She had been peacefully sewing at her sitting-room window all the afternoon. Now she quilted her needle carefully into her work, which she folded precisely, and laid in a basket with her thimble and thread and scissors. Louisa Ellis could not remember that ever in her life she had mislaid one of these little feminine appurtenances, which had become, from long use and constant association, a very part of her personality.

Louisa tied a green apron round her waist, and got out a flat straw hat with a green ribbon. Then she went into the garden with a little blue crockery bowl, to pick some currants for her tea. After the currants were picked she sat on the back doorstep and stemmed them, collecting the stems carefully in her apron, and afterwards throwing them into the hen-coop. She looked sharply at the grass beside the step to see if any had fallen there.1

Now this environment of trivial detail "had become by long use and constant association a very part of her personality," and had made her inevitably what she was; yet we have here an environment that Louisa Ellis had made and was still making for herself; and, being the product of her personality, the result of her own deliberate volition, it is interesting as indicative of her true self.

Allied to this narrative device of expounding character by showing the various influences of that character upon personal environment, is the process of expounding character through contrast, wherein we have the complete rejection of the moulding influence and thereby a revelation of the personality concerned. The pages of true as well as of fictitious narrative abound with instances illustrating the value of a contrasting environment in showing forth character. Queen Elizabeth again

1 Miss Wilkins's A New England Nun. Copyright, 1891. Used by permission of the publishers, Harper and Brothers.

becomes a more definite entity when we view her in contrast to Mary Queen of Scots, with whom she was brought into sharp conflict. As portrayed by Walter Scott in Kenilworth, Leicester is made clearer and more definite by the scenes in which Sussex plays a part, and Tressilian, too, in many ways affords an effective foil in the characterization of the great Earl. George Eliot makes extensive use of this principle of contrast throughout Romola. "The Florentine Lily," in the purity of her life, in her filial devotion, in her loyalty to high ideals, presents a consistent contrast to Tito, who is untrue to his wife, who sacrifices his foster-parent to his own. selfish interests, and to whom personal gratification is ever the foremost consideration. Altruism as opposed to self-love is presented with greater vividness than could be secured by the individual presentation of either Romola or Tito. The dramatic effect is greatly increased by the contrast in personalities.

RHETORICAL QUALITIES IN CHARACTERIZATION

Clearness

Characterization, whether of personage or personality, demands a rhetorical quality that hitherto has received little attention: clearness. Like correct spelling and punctuation, grammatical construction, and reputable use of words, clearness of expression has been taken for granted, but at this point it must receive some detailed consideration.

The objective delineation of a personage must first of all be entirely distinct; and in the subjective exposition of character the abstract qualities must be made so clear that the personality in question shall be unmistakable.

The discussion of clearness in this connection at

once suggests the question of the type and the individual. The typical character will be distinguished by traits that belong to the class; that is, by general traits: the individual character will be differentiated from others of its class by those peculiarities that make it essentially itself. It is a common fault with young writers to describe their heroes and heroines by class characteristics only, with the result that these creations possess as little real distinction as do the conventional broad-shouldered, lantern-jawed, and smallheaded gentry that figure in the advertisements for ready-made clothing and "gents"" underwear. One inexperienced author thus begins a story:—

George Kasson, junior member of the firm of J. T. Kasson, Son, and Co., bond brokers, of Chicago, college graduate, athlete, president of his class, and already, in his twenty-fifth year, rising to prominence among the younger business fraternity of the seething western metropolis, a leader by will, if not by birth, was busily dressing in his room at the Grand Hotel at Sacramento.

And a little later on we are introduced to the heroine thus:

A piquant visage with big, round blue eyes, unobtrusive nose and gently fluctuating nostrils, lips enchantingly pink and forming a perfect Cupid's bow, cheeks suffused with a healthy, warm flush, and all set off by a luxurious mound of silken, fluffy hair.

It is needless to say that each of these pictures, as far as effectiveness is concerned, is a dismal failure. No two readers will see the same figures. In each case the writer has selected only the type characteristics of the young man and the young woman of the period: in the one case, college education, athletic prowess, popularity, ambi

tion; in the other, blue eyes, small nose, pink lips, fluffy hair. There is no trace of individuality.

For distinctness of impression contrast with either of the preceding the following picture of Judge Pyncheon as he ascends Hepzibah's steps in The House of the Seven Gables:

As the child went down the steps, a gentleman ascended them, and made his entrance into the shop. It was the portly, and, had it possessed the advantage of a little more height, would have been the stately figure of a man considerably in the decline of life, dressed in a black suit of some thin stuff, resembling broadcloth as closely as possible. A gold-headed cane of rare Oriental wood, added materially to the high respectability of his aspect, as did also a neckcloth of the utmost snowy purity, and the conscientious polish of his boots. His dark, square countenance, with its almost shaggy depth of eyebrows, was naturally impressive, and would, perhaps, have been rather stern, had not the gentleman considerately taken upon himself to mitigate the harsh effect by a look of exceeding good-humor and benevolence. Owing, however, to a somewhat massive accumulation of animal substance about the lower region of his face, the look was, perhaps, unctuous, rather than spiritual, and had, so to speak, a kind of fleshly effulgence, not altogether so satisfactory as he doubtless intended it to be. A susceptible observer, at any rate, might have regarded it as affording very little evidence of the general benignity of soul whereof it purported to be the outward reflection. And if the observer chanced to be ill-natured, as well as acute and susceptible, he would probably suspect that the smile on the gentleman's face was a good deal akin to the shine on his boots, and that each must have cost him and his boot-black, respectively, a good deal of hard labor to bring out and preserve them.

In this picture, Hawthorne has presented not so much the characteristics that might be selected as typical of every conventional country squire as those that

distinguished Judge Pyncheon from all other country squires. The judge has, indeed, what we may call the hall-marks of his class: the gold-headed cane, the white neck-cloth, the black broadcloth suit, the square countenance and shaggy eyebrows,-all combining in one general effect of stateliness and respectability. But with all this there is something that makes Judge Pyncheon essentially an individual; something that leaves upon the reader's mind a perfectly definite impression.

The same general rule holds as to clearness in presenting personality. A writer seeing in his subject only conventional and class characteristics fails to discover to the reader those little touches that differentiate man from man. The objective picture perhaps may be clear enough. The reader may see the hero, the heroine, the country squire, the village doctor, with absolute distinctness and may yet fail to know him. So it is when one looks over a number of strange faces in some public gathering. The various individuals are distinct enough objectively as one looks at them, and yet each remains a stranger; no single personality is revealed. So in the characterization that attends narration: there must, for subjective directness, be something deeper than mere firmness of external outline. Further, too, we must have more than a mere type of personality. It is not enough to know that a man is hypocritical or sincere, close-fisted or generous. Not all hypocrites are Pecksniffs, nor are all misers Isaacs of York.

The portrayal of the type and of the individual suggests the subject of caricature, to which reference has already been made. Caricature, or hyperbole in characterization, may easily result from the attempt to avoid vagueness in portrayal. To objectify a personage beyond all possibility of error, the writer goes to the extreme of