fying a personage; they may be elaborated to present a clearer and deeper insight into personality, and in this way to intensify the dramatic power of the events chronicled. The descriptive element in this case becomes essential to the narration. Such is the case in a novel like Tess, where the heroine's Wessex speech is quite necessary to our conception of the girl. The same thing is true in the case of history where individualities of expression are presented in order that, seeing the statesman or the soldier more accurately, we may understand his policy or his strategy more fully. Macaulay offers an instance of this when, in sketching Newcastle as a central figure in the politics of Walpole's time, he presents him thus:

In truth he was a satire ready made. All that the art of the satirist does for other men, nature had done for him. Whatever was absurd about him stood out with grotesque prominence from the rest of the character. He was a living, moving, talking caricature. His gait was a shuffling trot; his utterance a rapid stutter; he was always in a hurry; he was never in time; he abounded in fulsome caresses and in hysterical tears. His oratory resembled that of Justice Shallow. It was nonsense effervescent with animal spirits and impertinence. Of his ignorance many anecdotes remain, some well authenticated, some probably invented at coffee-houses, but all exquisitely characteristic. "Oh yes yes to be sure Annapolis must be defended troops must be sent to Annapolis — Pray where is Annapolis?"

"Cape Breton an island! wonderful! show me it in the map. So it is, sure enough. My dear sir, you always bring us good news. I must go and tell the King that Cape Breton is an island."

Macaulay's attempt to photograph Newcastle's stuttering incoherence and shallowness of mind serves a double purpose: objectively Newcastle is brought more distinctly before the reader's imagination, and subject

ively he is characterized, individualized, by what he

says.

With the development of narrative literature, and of fiction in particular, there has come increased realism in the art of reproducing dialectic and personal oddities of speech. All the vowels and consonants, aided by battalions of diacritical marks and by fantastically distorted spelling, have been enlisted into the service. A comparison of almost any story written a century or more ago and a modern dialect narrative will illustrate this. The following are fair examples.

In Captain Marryat's Peter Simple (1834) one of the most famous passages is the picture of the so-called "dignity ball," given by colored people in the Barbadoes. Their ridiculous aping of European manners, their absurd airs and outlandish dress, are portrayed at length.' Then follows an account of the ball itself. From this we make a selection illustrating how the writer presents negro-English:

...

At this moment stepped forth the premier violin, master of the ceremonies and ballet master, Massa Johnson, really a very smart man, who gave lessons in dancing to all the "Badian ladies." His bow-tick, or fiddlestick, was his wand, whose magic rap on the fiddle produced immediate obedience to his mandates. "Ladies and gentle, take your places." All started up. "Miss Eurydice, you open de ball." Miss Eurydice had but a sorry partner, but she undertook to instruct me. O'Brien was our vis-à-vis with Miss Euterpe. The other gentlemen were officers from the ships, and we stood up twelve, chequered brown and white like a chess-board. All eyes were fixed upon Mr. Apollo Johnson, who first looked at the couples, then at his fiddle, and, lastly, at the other musicians, to see if all was right, and then with a wave of his bow-tick the music began. "Massa Lieutenant," cried Apollo to O'Brien, "cross over to opposite lady, right hand and left, den figure to Miss Eurydice

dat right; now four hand round. You lilly midshipman, set your partner, sir; den twist her round; dat do, now stop. First figure all over." At this time I thought I might venture to talk a little with my partner, and I ventured a remark; to my surprise she answered very sharply, "I come here for dance, sar, and not for chatter; look Massa Johnson, he tap um bowtick," etc.

To one who is familiar with modern fiction the foregoing would seem but a crude attempt to reproduce the speech of the negro. Far more ambitious and detailed is, for instance, the method of Joel Chandler Harris. For example:

"Ole Brer Bull wuz grazin' in de pastur' des like nothin' ain't happen, but he keep on de watch. When he'd see SimmySam anywhars out'n de yard, Brer Bull 'ud sorter feed to'rds 'im, but Simmy-Sam wan't takin' no chances, en he kep' close ter kivver. But creeturs is mo' patient-like dan what foks is, en bimeby it got so Simmy-Sam 'ud go furder en furder fum de house, en one day de 'oman sont 'im out in de woods atter some pine kindlin', en he got ter playin' en foolin' 'roun'. You know how chillun is, en how dey will do: well, dat des de way Simmy-Sam done. He des frolicked 'roun' out dar in de brush, twel bimeby he hear ole Brer Bull come a-rippin' en asnortin' thoo de woods! Hit in about looked like his time wuz up." 1

Mr. Harris takes the reproduction of the negro dialect very seriously. He queries whether in the homely words of Uncle Remus we may not trace philological changes from the English of three hundred years ago that would be of interest to the student of linguistics. He suggests that dozens of words such as "hit" for "it" and ax" for "ask" might open to such a student the whole field of

66

1 Uncle Remus and His Friends. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company.

English philology. All of which indicates the modern tendency to submit everything to the test of reality and science. Yet amid all this effort on the part of modern writers to photograph speech, as it were, the student of narrative literature will do well occasionally to recall that there is something more important and more essential than verisimilitude. Upon this very subject, the over-use of dialect, a writer in Macmillan's Magazine in 1897 said:

In the main, the practice of the best writers confirms the rule that dialect should only be used to convey ideas for the expression of which the standard language is inadequate, and should be used only to an extent sufficient to mark the individuality of the speaker. Where the use of dialect is really vitalizing, where it emphasizes a character really worth knowing, it is permissible, but not otherwise. And after all, the experience for which the literary language does not provide sufficient expression is comparatively unimportant. It is a sign of degeneracy in our literature when writers deliberately resort to the grotesque, the archaic, or the vernacular. It is the duty of his countrymen to maintain the credit of the tongue that Shakespeare wrote. We owe far more to it than to any dialect.

c. Characterization by Environment

Character, finally, may be presented by means of environment, which in this connection is to be considered from two opposite points of view actively, as determining character, and passively, as determined by it. In the first of these two aspects, the active, — environment is but a phase of setting, and as such has already been discussed (pp. 79–82). In so far, however, as character works upon environment, modifies it, and by so doing displays its own vigor, it rises superior to attendant circumstance, and the consideration of this phase

of narrative writing belongs not to setting but to the various devices for presenting effectively the personality that possesses the power of modification.

Man's surroundings are in no small degree determined, created by him; circumstances give direction to character, but at the same time they are dominated by character, receive its stamp, and offer concrete evidence of its existence. Just as the prostrate tree gives evidence of the sweep of the hurricane, so some concrete act may give indication of the character that dictates it. The narrative method under discussion would give some impression of the storm by presenting a vivid picture of the havoc; would present a clear conception of the personality by showing definitely not the environment that may have made that personality possible, but the environment that the personality itself has created. For instance, in the exposition of Elizabeth's character, to which reference has been made on page 117, the traits that the Queen drew from Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn are indicated as determining elements in Elizabeth's personality. Knowing them, we can better understand the royal character. On the other hand, her favorites, the enemies that she made, the court that she gathered about her, the ministers that she selected to maintain her policies, these also shadow forth the personality of Elizabeth. Or again, in Tess, Angel Clare's environment, as well as the traits that he inherited from his parents, is a strong element in determining the man's personality; but the course of life that he deliberately elected to pursue, the woman whom he chose as his wife, these, which may be called the results of his personality, set forth Angel Clare's character with no less distinctness. Excellent illustration of the same device is presented in A New England Nun: