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"No, sir," said the boy.

"I will make my meaning clear to you," replied the Doctor.

"Look there at the sky

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behind the belfry first, where it is so light, and then up and up, turning your chin back, right to the top of the dome, where it is already as blue as at noon. not that a beautiful color? Does it not please the heart? We have seen it all our lives, until it has grown in with our familiar thoughts. Now," changing his tone, "suppose that sky to become suddenly of a live and fiery amber, like the color of clear coals, and growing scarlet toward the top — I do not say it would be any the less beautiful; but would you like it as well?"

"I suppose not," answered Jean-Marie.

"Neither do I like you," returned the Doctor, roughly. "I hate all odd people, and you are the most curious little boy in all the world."

Jean-Marie seemed to ponder for a while, and then raised his head again and looked over at the Doctor with an air of candid inquiry. "But are not you a very curious gentleman?" he asked.

No," he continued,

The Doctor threw away his stick, bounded on the boy, clasped him to his bosom, and kissed him on both cheeks. "Admirable, admirable imp!" he cried. "What a morning, what an hour for a theorist of forty-two! apostrophizing heaven, "I did not know such boys existed; I was ignorant they made them so; I had doubted of my race; and now! It is like," he added, picking up his stick, "like a lovers' meeting."

78. Setting. The setting of a narrative is simply the background or scene in which the characters are placed. Whatever the writer tells us about the time and place in which the events of his story happen or the circumstances under which these events take place, constitutes this setting.

The usefulness of setting in a narrative is apparent. Without it, there would be an air of unreality about everything in the story. Setting serves to give definiteness to the narrative, and to throw the characters into relief. A certain amount of it is necessary in every narrative; but it should always be strictly subordinated to the story, or the recounting of the events. Long descriptions of scenery are a clog upon the action, and are apt to prove tedious to the reader.

A passage from the opening of Poe's Gold Bug will serve to illustrate the ordinary use of setting:

Many years ago, I contracted an intimacy with a Mr. William Legrand. He was of an ancient Huguenot family, and had once been wealthy; but a series of misfortunes had reduced him to want. To avoid the mortifications consequent upon his disasters, he left New Orleans, the city of his forefathers, and took up his residence at Sullivan's Island, near Charleston, South Carolina.

This island is a very singular one. It consists of little else than the sea sand, and is about three miles long. Its breadth at no point exceeds a quarter of a mile. It is separated from the mainland by a scarcely perceptible creek, oozing its way through a wilderness of reeds and slime, a favorite resort of the marsh-hen. The vegetation, as might be supposed, is scant, or at least dwarfish. No trees of any magnitude are to be seen. Near the western extremity, where Fort Moultrie stands, and where are some miserable frame buildings, tenanted, during summer, by the fugitives from Charleston dust and fever, may be found, indeed, the bristly palmetto; but the whole island, with the exception of this western point, and a line of hard, white beach on the sea-coast, is covered

with a dense undergrowth of the sweet myrtle so much prized by the horticulturists of England. The shrub here often attains the height of fifteen or twenty feet, and forms an almost impenetrable coppice, burthening the air with its fragrance.

In the inmost recesses of this coppice, not far from the eastern or more remote end of the island, Legrand had built himself a small hut, which he occupied when I first, by mere accident, made his acquaintance. His chief amusements were gunning and fishing, or sauntering along the beach and through the myrtles, in quest of shells or entomological specimens - his collection of the latter might have been envied by a Swammerdam. In these excursions he was usually accompanied by an old negro, called Jupiter, who had been manumitted before the reverses of the family, but who could be induced, neither by threats nor by promises, to abandon what he considered his right of attendance upon the footsteps of his young "Massa Will.". . .

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The winters in the latitude of Sullivan's Island are seldom very severe, and in the fall of the year it is a rare event indeed when a fire is considered necessary. About the middle of October, 18—, there occurred, however, a day of remarkable chilliness. Just before sunset I scrambled my way through the evergreens to the hut of my friend, whom I had not visited for several weeks - my residence being at that time in Charleston, a distance of nine miles from the island, while the facilities of passage and repassage were very far behind those of the present day. Upon reaching the hut I rapped, as was my custom, and getting no reply, sought for the key where I knew it was secreted, unlocked the door and went in. A fine fire was blazing upon the hearth. It was a novelty, and by no means an ungrateful one. I threw off an overcoat, took an arm-chair by the crackling logs, and waited patiently the arrival of my hosts.

79. The point of view in narration. To the writer who recounts a series of events, two points of view are possible, that of an actor, or that of an observer; and according as the writer takes the one or the other of these points of view we may have two more or less distinct methods in narration. In the first case, the writer may narrate the events as they had relation to himself, thus making himself the center of interest in his story. This is the method of the autobiographer and of the novelist who makes his hero tell his own story. It is a method which allows of very great distinctness and vividness in presenting a sequence of events, since the point of view is at all times definite and readily recognizable. Its limitations, of course, are apparent. It is inapplicable to cases where the writer has no personal knowledge, real or assumed, of the events he wishes to recount, and to cases where, as in history, a wide survey is to be taken and many threads of story woven together. The second method that in which the writer takes the point of view of an observer is the only method applicable in these cases. It is the ordinary method in narration, and may be called the method of the historian. Here the narrator has the greatest possible amount of liberty. He can look at the events he recounts or the characters he portrays from all sides; he can bring together a number of characters and have them act and react on one another; and he can take up several groups of characters one after another and have several series of events merge in one cul

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mination - all of which it would be difficult, if not impossible, for him to do were he himself one of the actors in his story.

Impartiality is ordinarily expected of a narrator who takes the point of view of an observer. It is only in history and biography, however, that this impartiality is completely realizable. The novelist usually sympathizes more or less fully with his chief characters. Whether consciously or not, he tries to see things as they see them, with the result that his story is biased in their favor. In a historian, whose aim is to set things down as they actually happened, this would be a fault; but in a novelist, it is not only excusable but necessary. The novelist's aim is to appeal to our emotions, to awaken our sympathy for his characters; and the only way he can do this is by being in sympathy with them himself. Note, for example, the effect of the following, where Hawthorne has delicately attuned his feeling to that of his heroine:

In this manner, Hester Prynne came to have a part to perform in the world. With her native energy of character, and rare capacity, it could not entirely cast her off, although it had set a mark upon her, more intolerable to a woman's heart than that which branded the brow of Cain. In all her intercourse with society, however, there was nothing that made her feel as if she belonged to it. Every gesture, every word, and even the silence of those with whom she came in contact, implied, and often expressed, that she was banished, and as much alone as if she inhabited another sphere, or communicated with the common nature by other organs and senses than the rest of human kind. She stood apart from moral

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