swaggering daredevils fresh from every conceivable adventure, England was aglow with life and a new world was opening at her doors. On the other hand, George Eliot's inability to reproduce the Florence of the fifteenth century underlies much of the adverse criticism that has been passed upon Romola as an example of unsuccessful historic fiction. . In so far as veritable history is narrative rather than expository, that is, in so far as history is a chronicle of events rather than an attempt to extract from events a philosophy of historical evolution or to establish scientific generalizations, to that extent history, like fiction, may make use of local color. It will strive to render as graphic as possible the time and the place of past events. This function of the narrator Macaulay has set forth in his essay on Hallam's Constitutional History of England. It is, to make the past present, to bring the distant near, to place us in the society of a great man or on the eminence which overlooks the field of a mighty battle, to invest with the reality of human flesh and blood beings whom we are too much inclined to consider as personified qualities in an allegory, to call up our ancestors before us with all their peculiarities of language, manners, and garb, to show us over their houses, to seat us at their tables, to rummage their old-fashioned wardrobes, to explain the uses of their ponderous furniture. Although, as Macaulay goes on to say, the dramatic presentation thus indicated has, in large degree, been appropriated by the historic novelist, yet the historian has not neglected to profit by the advantages that come from effective portrayal of the time-spirit and of local color. Gibbon, Green, Froude, Parkman, all have shown what are the artistic possibilities of background. Yet from the fact already noted, that historic literature partakes so largely of the expository and intellectual nature, the best examples of local color are to be found elsewhere, particularly in the novel or the short story, where dramatic effect, rather than truth, is sought. Excellent illustration of effectiveness in local color is to be found in the stories of Mary E. Wilkins Freeman and Sarah Orne Jewett, who have caught the peculiar spirit that differentiates New England from all other parts of this country. Similarly James Lane Allen has interpreted the spirit of Kentucky, George W. Cable that of the extreme South, George Eliot that of the English Midlands, and Thomas Hardy that of Dorsetshire. In the work of these writers setting is essential. It would amount to annihilation were background to be eliminated from such narratives as A New England Nun, The Choir Invisible, Adam Bede, or The Return of the Native. Local color is more than the mere enumeration of characteristics. The dusty roadsides, the tapering spruces, the fifing of hermit thrushes, and the pungent odor of pine needles are not enough to constitute a picture of the Maine woods. All these are nothing more than externals. In such a study of locality, for example, as Miss Jewett's Country of the Pointed Firs there is the keen appreciation of everything, animate and inanimate, that gives personality to the region. There was something about the coast town of Dunnet that made it seem more attractive than other maritime villages of eastern Maine. Perhaps it was the simple fact of acquaintance with that neighborhood which made it so attaching, and gave such interest to the rocky shore and dark woods, and the few houses which seemed to be securely wedged and tree-nailed in among the ledges by the landing. These houses made the most of their seaward view, and there was a gayety and determined floweriness in their bits of garden-ground; the small-paned high windows in the peaks of their steep gables were like knowing eyes that watched the harbor and the far sea-line beyond, or looked northward all along the shore and its background of spruces and balsam firs. When one really knows a village like this and its surroundings, it is like becoming acquainted with a single person. The process of falling in love at first sight is as final as it is swift in such a case, but the growth of true friendship may be a life-long affair.1 This poetic insight, this peculiar sensing of the human element in nature, is the secret of true local color. It demands appreciation of the inherent unity that combines all constituent parts into one individual entity, whether we call it color, tone, personality, or spirit. When the very soul of a locality is caught, it may of course be utilized in any of the various ways already indicated as the methods of setting. It may render effective the action by its very fitness and harmony; or by contrast it may throw out into relief events wholly uncongenial amidst such setting. But whatever be the particular method by which the local color is utilized, it brings to the narrative unity of impression and effectiveness of presentation. Atmosphere Closely allied to "local color" is "atmosphere." The atmosphere of a narrative may be defined as the product 1 Sarah Orne Jewett's The Country of the Pointed Firs. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. of setting and action combined. It is found when the two elements are so conjoined that one distinct character pervades the whole. There is atmosphere, for example, in the opening scene of Macbeth, where the tragic weirdness of witches, heath, storm, and night so combine with inordinate passion and bloody deeds as to create a general, all-pervading note of tragedy. The same thing is illustrated in Irving's Rip Van Winkle, of which the opening paragraph reads: Whoever has made a voyage up the Hudson must remember the Kaatskill mountains. They are a dismembered branch of the great Appalachian family, and are seen away to the west of the river, swelling up to a noble height, and lording it over the surrounding country. Every change of season, every change of weather, indeed, every hour of the day, produces some change in the magical hues and shapes of these mountains, and they are regarded by all the good wives, far and near, as perfect barometers. When the weather is fair and settled, they are clothed in blue and purple, and print their bold outlines on the clear evening sky; but sometimes, when the rest of the landscape is cloudless, they will gather a hood of gray vapors about their summits, which, in the last rays of the setting sun, will glow and light up like a crown of glory. The magical hues and shapes of the Kaatskills, half revealed, half outlined in the gray vapors of the evening sun, throwing their long shadows across the misty valleys, are altogether in keeping with the mystical legend of Rip's long slumber and of his adventure with the spectral crew of the Half-Moon. Excellent instances of atmosphere are also to be found in the tales of Poe, wherein gloom and horror are projected against a background of sombreness and desolation. Like local color, atmosphere demands primarily a sense of unity, but there is a difference. In seeking at |