inexperienced writer, suppressing all the shades of interdependence, and giving to each constituent predication equal stress, the result would be something after this sort:

Sometimes he was angry and that dread voice of his shook the hills, but in ordinary talk it fell very pleasantly upon the ear, and its kind of honied, friendly whine was not far off singing and was eminently Scottish.

It is apparent at a glance that the due proportion of parts has been grossly disturbed. The pleasant tone of the voice in ordinary conversation, which is the dominant theme of the original sentence, has now lost its relative value by its correlation with the idea of the first clause and of the last two, all of which are logically subordinate and contributory.

These and other matters of internal sentence structure, the periodic, the loose, and the balanced sentence; the suppression of clauses into phrases; simple, complex, and compound sentences; the matter of phrasal modifications, have been thrashed out in every text book on rhetoric and composition. Nor are these somewhat technical considerations trivial and merely academic. The student of the mechanics of narrative writing may well study them, for the observation of these very details, conscious or unconscious, has contributed largely to the effectiveness that characterizes the expression of the great masters. Narrative literature abounds with examples that illustrate the difference between styles characterized by simplicity or complexity, clearness or vagueness, rapidity or deliberation, dignity or informality. And often it is evident that the ultimate effect is due largely to the writer's observation of coherence between the sentences or between the elements within the sentences.

(b) The Ordering of the Narrative Details

Coherence in the narrative item, however, is not limited to the coördination and subordination of sentences or of sentence elements. The ordering of the narrative details that constitute the occurrence is of no less importance. This consideration is less purely technical and grammatical than the preceding; it appeals more to the artistic judgment of the writer, to his sense of effectiveness.

The writer of the simplest narrative form may order his details in any one of several ways. Three, however, are common, and each of the three has its own particular value.

One method of ordering the narrative elements is illustrated in the following item, the brief review of a novel:

Child of Destiny (William Briggs, Toronto) by William J. Fischer, is a love story dealing with two generations. A young man is scorned by the woman he loves, and, giving himself up to jealousy and hatred, follows her after her marriage to another man and kidnaps her little daughter. He carries the child back to his own home and brings her up in luxury. She grows into a lovely young woman and is about to marry, when a letter of confession left by her abductor at the time of his death reveals that she and her intended husband are brother and sister. Later it is discovered that they are not blood relatives, since he had been adopted by her parents.1

In this case we have what we may perhaps call the normal narrative order. The details are set down in simple chronological succession. Coherence is secured by the natural bond that unites events proceeding one from another. The writer assumes sufficient interest on the part

1 New York Times.

of the reader to hold the attention from one stage to another until the end, without the adventitious assistance of complicated structure, such as characterizes a story like James Lane Allen's Flute and Violin or a novel like Henry Esmond, where the natural order is frequently interrupted by forward casts and subsequent resumptions of the narrative thread.

Another method of ordering the narrative details — a modification of that already explained newspaper item following:

appears in the

Russell H. Davidson and his wife and infant child had a narrow escape from a most serious accident at Harrison Saturday afternoon, their horse being attacked with blind staggers and falling over a 20-foot embankment into the river near the junction of Main and Park streets. Mr. Davidson was driving his bay mare through the narrow street from Water to Park street, and at the narrowest part the horse was suddenly attacked with a rush of blood to the head, reared, and then fell against the railing protecting the roadway from the embankment by the side of the river. The animal, instantly uncontrollable, fell against the rail, broke it, and then plunged twenty feet down into the stream, which at this point was not very deep. A part of the harness broke, and the runner struck against a stone pier holding up the rail, which prevented the sleigh from plunging with the occupants after the horse.

Harry Templeton, driver for the American Express Company, with the team that he was driving, was just about to pass Mr. Davidson's sleigh. He saw the accident, and, instantly realizing the danger, sprang from his own sleigh, and threw his weight on the cutter, which was toppling on the edge of the embankment. The horse was afterward rescued by John Dennis, who was lowered down to the river by a rope, and led the animal, apparently uninjured, up the bed of the river to a point where the bank sloped sufficiently to afford a firm footing. No bones were broken, and the horse, to all outward appearances, was uninjured.

Here the writer has begun with a bird's-eye view of the complete transaction, and has followed it up by presenting the constituent details in their due order. This method of securing coherence by placing at the very beginning an epitome of the entire action serves the same purpose as do the headlines in a telegraphic column. It gives the hasty reader an opportunity of testing the contents of the paragraph in question, that he may continue or stray elsewhere as his taste dictates. Of course, it is apparent that in this method of ordering the details there must be a momentary break in the coherence of the narrative at the point where the writer completes the epitome and passes on to the individual elements of the account in their chronological order. But, the entire transaction in miniature before him, the chasm is not a wide one, and the effect of coherence is not lost. This device is better adapted to the item than to longer narrative forms, because in these the question of suspense and the various devices for sustaining the reader's interest become increasingly important, and to begin by presenting the issue would be fatal. If one will try to imagine Aldrich's Marjorie Daw or Maupassant's Necklace so rearranged that the substance of the closing paragraph is summed up at the outset, he will at once appreciate the futility of this method in a long narrative where the interest is to be sustained.

Finally, the writer of simple narrative may vary the natural method, not by epitomizing at the outset, but by plunging in medias res, as Virgil does in the story of Æneas or Thackeray in the adventures of Henry Esmond, picking up later the omitted antecedent strands, and working down to the starting point, there to resume the broken narrative. A crude example of the method may be found in the following extract from a daily paper:

"Now, would n't that destroy your confidence in human nature?" exclaimed William Bourne, the chairman of the Board of Selectmen, when a jury rendered a verdict against him in the Municipal Court at Wakefield. "To go to the trouble and expense of defending a perfectly clear case and then to get this sort of treatment!"

Mr. Bourne, who owns a fine estate at Clarksburg, was sued by Duncan Williams, a Clarksburg grain-dealer, for $195, the value of corn, hay, and oats delivered at Mr. Bourne's residence, and there fed to the horses, chickens, and pigeons. Mr. Bourne declined to pay the bill, contending that he had not ordered the goods.

"I'll sue you," warned Williams.

"Go on and sue," advised Mr. Bourne. "I think my property is worth the face of the bill if you get a judgment."

Williams thought so too, and decided to take the risk. The trial, several times deferred, was held yesterday before Justice Hart, and a jury of six men. Williams won his case.

This device, like the preceding, has the advantage over the prosaic chronological method in that it catches the attention at the outset. The problem is then to carry the reader over the gap that necessarily occurs at the point of reversion to the antecedent particulars. If sufficient momentum can be gained, the reader will follow the backward cast to what may be a prosaic set of initiative details, and will then trace the successive events to the final issue. The method is evidently adapted to those narratives in which the introductory details are not of sufficient dramatic power or interest to catch the attention. In longer composition than the item this same device is effective when the writer wishes to weave into the account minute or numerous data which, if placed at the beginning, would fail to hold the reader, whose interest is as yet unstirred. Flute and Violin or Henry Esmond, already cited, are instances of the ef