CHAPTER V.

INVENTION DEALING WITH EVENTS:

NARRATION.

Or men's natural impulse, mentioned at the beginning of the last chapter, to report what they observe in the world around them, narration, the report of action, is by far the most prevalent outcome; it is the most natural and obvious of literary forms. The reason of this is easy to find. When we inquire what ordinary men, men of the street and of common life, are interested in and talk about, we find that it is almost sure to be some manifestation of action; a race, a contest, a feat of bodily prowess, a practical joke, always something involving energy and movement. Such things can be observed without learning and without painful thought; moreover, the very progress of them is a stimulus to sustained attention. The spirited account of such things, accordingly, is the kind of literature that appeals most easily to all classes of men.

Another reason there is for the naturalness of narrative: it deals with the kind of material best adapted to portrayal by language. We have seen that description is at a disadvantage in this respect; because it must work with material that is itself at rest, by a medium that must move in a succession. In narrative, as in no other literary form so well, medium answers spontaneously to material; both the expression and the event expressed are moving forward. How natural it is to run into narrative form is shown in the employment of allegory (see preceding, page 95), and in the use of narration as an accessory of description. Narrative is the kind of discourse whose plan is least artificial and labored, comes nearest to making itself.

I. SIMPLE NARRATION.

We will discuss first the laws, procedures, and cautions of narration pure and simple, without the admixture of elements that go to make the greater literary types of which it is the basis composite, sometimes very complex, productions.

I.

Definition of Narration. - Narration is the recounting, in succession, of the particulars that make up a transaction.

Let us in a few words analyze this definition.

1. Observe, first, that the word transaction, which expresses the subject-matter of narration, implies at least a rounded and selfcontained series of particulars; and thus far it suggests something of the aim in planning a narrative. A way of recounting is to be sought which shall maintain a distinctive character, and which shall have a beginning, an end, a culmination of interest. The fact that narration is the form of discourse wherein the plan most nearly makes itself by no means precludes the finest and minutest constructive skill. Indeed, there is perhaps no other kind of literature so sensitive to extraneous elements, and so dependent for its felicity on the accurate balance of parts, as narration.

2. Observe, secondly, that narration, like description, deals with particulars, not with generalizations; with the concrete, not with abstractions. This imposes on it the same task involved in description, of seeking out those parts and characteristics of the object which are most individual, most unlike those of the class to which it belongs. There is something in every transaction which makes its interest unique; and this is most to be sought.

3. Observe, thirdly, that the recounting of particulars follows a law of succession. What that law shall be is a question to be determined by the complexity of the occasion. The basis of narration is indeed the simplest kind of succession, namely, progress or contiguity in time; and this predominates in unskilled narrative. As, however, greater constructive power and regard for interest

enter, this law is supplemented and reënforced by the law of cause and effect particulars are related not merely because they occurred at such a time, but because they grew out of preceding particulars, and form with the preceding an undivided tissue. A skillful narrator will seek that any incident, as related to what goes before, shall be not only post hoc but also, as far as possible, propter hoc.

Method of Narration.

II.

The transaction to be narrated may be real or fictitious; in either case, however, the procedure is essentially the same. If real, it is still to be related with skillful progression and proportion of parts; if fictitious, it is still to have verisimilitude, as if it were real. And in either case the story, as a story, is an invention; it is to follow the lines of construction that obtain in fiction, to give to the material it finds the same skill and freedom of movement as if it were at liberty to create its own material.

1

That the right telling of a story is no accident but the result of artistic skill and tact, is illustrated by contrast in the narratives of the untutored. Walter Bagehot, referring to Coleridge, thus elucidates this point: 2" He (Coleridge) observes that in the narrations of uneducated people in Shakespeare, just as in real life, there is a want of prospectiveness and a superfluous amount of regressiveness. People of this sort are unable to look a long way in front of them, and they wander from the right path. They get on too fast with one half, and then the other hopelessly lags. They can tell a story exactly as it is told to them (as an animal can go

1 Of Macaulay's narrative method it is said: "No historian before him ever regarded his task from the same point of view, or aimed with such calm patience and labor at the same result; no one, in short, had ever so resolved to treat real events on the lines of the novel or romance. Many writers before Macaulay had done their best to be graphic and picturesque, but none ever saw that the scattered fragments of truth could, by incessant toil directed by an artistic eye, be worked into a mosaic, which for color, freedom, and finish, might rival the creations of fancy."— Morison, "Macaulay" (English Men of Letters), p. 143.

2 Bagehot, "Literary Studies," Vol. I. p. 145.

step by step where it has been before), but they can't calculate its bearings beforehand, or see how it is to be adapted to those to whom they are speaking, nor do they know how much they have thoroughly told and how much they have not. 'I went up the street, then I went down the street; no, first went down and then but you do not follow me; I go before you, sir.' Thence arises the complex style usually adopted by persons not used to narration. They tumble into a story and get on as they can."

EXAMPLE. In illustration of his remarks, Mr. Bagehot quotes the passage where Hostess Quickly tells Sir John Falstaff why she will not admit his swaggering companion Pistol to her inn (Shakespeare, King Henry IV. Part Second, Act II. scene IV.) : —

"Tilly-fally, Sir John, ne'er tell me: your ancient swaggerer comes not in my doors. I was before Master Tisick, the deputy, t'other day; and, as he said to me, -'twas no longer ago than Wednesday last, — Neighbor Quickly,' says he ; Master Dumb, our minister, was by then; —'Neighbor Quickly,' says he, 'receive those that are civil; for,' saith he, 'you are in an ill name': - now, he said so, I can tell whereupon; 'for,' says he, 'you are an honest woman, and well thought on; therefore take heed what guests you receive; receive,' says he, 'no swaggering companions.' There comes none here: you would bless you to hear what he said: no, I'll no swaggerers."

Here, in three places, the narrator returns on herself ("it was no longer ago," etc.; "Master Dumb, our minister," etc.; "you would bless you," etc.); and the circumstance she mentions ("I can tell you whereupon") to authenticate Master Tisick's words to Sir John, is indeed associated in her mind, by contiguity, with the rest; but for Sir John's purpose it is quite irrelevant.

The foregoing remarks and example suggest the following essential features of narrative method.

The Prime Requisite: Forecast of the Whole. - It is essential in narrative, first of all, that the end be in view from the beginning, and that every part be shaped and proportioned with more or less direct reference to both. "Keeping the beginning and the end in view," says Professor David Pryde,1 we set out from the right starting-place and go straight towards the right destination; we introduce no event that does not spring from the

1 Pryde, "Studies in Composition," p. 26.

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first cause, and tend to the great effect; we make each detail a link joined to the one going before and the one coming after; we make, in fact, all the details into one entire chain, which we can take up as a whole, carry about with us, and retain as long as we please."

This is illustrated in the method of the professional raconteur, who may be regarded as representing the art of story-telling in its most fundamental elements. The anecdotes that he relates are treated as embodying a point or sentiment in which their whole significance is concentrated; and to this point he subordinates everything, passing over preliminaries with a rapid touch, cutting out everything that is not indispensable to the main interest, using description with utmost parsimony; so that the end for which the story exists strikes the hearers with all possible clearness and directness.

EXAMPLE. An instance of an anecdote so told as to lead by the simplest and directest lines to a foreseen culmination occurs in one of F. W. Robertson's lectures on Poetry. It illustrates the truth that "through the physical horrors of warfare, Poetry discerns the redeeming nobleness" : —

"I will illustrate this by one more anecdote from the same campaign to which allusion has been already made - Sir Charles Napier's campaign against the robber tribes of Upper Scinde.

"A detachment of troops was marching along a valley, the cliffs overhanging which were crested by the enemy. A sergeant, with eleven men, chanced to become separated from the rest by taking the wrong side of a ravine, which they expected soon to terminate, but which suddenly deepened into an impassable chasm. The officer in command signalled to the party an order to return. They mistook the signal for a command to charge; the brave fellows answered with a cheer, and charged. At the summit of the steep mountain was a triangular platform, defended by a breastwork, behind which were seventy of the foe. On they went, charging up one of those fearful paths, eleven against seventy. The contest could not long be doubtful with such odds. One after another they fell; six upon the spot, the remainder hurled backwards; but not until they had slain nearly twice their own number.

"There is a custom, we are told, amongst the hillsmen, that when a great chieftain of their own falls in battle, his wrist is bound with a thread either of red or green, the red denoting the highest rank. According to custom, they stripped the dead, and threw their bodies over the precipice. When their