Then again, the writer of episodic narration, if his work is to possess animation, — another name for this same rhetorical quality,—must make his account move. More than that, as one writer has said, the story must not only move, it must move on. Marking time results in dreariness. Pirouettes and caracols in literary expression may fill the reader with admiration for the writer's rhetorical agility, but they do not advance narration, which by its very definition demands action. The episodes selected by the author must, in order to be forceful, present two characteristics: (a) they must in themselves have interest, and (b) they must promote the movement toward the completion of the "occurrence." What constitutes interest in the details will, of course, differ with the character of the chronicle. Details that in one case may possess the dynamic quality may in another be wholly sedative. In a story like The Great Stone Face the simple episodes of Mr. Gathergold's return, old Blood-and-Thunder's visit, and the other little ripples in quiet village life are of great import in view of the allegorical basis of the story; but in a narrative instinct with dramatic force or intricate with plot complication they would be prosaic enough. Furthermore, the selected episodes must hurry the constituent details along to their logical conclusion. The episodes indicated on page 4 as the essential parts of Silas Marner illustrate this. They secure progress and the narrative moves distinctly forward toward the weaver's closing days of content and to the completion of his regeneration. Considerations like these are intimately connected with plot structure, and will receive fuller treatment in a later chapter. It may be noted at this point that in historic narration the writer has less freedom in the manipulation of his episodes than has the writer of fiction. Lockhart, in his biography of Scott, was far more limited in the ordering of his data than was Scott in arranging the various episodes of Ivanhoe. The writer of fiction can, for the exigencies of emphasis or dramatic effect, leap over a dozen years, to resume later the interrupted thread or to leave the gap blank, as his judgment may dictate. The chronicler of fact, however, may seldom resort to artifice, but is bound to the prosaic order of actual occurrence, save as several parallel episodes may permit him to complete one and then revert to another that he may develop it in turn and thus bring several simultaneous events down to one starting point for further continuance of the record. This method of the historian is affected by Scott in three successive chapters of Ivanhoe (xxii, xxiii, xxiv). In the first, we are in the dungeon beneath Torquilstone, where Front de Boeuf threatens Isaac of York in the effort to extort a thousand silver pounds. In the second, De Bracy presses his attentions upon the Lady Rowena, while the events just indicated are taking place below. And in the third, in the chamber of Rebecca, the persecution of the Jew's daughter by the disguised Templar is interrupted by the trumpet of the besiegers outside the castle walls. All of these chapters represent exactly simultaneous action and each brings its respective episode to completion before the story is resumed in the chapter that succeeds the last of the series. (3) Proportion Closely allied to emphasis is proportion. This plays no great part in narrative composition until the item develops into episodic composition. So simple are the details of the isolated occurrence that no one detail is likely to be so grossly exaggerated above the rest as to disturb the equilibrium of the complete chronicle. In episodic narration, however, with the increased complexity of the integral units, comes the danger that over-elaboration in some one part will disturb the general effect of the whole. Digressions are often attractive. Enticing side-paths draw one from the beaten track, and the reader finds himself in the predicament of the Red Cross Knight in Error's "wandering wood." Every reader of Tom Jones remembers the Man of the Hill, and how the entire narrative is halted while this apparently supererogatory episode drowses along its dreary course, and the main current of the story is resumed with difficulty. Sometimes a fondness for description beguiles the writer into the elaboration of setting until the narrative element is completely dwarfed. Again, expositions of character, important enough in their way, usurp the place of action, and the narrative becomes but a study in psychologic analysis, as is more than once the case in Daniel Deronda and Romola. And these violations of proportion carry with them loss of narrative vitality. In historical and biographical narration there is less likelihood than in fiction of destroying emphasis by the violation of true episodic proportion. The chronicler of fact, if he be a historian in the best sense of the word, - will be restrained by a saving sanity as to relative values. No heat of passion will make him unscrupulous, and his regard for the truth will prevent his wandering from the way. As soon as the historian is discovered to be a rider of hobbies just so soon the discerning reader will discount his statements, however forceful the phrasing. Doing violence to true proportion, distorting the truth through personal bias and prejudice, he will be only superficially forceful and his vigor will neither persuade nor convince. The emphatic periods of Macaulay are viewed with distrust because to him Wil liam was the sole measure of all that could be termed kingly and a Whig the perfect type of true patriotism. His force becomes therefore merely the force of expression, and lacks the greater emphasis that comes with a sane and catholic attitude to history. (4) Coherence Coherence as an element in episodic narration is so closely related to the complication of details known as "plot" that a thorough discussion may best be postponed until that phase of the subject is taken up. In general, however, it may be said that episodic coherence concerns itself mainly with the succession of the constituent events and not so much with the mere matter of connectives. as does the item. Of course the question of clause articulation does not entirely disappear as an element to be reckoned with,—coherence is a constant rhetorical quality of style, but in weaving his narrative the writer gives increased attention to the problem of order. The simple conjunctives are now superseded by paragraphs or sentences of transition, so called, familiar to all students of rhetoric, and exemplified in the analysis of the story to follow (pp. 59-64). Mere chronology, however, is not all that the narrative writer now has to deal with. The logical sequence of cause and effect as manifested in character and action plays a very important part, — more important, if possible, than in securing unity. The historian and the biographer are not satisfied with the mere arrangement of their material in the order of time. They must show that the events of one epoch are the logical outcome of preceding periods; that, unlike as may be Puritan England to the England of two centuries earlier, yet the evolution of the one into the other may be traced. They must convince their readers that the personality of the mature statesman or of the poet is in entire harmony with the character, the environment, the promise of earlier youth. The writer of fiction, whether it be of intricate plot narratives like those by Conan Doyle, Wilkie Collins, and Anna Katherine Green, or of character studies like the novels of George Eliot and Mrs. Humphry Ward, is under obligations to see the end from the beginning and to develop the action coherently in accord with the natural sequence of experience and human nature. Failure to observe the canons of coherence condemns the narrative as unnatural, illogical, impossible. In view of all this, one can readily see that coherence is closely allied to unity and to emphasis. In order to secure that subtile one-ness that gives totality to any well written account of a transaction, the mutual connection of parts and their best order must be considered. And, again, in discovering the order that shall best mass these parts so as to produce the fullness of dramatic effect, the sequence of detail after detail becomes a matter of no little importance. What has been said regarding the various rhetorical qualities of episodic narration may be epitomized by a concrete illustration drawn from Flute and Violin, to which reference has more than once been made. To begin with, the successive principal episodes are indicated by the sections into which the author has devided his narrative. Arranged with suitable titles they stand as follows: THE PARSON'S MAGIC FLUTE I. The Reverend James Moore. |