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have been too close and narrow. The space was only twenty feet square. The air-holes were small and obstructed. It was the summer solstice, the season when the fierce heat of Bengal can scarcely be rendered tolerable to natives of England by lofty halls and by the constant waving of fans. The number of the prisoners was one hundred and forty-six. When they were ordered to enter the cell, they imagined that the soldiers were joking; and, being in high spirits on account of the promise of the Nabob to spare their lives, they laughed and jested at the absurdity of the notion. They soon discovered their mistake. They expostulated; they entreated; but in vain. The guards threatened to cut down all who hesitated. The captives were driven into the cell at the point of the sword, and the door was instantly shut and locked upon them.

Nothing in history or fiction, not even the story which Ugolino told in the sea of everlasting ice, after he had wiped his bloody lips on the scalp of his murderer, approaches the horrors which were recounted by the few survivors of that night. They cried for mercy. They strove to burst the door. Holwell, who, even in that extremity, retained some presence of mind, offered large bribes to the jailers. But the answer was that nothing could be done without the Nabob's orders, that the Nabob was asleep, and that he would be angry if anybody woke him. Then the prisoners went mad with despair. They trampled each other down, fought for the places at the windows, fought for the pittance of water with which the cruel mercy of the murderers mocked their agonies, raved, prayed, blasphemed, implored the guards to fire among them. The jailers in the meantime held lights to the bars, and shouted with laughter at the frantic struggles of their victims. At length the tumult died away in low gaspings and moanings. The day broke. The Nabob had slept off his debauch, and permitted the door to be opened. But it was some time before the soldiers could make a lane for the survivors, by piling up on each side the heaps of corpses on which the burning climate had already begun to do its loathsome work. When at length a passage was made, twenty-three ghastly figures, such as their own mothers

would not have known, staggered one by one out of the charnelhouse. A pit was instantly dug. The dead bodies, a hundred and twenty-three in number, were flung into it promiscuously, and covered up.

But these things, which, after the lapse of more than eighty years, cannot be told or read without horror, awakened neither remorse nor pity in the bosom of the savage Nabob. He inflicted no punishment on the murderers. He showed no tenderness to the survivors. Some of them, indeed, from whom nothing was to be got were suffered to depart; but those from whom it was thought that anything could be extorted were treated with execrable cruelty. Holwell, unable to walk, was carried before the tyrant, who reproached him, threatened him, and sent him up to the country in irons, together with some other gentlemen who were suspected of knowing more than they chose to tell about the treasures of the Company. These persons, still bowed down by the sufferings of that great agony, were lodged in miserable sheds and fed only with grain and water, till at length the intercessions of the female relations of the Nabob procured their release. One Englishwoman had survived that night. She was placed in the harem of the Prince at Moorshedabad.

The student will notice the dramatic effect of the sentences that close these respective paragraphs: "The captives were driven into the cell at the point of the sword, and the door was instantly shut and locked upon them," "The dead bodies, a hundred and twenty-three in number, were flung into it promiscuously, and covered up," and "She was placed in the harem of the Prince at Moorshedabad." Each division of the narrative concludes forcefully, leaving a distinct impression of horror. The paragraphs are well massed.

Another consideration that belongs to this same rhetorical element of emphasis is the proportionate amount of space that each detail should receive. In the item there

is not so great likelihood of the writer's over-elaborating the introduction or of dwelling unduly upon insignificant details; that is a graver danger in episodic narrative. But even in the brief form of the item some one constituent portion may be unduly emphasized with the result that attention is drawn away from the main theme with consequent loss of emphasis. This consideration will be taken up at greater length when we come to discuss the elaboration of episodes in more extended narrative discourse.

(3) Coherence

While unity and emphasis are important elements in the construction of the narrative item, while without them it lacks artistic finish, yet coherence is, all things considered, the very warp of the narrative pattern. As stated in the definition, narration is not merely the presentation of an occurrence; it is the setting forth of the details of the occurrence in their chronological order. The idea of a series, of a succession, is fundamental. With this chronological ordering of the details coherence has mainly to do. In description the totality of effect, the unity of impression, is the main consideration; and, although in securing and assuring the impression the artist may not neglect the details of arrangement that combine to produce the ultimate harmony of parts, yet this harmony is in the end his main consideration. The arrangement of the details is but a means to that end. With the historian, however, the sequence of the details is relatively of greater importance. As the narrative form increases in complexity, this question of coherence increases in importance, as will appear if one thinks of the part that the details must play, for example, in a novel of complicated plot, or in a detective story. But

even in the item and in the isolated narrative paragraph, the sequence of the details plays a far more important part than in a paragraph of any other character.

As already intimated, the question of narrative coherence brings up the consideration of plot; but in the simple item this may well seem too pretentious a title. Within the limits of the item there is little opportunity for the elaboration and intricacy that belong to plot as that term is generally understood. And yet, even in the simple narrative, the ordering of details presents material for study. What arrangement will best set the event before the reader's mind, - the actual order of the details as they happened, or the issue followed by the successive steps that led up to it? Shall we insert the connectives, temporal and logical, and thus lead the reader from point to point, allowing his imagination or his logical sense no rein whatever? Or, by the omission of these auxiliary guides, shall we give him the liberty to supply the links and thus allow him, to some small extent, to construct his own pattern as he reads? These and other considerations of like sort confront the student of narrative structure as he examines the element of coherence. The various aspects of the subject may be arranged under the following heads: (a) the structure and ordering of the sentences; and (b) the ordering of the component narrative details.

(a) The Structure and Ordering of the Sentences

In considering the structure and ordering of the sentences in a piece of composition, a matter of first importance is the use of connectives. De Quincey, speaking in general of style,' says that "the philosophy of transi

1 Autobiography and Literary Reminiscences.

tion and connection, or the art by which one step in an evolution of thought is made to arise out of another, is one of the two capital secrets in the art of prose composition: all fluent and effective composition depends on the connectives." This is perhaps truer of expository or argumentative writing than of narrative, because in them the logical relations are more varied in character and more subtile. Unless the reader be restricted by the causal, conditional, temporal, or concessive connectives, there is greater opportunity for him to go astray into some by-path not foreseen by the writer. In narrative writing, on the other hand, the relation between the constituent ideas is largely temporal, and the suppression or the expression of the connectives becomes a matter of effectiveness, rather than of mere clearness.

Asyndeton is the name given to that figure of style in which the connectives between the various parts of sentences or between sentences themselves are omitted. Asyndeton may be considered as a rhetorical device to secure emphasis, and, being a device, is a deviation from the normal method of writing, in which we express the connectives. We may, therefore, logically consider first those forms of the narrative paragraph in which the transitions appear.

An example of the simplest kind of narrative sequence in which we find all the connectives is offered in the story of Joseph's coat (Genesis xxxvii, 29-36), which we may extract from its setting and consider as a simple narrative item.

And Reuben returned unto the pit; and, behold, Joseph was not in the pit; and he rent his clothes. And he returned unto his brethren, and said, The child is not; and I, whither shall I go? And they took Joseph's coat, and killed a kid of the goats,

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