There are several ways in which the events of different streams of narrative may concur. In fiction the concurrence is a work of pure invention, being due to the relations of interwoven plots to each other. Of this something has already been said. In history a transaction may have antagonistic sides, each of which, for completeness, must be represented in turn; this is seen when opposed forces engage in battle, or when political parties are arrayed against each other in state policy. A broader concurrence is seen in the different departments of a nation's history, as, for instance, its political or constitutional history, its social development, its religious progress, its literature, each of which has a distinct story by itself, yet also many points of relation to other departments.

In the endeavor to impart the sense of synchronism in events or lines of history, attention should be given both to the mechanical and to the more literary process, somewhat as to plan and amplification.

1. Mechanical means of synchronizing are often used to supplement the literary; but whether so or not they should be in the writer's underlying plan as a nucleus of treatment. The chief of these, as occasioned by the needs of historical writing, are:

The careful division of the narrative into periods, with boundaries that may serve as landmarks at once for the several departments or lines of events.

The frequent construction of summaries and reviews of progress, with reference to the whole field of view.

The display of events in charts, tabular views, statistics, and the like, which serve to exhibit many parallel lines of history in one survey.

ILLUSTRATION OF CHOICE OF LANDMARK. For the beginning of the Elizabethan period in English literature Green chooses the point of time corresponding with the defeat of the Spanish Armada. In a paragraph too long to be quoted in full here he summarizes the various lines of

national development — in exploration, in science, in the revival of learning, in national triumph - - and then goes on to mention the great names of authors which graced the period just opening. How truly the date is well chosen may be seen from the close of his summary: "With its new sense of security, of national energy and national power, the whole aspect of England suddenly changed. As yet the interest of Elizabeth's reign had been political and material; the stage had been crowded with statesmen and warriors, with Cecils and Walsinghams and Drakes. Literature had hardly found a place in the glories of the time. But from the moment when the Armada drifted back broken to Ferrol, the figures of warriors and statesmen were dwarfed by the grander figures of poets and philosophers. Amidst the throng in Elizabeth's antechamber the noblest form is that of the singer who lays the 'Faerie Queen' at her feet, or of the young lawyer who muses amid the splendors of the presence over the problems of the Novum Organum.' The triumph at Cadiz, the conquest of Ireland, pass unheeded as we watch Hooker building up his 'Ecclesiastical Polity' among the sheepfolds, or the genius of Shakspere rising year by year into supremer grandeur in a rude theatre beside the Thames." 1

A masterly work of history, conducted throughout on synchronistic lines, and clearly articulated by summaries and landmarks, yet all fused into one homogeneous narrative, is Professor Barrett Wendell's Literary History of America.

2. The literary means of synchronizing events has to do mainly with the proportioning of the various parallel departments and, in the amplification, with the management of changes of scene.

As a history must stand predominantly for some one aspect of life, the writer chooses as basis of the whole the narrative that most fully represents this. To this narrative he gives the fullest movement; noting in its course, however, events that stand out as important landmarks for more than one course of events, and personages that in the part they play serve to connect one story with another. In this way the groundwork is laid for constructing history from more than one point of view. When now another narrative, contemporaneous with the first, is taken up, it is constructed as a

1 GREEN, Short History of the English People, Chap. vii, Section 7.

kind of reverse, giving in summary or rapid reference what the other has given in full, and enlarging on those points which the other has designated as landmarks. In this way

the reader is kept aware how the different lines of events touch one another.

The scene should not be transferred from one narrative to another except at the significant turning-points of the history, where one narrative is so finished that it can be trusted to wait, and so rounded as to be retained in mind as a story of defined character. The change should be not merely assumed, but distinctly announced.

EXAMPLE OF TRANSFER OF SCENE. In Carlyle's account of the battle of Prag, which may illustrate what may be called synchronism at close quarters, noticeable care is evinced in the changes from one side of the account to the other. It is from Friedrich's point of view that he tells the story, and his account of Friedrich's preparations, and of the ground on which the battle is to be fought, is given as seen from the Prussian position. Then, in order to describe the Austrian's preparation, he changes scene, in the following words: "Where the Austrian Camp or various Tent-groups were, at the time Friedrich first cast eye on them, is no great concern of his or ours; inasmuch as, in two or three hours hence, the Austrians were obliged, rather suddenly, to take Order of Battle; and that, and not their camping, is the thing we are curious upon. Let us step across, and take some survey of that Austrian ground, which Friedrich is now surveying from the distance, fully intending that it shall be a battleground in few hours; and try to explain how the Austrians drew-up on it, when they noticed the Prussian symptoms to become serious more and more." At the end of this description he returns to his original standingpoint, in the following words: "Friedrich surveys diligently what he can of all this, from the northern verge. We will now return to Friedrich; and will stay on his side through the terrible Action that is coming." 1

III. NARRATION IN LITERATURE.

Of all the most widespread and popular forms of literature narration is the basis, furnishing the groundwork and main

1 CARLYLE, Frederick the Great, Vol. vi, pp. 126, 129.

movement by which they are estimated. The narrative type, however, rarely appears unmixed, being reinforced, as occasion rises, by other types, especially description and exposition.

The following, with brief indication of their working principles, are the leading forms of literature thus founded on narration.

I.

History. This is to be regarded as first in importance, because, being the recounting of actual events, it represents the primal and ideal use of narration. Dealing with the authentic facts of the world, the larger facts with which are connected the destiny of nations and communities, its art is first to find by wise investigation what is authentic, and then so to interpret this that its truth and significance shall be clearly manifest. Whatever historical writing fails in these, one or both, fails in art; it remains either raw material or raw judgment.

The Finding of Historic Fact. In the investigation of historic fact two endowments of mind are at work, very different from each other, yet each requiring ideally to be at its best: minute accuracy and vigorous imagination.1

1. Most deeply of all, and long before he begins the actual composition, the historian must have the most unwearied patience in detail and investigation, shrinking not from the dryest and minutest researches, in his determination to ascertain and verify every smallest fact that may throw light on his story. To him there can be nothing forbidding, nothing unimportant.

If a small and obscure incident may alter the

or

1 "Stern Accuracy in inquiring, bold Imagination in expounding and filling-up; these,' says friend Sauerteig, 'are the two pinions on which History soars,' flutters and wabbles." - CARLYLE, Essays, Vol. iii, p. 259. The imagination was what Carlyle especially valued in his own work, and whenever he had to give statistics or prosaic information he was fond of introducing them apologetically, as the work of a certain Dryasdust.

color of a whole epoch, or an unobtrusive date be the key to a whole series of facts, it will not do to call any detail superfluous.1

NOTE. The extreme of accuracy and care in ascertaining facts is the prevailing characteristic of modern historical scholarship, a characteristic, indeed, which it has in common with the whole scientific method and spirit of our day. First eminently exemplified, perhaps, in Gibbon, it has become the indispensable endowment of the standard historian, and is well illus. trated by such names as Hallam, Carlyle, Macaulay, Motley, Bancroft, and Parkman.

2. The facts of history have not only to be accumulated by documentary evidence; they have also to be restored by an imagination powerful enough to fill the gaps of evidence and reproduce the past in a living portrayal. Through all the patient drudgery of research the writer must have the vision of a rounded and consistent narrative, as the sculptor sees the statue in the stone. It is only so that he can reproduce the very form and body of past events as they really are. the penetrative imagination, in its creative vigor, becomes a means by which hidden facts are divined and brought to light.2

Thus

1 Of Macaulay's masterly faculty of packing information both into his statements and into the implications, allusions, and figures of his historical works Thackeray says that these indicate "not only the prodigious memory and vast learning of this master, but the wonderful industry, the honest, humble previous toil of this great scholar. He reads twenty books to write a sentence; he travels a hundred miles to make a line of description.” — THACKERAY, Roundabout Papers, p. 198. 2 One of Macaulay's friends thus reports his method of retaining and coördinating historic facts: "I said that I was surprised at the great accuracy of his information, considering how desultory his reading had been. 'My accuracy as to facts,' he said, 'I owe to a cause which many men would not confess. It is due to my love of castle-building. The past is in my mind soon constructed into a romance.' He then went on to describe the way in which from his childhood his imagination had been filled with the study of history. With a person of my turn,' he said, 'the minute touches are of as great interest, and perhaps greater, than the most important events. Spending so much time as I do in solitude, my mind would have rusted by gazing vacantly at the shop windows. As it is, I am no sooner in the streets than I am in Greece, in Rome, in the midst of the French Revolution. Precision in dates, the day or hour in which a man was born or died, becomes absolutely