Chapter VII (2)

_Dramatic Climax_: Charley leaves Sara. (This climax is, of course,
intensified by its juxtaposition to the doctor’s verdict; in fact,
the two details together may be regarded as a double climax. Miss
Hurst is one of the best authors to study for duplication of dramatic
climax effect. See also, for example, “Ice Water.”)

_Steps toward the Climax of Action_: Eddie Blaney meets Sara and
takes her to the country. (Has this step been prepared for duly?
Why is it one not left to the reader’s imagination--that is, the
engagement made previously?) Eddie encourages Sara, telling her she
will be well by Christmas.

_Climax of Action_: (Deduced by reader.) How has Miss Hurst in the
developed story suggested the inevitable ending?

CHARACTERS. By what speeches and acts does the author flash the personality of Sara? By which ones in particular does she draw the reader’s sympathy to her? How is Hattie Krakow used to emphasize the appeal of Sara? What other purpose does Hattie serve? How is her interest in Sara motivated? How far is Charley one of a type? To what extent individualized? Is the type or the individual more necessary to the author’s purpose here? How does Charley’s treatment of Sara enhance the reader’s interest? How is Blaney’s solicitude for the girl motivated? Do the three characters constitute the three figures of a “triangle” story? If so, is the triangle one of distinctly new features?

SETTING. How many times does the scene change? How is contrast employed in the construction of settings? Does the change in scene conform to the plot action? Has this relationship a necessary unifying value? What is the time of the story?

DETAILS. How much space does the author consume before gliding into the introduction of character and setting? What is its worth? A student once asked Miss Hurst why she chose such openings, suggesting that quite frequently the reader found it difficult to see the connection. Miss Hurst smilingly replied that it was her idiosyncrasy. “That’s where I take _my_ fling.” Is there more back of her words than her modesty allowed her to assert? What is the real contribution made by page 84?

What are the principal features of the economy by which she presents to the reader the opening situation?

Note the many details by which throughout the story the author keeps vividly before the reader the actual setting. Although her method is that of the romanticist, her result is one of reality. In listing these details, notice that another purpose is also effected--another economical device. “On a morning when the white-goods counter was placing long-sleeve, high-neck nightgowns in its bargain bins,” page 85, conveys the season, better than statement could do (because more picturesquely) at the same time it builds up the scene.

How has the author enriched the main narrative by contrast with lightly suggested situations? (See the Van Ness passages.)

Study the narrative for sounds and odors as well as for pictures. Contribution to vividness of reality? What contrasts do you find in these sense appeals?

How does Miss Hurst make most of her transitions in time and place? Is the double space well used? What is the acting time of the story?

From whose angle of narration is it told? Is there a shift from the objective to the omniscient point of view? If so, is it justified by a gain?

“ICE WATER, PL--!”

STARTING POINT. According to Miss Hurst, “Ice Water, Pl--!” had its germinal beginnings in the self-imposed query: Given, a mother whose joys are largely the vicarious ones that come through her daughter, to what extent can her own personal life become more and more submerged?

SETTING. The locale of this story is the same as that of “T. B.” Point out evidence, explicit or implicit, of its being New York City. In general, notice that the larger setting of Miss Hurst’s stories is frequently St. Louis or New York. Account for this fact. How long is the action of “Ice Water, Pl--!”?

PLOT. The _initial impulse_, the force that sets the story-action going, is Mr. Vetsburg’s invitation to Mrs. Kaufman and Ruby to “come down to Atlantic City over Easter.” (Fill in the important steps toward the dramatic climax.) The _dramatic climax_ is a double header: First, Ruby accedes, after a struggle, to her Mother’s wishes that she accept Mr. Vetsburg. Second, Mrs. Kaufman gives in to Ruby’s marrying Leo. By this clever duplication, not only is the turning point made more emphatic, but the sympathy of the reader is evoked for both mother and daughter. It is another excellent instance of economy joined to strength.

The _climax of action_ follows without much delay: It is bound up with the dénouement, since in it Mrs. Kaufman learns that it is herself--not her daughter--whom Vetsburg loves.

CHARACTERIZATION. What is Mrs. Kaufman’s outstanding trait? Ruby’s? Vetsburg’s? Is Mrs. Kaufman’s dominant characteristic logically connected with her capability as a boarding-house keeper? Are the two so portrayed as to make satisfactory the dénouement, by which Mrs. Kaufman will be married to Mr. Vetsburg? What preparation leads to the happy outcome?

How is Ruby akin to her sisters, Sara Juke and Selene Coblenz? How is she differentiated? Is the individualization stronger than the type resemblance?

Close your eyes after finishing the story and call up images of the two main women characters and of Vetsburg. Go over the narrative and see how the author has given you these pictures, and also observe how accurately you have registered the impressions. If there are discrepancies between your memory and the presentation, whose fault is it?

What purposes are fulfilled by the background figures? Recall instances of humor to which they contribute. Have you ever met Irving Katz?

Why is Leo so slightly touched? Do you notice other measures taken to keep in the foreground the middle-aged pair? What are they?

DETAILS. What popular attitude does the philosophy of page 181 subtly criticize? What is the link which connects the generalizing preliminary with the particular instance? (Notice that the slide is effected on the towels.)

Where is the first scene laid?

Who, in the first scene, reveals most of the situation to the reader?

Page 187 contains an important clue to the subsequent action. What is it?

What is the purpose of the next fully developed scene (in Mrs. Kaufman’s apartment)?

What is the purpose of the continuation of the scene (after Vetsy’s exit, page 194)? Does the division into two parts (before and after the women retired) contribute to more than an impression of reality?

Study the transition between the night scene and eleven o’clock the next morning. What value has the paragraph (page 205) beginning “At eleven”?

How does the author effect the return of Vetsburg and Mrs. Kaufman to the apartment? How is Ruby disposed of? (See page 107, “Down by Gimp’s I sent her,” etc.).

Miss Hurst is an expert scene-developer. Her setting is clear; her characters move as they move in real life; the action is in the right tempo for the conditions and the time at hand; no scene exists without a definite purpose. It is the fine scene-work which gives to her stories a dramatic quality equalled only by that of the stage.

Compare the scene-work of this story with that of “T. B.” and of “Get Ready the Wreaths.”

Has the Easter season a contributory significance?

GET READY THE WREATHS

GERMINAL IDEA. “‘Get Ready the Wreaths’ was, of course, inspired by the overwhelming drama of the Russian Revolution and my own feeling that even Siberia had at last been justified.”--_Fannie Hurst._

ANALYSIS. The predominating interest and hence line of action, since it composes a line of action, is Mrs. Horowitz’s desire, struggle, to return to Russia. This struggle has been going on for years; it has its roots and beginnings in the past. Alone it would not make a short-story; for the conflict is too level, too empty of actual event.

The beginning of the complication is the engagement of Selene Coblenz, her love affair constituting the second line of interest. This is the truly complicating line, although there is also a third line of interest, properly subdued. It enters as a factor, first, in the first line. Mark Haas shows his interest in Mrs. Coblenz by offering to arrange for her the details of the Siberian journey. For a long time this interest exists, seemingly, only as a means for developing the main struggle: there is an entire amalgamation of the two interests. (See e.g., page 342, “Mark Haas is going to fix it for me,” etc.).

Selene Coblenz’s request brings on the immediate struggle. It is only a step, however, in Mrs. Horowitz’s long fight to get back. It turns out to be not a deciding step, but one in complication. See that by considering the old lady’s struggle and the daughter’s mental anguish, Shila’s search for ways and means starts from it, rather than is decided by it. There is no specific struggle after it, only a complication waiting to be solved. Mrs. Coblenz could not have started for Russia until after the reception, anyway. If Mrs. Horowitz had lived, she could have gone. Nothing is determined by this minor climax: much mental trouble starts from it for Shila. It simply advances events to a state, where at a later moment they will need a struggle and a decision.

But for another reason this decision of Mrs. Coblenz’s is a big crisis, though not the big plot crisis; especially is this true if you regard the story as a character story. Shila’s devotion to her mother: her devotion to her daughter--which will win? Will her sense of duty triumph over her indulgence? The girl’s reasoning, the impracticability of her mother’s desire assist to “play up” the struggle. Selene is dominant with Shila. She is a great-hearted woman, but she has a weakness. If she had not had, Selene might have been a less self-centred girl.

With the news of the reception evening, the three lines of interest come together; the high point of the complication is reached. There is a momentary crisis for Mrs. Coblenz. Her mother can go back to Russia now; she will insist. Selene’s line enters as an accomplished fact to prevent: It helps with the other to compose a crisis here. The third line is present as a factor to assist: But Mrs. Coblenz is blind to it: it is a suspended resource.

If, as you might have expected, the writer had derived her solution from that line, she would have done the obvious thing. Also she would have made Shila’s escape from her weakness, easy. And, last of all, she would have finished a struggle which had its derivation in blood and sacrifice with a conclusion too quiet and unheroic.

The author did what technically might have been a very bad thing. To get your solution out of a physical or natural stroke, by sudden illness or an accident of nature, is equivalent to using a god from the machine,--a charge often laid at the feet of Euripides. But here the death is so logical a consequence--so well prepared for--that you cannot quarrel with it. And there is a heroic touch in having Mrs. Horowitz die beneath her tremendous recollection and appreciation of all the triumph had cost. The outcome is satisfying: she died in a high moment. Shila is not too much to blame, and consolation for her is at hand. And Selene, being right from her angle of youth and life, is both happy and sufficiently rebuked.

The story, then, has both an opposing and an assisting line. The climax at which all meet and the forces balance is the Revolution news. It is not the deciding moment in the Selene story: that is over.

* * * * *

The emotional effect of this story represents in a high degree one of the author’s best achievements. Her stories are notable for their human appeal. One man went so far as to state to the present critic that he would willingly have bartered his soul to enable that old lady to go back to Russia. Study all the ways by which she reaches your sympathy.

* * * * *

GENERAL METHODS. “Almost invariably my plots emerge from characters, rather than characters from plots. I doubt if this latter is ever as sound in method except in the detective or picaresque story.

“I have never based a short story upon a concrete incident, written a character directly from ‘life,’ or, except rarely, incorporated a speech actually heard into dialogue.

“A situation may suggest the beginnings of a story, or a chance word be the seed of an idea, but most often I find myself puttering around the hypothetical psychology of folks....

“... Unity of Effect, no matter how the unities must be smashed to attain it, I consider the corner stone of short-story writing. Without it, architectural beauty and continuity of development are impossible....”

--_Fannie Hurst._

MR. EBERDEEN’S HOUSE

STARTING POINT AND FIRST PROCESSES. “Mr. Eberdeen’s House” was to have been originally only the effect of an old New England House upon a New Englander who had become rather enfranchised from his austere beginnings, and returned to find them only more crabbed, more grim, than ever, and himself strangely, inexplicably connected with them. The explanation of how he was connected with this distasteful setting, and of why it was distasteful to him evolved the author’s theme. The hero’s great-grandmother had fled from the same grimness and straight-lacedness and puritanism by running away with a Frenchman, just before the birth of her child, of whom Mr. Eberdeen was, contrary to his bleak, orthodox suspicions, the father. The author’s plan was to have Mr. Eberdeen, representing all that was distasteful to the hero (Hastings) in the New England character, the hero’s ancestor without his knowing it--the great-grandmother after she had fled, having presumably taken the name, for herself and child, of Tremaine.

The ghosts seemed to Mr. Johnson the only media through which to tell the story pictorially. Whether one believes ghosts in a story real or not is, in his opinion, beside the point, so long as they _seem_ real enough for the sake of the telling. They may be compared to the _deus ex machina_ of Euripides, of to the scenes in motion pictures which show what some one is dreaming or thinking.

ANALYSIS OF THE DEVELOPED STORY. Some inner stories may be detached from the outer husk as a letter is drawn from its envelope (find examples in these collections). Others are a necessary part of the external interest and refuse to be separated without damage to each. This story is one of the latter sort.

Jack Hastings and Julia Elliott are betrothed. He has come to New England, after some time in Paris, to make her a visit. It is understood, at the end of the action, that they will go abroad to live. So much for the outer wrappings which are bound so closely to the heart of the matter, as is indicated in the

_Preparation for the Significant Part, or the Inner Story_: Jack’s
mystic knowledge of “Mr. Eberdeen’s” house; his strange mood; “they
talked of it bein’ ha’nted.” These details are followed by the more
immediate preparation; Jack is ill and sleepy, he sleeps. (Or _does_
he sleep?)

Here, then, the outer story merges, by way of Jack as a medium, with
the inner.

_Dramatic Climax of the Entire Story_: (Formed by the developed scene
which constitutes the inner action.)

_Explanation_: The characters are Jack Hastings, his counterpart,
and the woman. Jack in his dream or vision apparently represents in
his thoughts part of the personality of his great-grandfather; the
ghostly counterpart represents that ancestor as he really behaved,
at what must have been the original enactment of the scene. (Except,
of course, that Jack was absent from that drama, played long before
his birth.) This unique treatment of dual personality should be
studied with Markheim, William Wilson, Jekyll and Hyde. For daring
and yet naturalness combined with mysticism, it surpasses them. The
end of the scene, in Jack’s vision, shows the ancestor about to do
violence to his wife (Jack’s great-grandmother), but restrained by
Jack himself. (Interpreted, this is to say that the better nature of
Jack’s ancestor had actually triumphed and he had rushed from his
wife.)

_The Climax of Action_ (_Whole of the Story_): Jack Hastings awakes
to find that he has been ill. He lies in a state of semi-realization,
of semi-lapse into the world of his recent adventure.

_Dénouement_: Julia and Hastings plan to live abroad. The old man
whom Jack had met appears and suggests that he saw the lady of the
house go from it to meet Henry. (Is this old man a figment of the
fancy or is he real?) In this addition to Jack’s vision is furnished
the _dénouement_ of the inner story, Julia leads Jack to Mr.
Eberdeen’s room, which proves to be the one wherein he had seen the
ghostly drama. The original of “John” is the portrait Julia had hung
upon the panel. Julia reveals that when Jack came downstairs he had
looked like the portrait. Clinching the reality of the whole thing is
the discovery of the gray chiffon, with the bloodstains.

COMMENT. This, then, is a narrative the mystery of which must be explained by each reader to his own satisfaction. If the reader “believes” in the supernatural, he will take the whole thing, ghostly scene and all, as somehow occurring. If he does not “believe,” he will then accept the scene as the obsession of a sick man--with a few details left in mystery. I should class it as a story of the supernatural, wherein the appearance is visible to the sick or the clairvoyant mind. Knowing that the germinal idea had to do with the effect of a house upon a man, and that the story is developed by emphasis on this feeling, deepened by a ghostly visitation, one would find it impossible to characterize the story as other than one of atmosphere. And it is the best atmosphere story in the four Yearbooks. The right way to achieve an atmosphere story, Stevenson told us long ago, is to begin with a mood induced by a place; Mr. Johnson has pursued the plan.

Atmosphere is, then, bound up with setting; plot interest follows in importance; character is of note mainly in the unique manifestation of dual personality. A dreamer, an artist, an idealist--any sensitive medium--would fittingly play the part demanded. The love interest enriches the action and humanizes the character.

THE VISIT OF THE MASTER

COMMENT. Mr. Johnson has here produced a satirical character study, wherein Mary Haviland Norton well nigh stands in place of the story; but in playing up the visit of Hurrell Oaks he has secured narrative interest. That a mere visit should have loomed as an event, and that the loss of it should have proved so disappointing becomes the test of Miss Haviland’s character. Building a story upon so negative an incident is a feat worthy of Henry James--or Mary Haviland Norton.

PLOT.

_Initial Incident_: Miss Haviland invites Hurrell Oaks to Newfair.

_Steps toward the Dramatic Climax_: It appears that the great man can
stop only for an hour or so. To receive him worthily, Miss Haviland
decorates her apartment in borrowed and elegant trappings; she
invites a select few to meet him. George Norton, who is devoted to
Miss Haviland, is not included.

_Dramatic Climax_: Hurrell Oaks arrives earlier than he is expected,
while Miss Haviland is in her bath-tub, and since there is nobody to
receive him he goes away.

_Steps toward the Climax of Action_: Miss Haviland rushes out to
detain him as the possibility occurs to her that his knock may have
heralded the famous guest. He is gone. She betrays to one of her
students her bitter disappointment.

_Climax of Action_: As the guests arrive she tells them that Hurrell
Oaks could not wait, though he and she have spent an “immemorial”
hour together.

_Dénouement_: Two days afterward she announces her engagement to
George Norton.

PRESENTATION. The story is recounted ten years later, after a formal dinner, by the student whom Miss Haviland had helplessly, impulsively, taken into her half-confidence. Her auditor is the narrator, presumably Mr. Johnson, himself. The related story is exceptionally well told with regard to the assumed narrator; she betrays just enough of the school-girl character and manner to enliven the drama of middle age. From a stylistic point of view, the narrative testifies to the author’s craftmanship; for it is almost as if told by a young woman.

CHARACTERIZATION. Mary Haviland was interesting to the girl narrator because of her native ability, determination, and her acquired connoisseurship. Harmonizing her fundamental power with her culture, hitting off little discrepancies and exaggerations that the reader might see her whole--these demanded a highly conscious technique. Further, to regard her half-seriously, half-lightly, yet in the end to demand the reader’s sympathy and admiration for her, required nothing short of Meredithian genius. Finally, the bubble of fun blown out at the last: “She was no doubt _in the tub_,” etc., indicates an irresponsible humor which makes play of the whole situation.

THE STRANGE-LOOKING MAN

THE STARTING POINT. “I got the idea for ‘The Strange-Looking Man,’” says Mrs. Costello, “from reading of the homecoming of a Canadian soldier, limbless, partially blind, wholly demented, to his young wife--Homebringing, I should have said. As I read, I simply _saw_ the story as it was written, nor could I help feeling as I wrote that my little boy symbolized Germany as she is and my young man life, as we are now so strongly hoping it may come to be.”

The statement from the author serves, also, to explain her symbolical treatment.

SETTING. Should you judge, from the connotation, that the time is the near or far future? What is the place? How is it indicated?

ACTION. Brief; it begins “One morning,” page 363, and ends with the final words, page 364. Do you foresee the dénouement?

The narrative is remarkable in that it supposes a condition the reverse, in many respects, of life in ante bellum days. The _child_ rocks his _father’s_ cradle. He is frightened by a whole man. The wrecks of men, in the pictured setting, contrast sharply with the traveler, pages 363, 364.

THEME. State the underlying idea, and show how it is intensified by subsidiary ideas.

VENGEANCE IS MINE

THEME. Like “The Strange-Looking Man,” this story is pre-eminently one of idea. Written before the United States declared war against Germany, it none the less is of the Allied spirit. At the same time, it hints that Germany has an ideal. (See page 151: “a vision which it alone had understood.”) Would the same author probably hold in 1919 his original concept? Does his dénouement negate the ideal?

How is the “fear or desire” (page 145) bound up with the dénouement?

SETTING. What is the place of the dream? The time _of_ the dream? What outer occurrences emphasize it? (See, notably, page 152, where the place of emphasis is given to the “bold boom of the batteries.”) Give an external and an internal proof of the fact that “Christmas Eve, 1916” is the time _in_ the dream.

How much of the prophecy (pages 147, 148) has been fulfilled?

THE NARRATOR. In what branch of the service is the narrator? Value of his point of view? Why does he use the dream device? By what difficulties is the dream method usually attended? How successful has Mr. Jordan been in avoiding them?

THE ACTION. What is the chief incident of the inner action? How does it emphasize the theme? What relation has the outer action to that of the dreamed action? Compare the technical device with that of “Mr. Eberdeen’s House.” Wherein lies the power of the dénouement? Why does the narrator say, “I thanked God for the Germans”?

THE CALLER IN THE NIGHT

THE STARTING POINT. Mr. Kline is not sure of his beginnings; perhaps it came to him out of the ether “or whatever it is that niggardly generates ideas.” “If it had any starting point, perhaps it was in a talk I remember once having with Braithwaite. I kicked because the embattled farmers and others of New England never seemed to fire a shot but some ready recorder was instantly on hand to jot it down in a paean of praise; while Pennsylvania, with pretty good history of its own, too, and full of legend and lore, had gone totally unreported by comparison. Maybe I started out to hunt up its legends.”

After this pleasant admission, Mr. Kline confesses that “The Caller in the Night” is no rendering of an actual legend. “So far as I know there never was a Screamer Moll, and no skeletons. The thunderstorm probably happened. The rest is all made up.”

The statements are invaluable to one who sets out to judge a piece of work with due regard to the author’s purpose. His motive, in brief, is comparable to that of Washington Irving. Father Knickerbocker is the “created legendary” figure in which New York will take pride forever.

THE PLOT.

_The Dominant Features_: Fannie and George kill Ned. Fannie and
Mollie escape to Pennsylvania. Later George joins them. He falls in
love with the girl. The mother’s power returns. Occasion throws the
girl with George. At his protests, Mollie understands he is trying to
“make a fool of her,” as he has of her mother, Fannie. She runs from
him. The incident of the storm. Mollie later finds Fannie and George.
She (evidently) kills them. Long years after, she tells her story.
She dies.

_Presentation_: The details as just suggested are woven in the lurid
narrative Mollie tells Mrs. Pollard and Mrs. Reeves. Study the
details--they are the essential “story”--and observe how skillfully
the author has rearranged them. To illustrate, he necessarily begins
with what formed the final step in the series above. What is the
reason for the _incoherent presentation_ of the story Moll tells?
Mark out the steps in the plot, Initial Incident, and so on to the
Dénouement, using the scheme found throughout this book.

SETTING. What is the locale of Mrs. Pollard’s home? Is this setting in any way a part of the plot, or does it merely provide background for Moll’s story? Is it near the setting of the rehearsed narrative? Why does the thunderstorm form an essential part of the setting? How are the weather, the time of day, and the place harmonized in the atmosphere or mood of the entire narrative?

CHARACTERS. What characteristics of Mrs. Pollard and Mrs. Reeves make them especially desirable, for story purposes, as listeners?

In what ways is the portrait of Moll given? What is the significance of the fact that she is _introduced_ by her “unearthly cry”? (Page 369.) The main image of her person is given (page 371) as “the tall and thin but heavily framed figure of an old woman.” Is this picture emphasized, for cumulative effect, or is it left to stand alone? Are Moll’s first words well calculated, as her initial speech? Why?

Through Screamer Moll’s story, the story of an insane woman, Fannie and George appear striking in certain details; dim in others. Is this both a necessary fact, under the circumstances, and also better for the author’s purpose? Describe Fannie.

DETAILS. Mr. Kline used the rehearsed method of telling the main story as an unconscious effort, no doubt, to heighten the effect of legend, of “something by and gone, all shadowy as recalled.”

Where, in the finished story, does the author first sound his legend idea?

Why does he introduce the thunderstorm? Even if Moll had not died, would it have had logical place in the story? That is, would the repetition of the storm scene cause a reaction from her crazed brain which would impel her to speech? Does the duplication of the storm (the one of the inner story echoed by the one of the setting) increase the totality of effect?

Why is the place of emphasis (the end) given to the finding of the two skeletons?

What are the chief sound effects? Are they in harmony or contrast?

GENERAL VIEWS OF MR. KLINE. He thinks Mr. Braithwaite is right. “The only test of a short story is, ‘Has the writer something interesting to say, and does he say it in a manner to interest me?’” (See, by way of comparison, Mr. Donn Byrne’s statement.) Mr. Kline further believes that the great writers have never had to thrash the air with “plot”--“from Hawthorne and Poe and Bret Harte, from Balzac and Gautier and Maupassant, from Tolstoy and Turgenev and Dostoievsky, down to our own O. Henry.” According to his statement and illustrations, how is he probably considering the word plot? What difference is there between plot invention and plot presentation? Does De Maupassant show skill in arranging the plot _order_ in “The Necklace”? What would have happened to the story had he not created the surprise? What would be the loss in these stories of O. Henry had he not carefully constructed his plot--“The Gift of the Magi,” “A Double-Dyed Deceiver,” “The Furnished Room”?

Mr. Kline thinks that the only way to learn to write is to write and keep writing, under wise and kindly criticism of course. And he adds that if one can be severe and honest enough one’s own criticism is best. “To be a real writer, one must master himself, master the world, and master his art.”

IN THE OPEN CODE

PLOT.

_Initial Impulse._ George Roberts, freight engineer, drinker and
fighter, on the way to ruin and discharge, falls in love.

_Steps toward the Dramatic Climax_: He passes every day the home of
his sweetheart and toots his whistle in a musical code fashion, “to
let her know he’s safe.” The whistle has a softening effect on a
crowd of woodsmen, engaged in restoring a Virginia manor house and
grounds. “The world seemed a bit better for it.” The signal ceases.
The cynics say the engineer is probably drunk again. But one of the
men, Gordon, makes a special trip to the village to find out.

_Dramatic Climax_: The engineer and the girl, he learns, are married;
they are away on their honeymoon.

_Steps to the Climax of Action_: The signal is resumed farther along
the line, where the engineer and his wife have set up a home of their
own. For three weeks the signal is faithful; then it ceases, again,
abruptly. After four days Gordon goes again to the village. Just as
he returns, the men hear the signal fainter and farther away.

_Climax of Action_: Gordon tells the men that the wife is dead and is
buried farther down the line; he whistles “to let her know he’s safe.”

PRESENTATION. “It made a neat little story,” Mr. Kline says of the engineer’s reclamation and present custom of signaling. But without the supporting band of workmen to throw it into relief it would hardly stand alone. The group becomes, then, an integral part of the 1,500 word narrative which is given to the reader.

CHARACTERIZATION. The girl, whose name is not even mentioned, is the most potent character--or, perhaps, love as expressed through her makes her, symbolically, dominant. The engineer is the most important, by virtue of his active rôle; the workmen are the background characters, as they come under the influence of the simple demonstration of affection; they are the foreground characters, as the story is presented. What traits are manifest in various individuals of the group? How do these traits sharpen the dénouement?

SETTING. Why is Virginia chosen?

DETAILS. What contribution is made by the choice of “Annie Laurie”? On what thought does the final bar end? Did you, as you read, notice this sinister clue? Why not?

LITTLE SELVES

STARTING POINT AND STRUCTURAL PROCESSES. “You were right,” Miss Lerner says, “about my knowing ‘the prototype of old Margaret.’ And every one of her storied recollections is a real one, told for the most part in her own words. She still insists so stoutly on the reality of the ‘little old man with the high hat,’ the bewitched churn, the fairies’ chairs and tables, that one ends by believing in them, too. So you see the material came ready to my hand. All I had to do was to vivify it, and cast it in the most dramatic form possible.

“Old Margaret is not dead, however. She reads and re-reads ‘Little Selves,’ and says she can smell the peat fire and hear the kettle humming on the hob. It was an old friend of hers who died--of cancer, as the story ran; and Margaret used to spend many an hour talking with her those last days. Their reminiscences, however, were of the time of their young womanhood; they did not meet in the old country.

“All this cherished material had long lain in my mind. Its greatest appeal to me perhaps depended on the fact that I, too, had always been an inveterate ponderer of moments of my extreme childhood. Even at eight or ten, I used to re-live isolated moments of particular interest from my ‘past,’ which even then seemed bathed in a ‘livelier light.’

“The final impulse came one day on hearing Stevenson’s phrase, ‘Nothing matters much that happens to a boy after he is seven.’ At once I saw the whole story. Margaret must die, of course, and dying revisit the scenes of her childhood. That bit of manipulation would heighten and intensify the whole tale. She must be a single woman, too, instead of a wife and the devoted mother of a difficult but promising daughter. She must be considerably older. She must retain her skill with the needle, and her piety. So I simply jotted down half a dozen words to name the several incidents of her dream, then began to write, visualizing the opening scene as I went. It was like transcribing at some one else’s dictation matter already an intimate part of one’s spiritual life. Isn’t that the way one’s best things come? I wrote only one rough draft, then the final copy. Hardly a word was changed. The title, oddly apt, I think, came to me when I wrote the line, ‘She recreated her earlier selves and passed them on, happy in the thought that she was saving them from oblivion.’”

This full description of the constructive process renders almost superfluous either questions or further comment. It should be compared closely with Mary Brecht Pulver’s similar résumé of her “Path of Glory.”

“Little Selves” constitutes a happy cross between the “evoked ghost” story, such as one finds in Kipling’s “They,” and the pictures frankly labeled as memories, in a multitude of stories. For as Margaret says, the earlier selves “is realer” than the children of flesh-and-blood who surround her.

THEME. In what does the merit of the narrative lie,--theme, characterization, or plot? In connection with your own answer observe that Miss Lerner says, “As for plot versus theme, I think theme usually dominates. I have some idea I wish to expound--to illustrate by means of interplay of character and action. Idea, I feel, is really _The Thing_, rather than mere complication or rapidity of action.”

In how many stories of these collections, do you feel the dominance of the underlying idea? In which, if any, is it lacking? In which do you feel the predominance of idea to such an extent as to swamp the story values?

PLOT. Show that the sentence on page 224, “Her voice choked with sudden tears,” is a sort of dramatic climax.

Why is it more artistic to leave the climax of action, the old woman’s death, untold?

CHARACTERS. In what sense is the narrative a “character story”? Is a whole life really re-constructed? Is the author’s chief object this re-living?

How is Margaret best visualized for _you_?

What is Anna’s chief characteristic and what her main place in the plot?

SETTING. In what respects is the story a national representative? How do the two larger settings, as indicated, aid each other? Which is thrown into subjection? Why?

THE WILLOW WALK

PLOT. In constructing his plot, the author devised a plan whereby a robber might escape with stolen money. Having invented it, he tested each part to make it _seem_ detective proof; and in following up this process he created a novel variety of the detective story genre. Similar stories have effected a resolution of the complication by a pull at some loose end left hanging through inadvertence of the criminal, and have so conserved justice. Mr. Lewis, avoiding this usual device, has requisitioned the peculiar advantages of dual personality to bring about the downfall of his criminal. (Compare with this _motif_, the one found in Frederick Stuart Greene’s “Galway Intrudes,” a story which has much in common with “The Willow Walk.”)

A thief, therefore, who plans his get-away by first _inventing_ and then _pretending_ to be his own “brother,” ultimately becomes the brother. The transformation is made plausible through the histrionic gifts attributed to the robber whereby he _is_, rather than merely _acts_, the represented character.

To the end that ultimate confession will occur, the brother must be religious; to the end that punishment is efficacious, the confession must be received with incredulity. These are necessary, if unconscious, preliminaries to this representative of the series which begins with Poe’s “William Wilson,” and which includes “Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.”

PRESENTATION. The author first sets forth details that lead to the beginning of the action, the most important of which convey that Jasper Holt is acquiring a new hand-writing, that he is a respectable paying teller, that he is a good actor.

_Action Antecedent to the Present_: Read the story, and find under
its superstructure the groundwork of Jasper’s plan. How much
preparation has been necessary? How long has it required, probably,
to accomplish it? Has the author begun at the best point possible in
the story action?

_Incidents of the Complication Leading Immediately to the Dramatic Climax_:

1. Jasper Holt prepares the hiding place.

Taking his car from the garage, Holt starts toward Rosebank, but
turns aside to buy candy, which he has packed in boxes that imitate
books. He purchases two novels. To one who recognizes him, he
pretends he is looking after bank property. He reaches Rosebank; he
enters the house of the willow walk, removes the candy to the paper
wrapper, and places the two imitation books, with the novels, on the
bottom shelf of the book-case. (Incidentally, he makes use of the
principle exploited by Poe in “The Purloined Letter.”)

2. Jasper establishes his identity as “John Holt.”

He takes down a religious work, from which he selects a name to
“spring”--Philo Judæus. He changes his clothes and becomes his own
brother, hermit and religious fanatic. Downstairs he speaks to a
neighbor; he makes purchases at the drug-store and the grocery; he
visits Soul Hope Hall, speaks on Philo Judæus and prays for his
brother Jasper.

3. He removes signs of his recent preparations, and re-establishes
himself as Jasper Holt. (Note the significance of the Community
Theatre scene.)

Jasper changes to his own clothes. On his way to town he throws
out the candy and gives away his groceries. He burns the wrapper,
later, in his boarding house. He takes part in theatricals; it is
significant that he is a good actor, really becoming the part he
plays.

4. Jasper prepares for the robbery and his sure escape.

Five days later, he complains of a headache. He takes a day off.
John calls at the bank and emphasizes the contrast between himself
and Jasper. Jasper afterwards suggests that in the event of his
robbing the bank John would undoubtedly aid in bringing him to
justice (dramatic irony, here).

* * * * *

5. He completes his preparations outside.

“Persuaded” to go away for a week-end, he drives south to
Wanagoochie, but circuits back to St. Clair. Two miles from
Rosebank, he investigates a lake. En route to St. Clair, he puts
his machine out of order and leaves it at a garage, giving his
name as Hanson. Arriving by train at Vernon, he says his car is
at Wanagoochie. He announces to his landlady that he is taking
two suit-cases to Wakamin.

6. He robs the bank. (Minor climax.) He escapes.

With the road clear for flight, he transfers the parcels of
bills to his suit-case. He takes the train to Wakamin, but
gets off at St. Clair and retrieves his car from the garage.
He drives toward Rosebank; spreads his lunch near the lake. At
nightfall he runs his car over the cliff into the water. With
his suit-cases, he walks into Rosebank, and at the house of
the willow walk destroys all evidence of himself as Jasper. He
stores away $97,535 in the empty candy boxes. He goes to bed as
John Holt.

_Dramatic Climax_: “I suppose John would pray,” etc. Jasper Holt
ceases to exist; John begins to exist as a constant entity.

_Incidents of the Solution Leading to the Climax of Action_

1. Jasper “acts” John.

John learns of the theft, calls on the bank president and
begs that his house be searched. President gets rid of him.
He calls on the detective, who finally searches John’s house.
John directs attention to the shed where Jasper kept his car.
The police refuse to search. Jasper has thus further entrenched
himself, outwardly, as John.

2. Jasper changes, subtly, to John.

John prays for Jasper. He plans a trip south, but continues his
religious studies. It is obvious that this modern Frankenstein
is rapidly becoming the monster of his own creation. At the end
of one and a half years, he has sloughed off most of his Jasper
nature and acquired that of John.

3. He endures a period of final struggle.

The John part of him wishes to confess; the dying Jasper refuses
to take him back to the bank. But at the Soul Hope Fraternity,
he confesses that he stole. For a week he stays at home; then he
goes out. On his return he discovers that the money is missing.

_Climax of Action_: He goes to the bank and confesses; his story
is not believed. He has changed natures, completely.

_Dénouement_: The jail refuses to take him. He finds work at the
sand pits.

For parallelism of the final situation, read Edith Wharton’s
“The Bolted Door.”

CHARACTERIZATION. Bear in mind that the diverse personalities of Jasper and John are bound up in Jasper, that although “John” was originally invented and then assumed, he finally dominated. The dramatic climax marks the point at which the outer Jasper disappears; the climax of action marks the disappearance of the inner Jasper. The man who goes to work at the sand pits is, essentially, John.

DETAILS. Suspense, one of the best features, in the earlier two-thirds of the story, operates progressively, the cause shifting with the various steps of the action. For example, perhaps the first important question aroused is, “What is Jasper doing all this for?” The second, “Will he succeed in carrying out his well-laid plans?” Meantime, subordinate questions arise, to be satisfied by the author in the unfolding of the narrative. Show that suspense works of necessity less forcibly toward the end, where the outcome becomes more and more inevitable.

Do you know what became of the stolen money? Should that trailing thread be gathered up, or is it better left as it is?

Mr. Lewis declares that “The Willow Walk” has, so far as he can remember, no history at all. But he contributes the following by way of his views on the short-story:

“Technique defeats itself. The more nearly perfect it becomes, the nearer it is to stagnation. This rule holds true whether it be applied to ecclesiastical ceremony, to that humorous art known as ‘the manners of a gentleman,’ to the designing of motor-car bodies, or the practise of the arts. Once your motor-body designer has almost approximated the lines of a carriage, an innovator appears who boisterously ridicules the niceties of that technique, and, to the accompaniment of howling from the trained technicians, smashes out a new form, with monstrous hood and stream-line massiveness. Within two years he has driven out all the old technique, and is followed by a ‘school,’ neatly developing a new technique, in its turn to be perfected--then destroyed by some vulgarian who is too ignorant or too passionate to care for the proprieties of design.

“Once the technique of the academic school of painters of still life and landscape and portraits was practically perfect, a noisy, ill-bred, passionate crew of destroyers appeared, under such raucous labels as ‘futurists,’ ‘vorticists,’ ‘cubists,’ and despite the fact that their excesses have not become popular in plush parlors, these innovations have forever ruined the pleasure of picture-gazers in the smooth inanity of the perfected old technique. And now their followers in their turn----! As I write, the perfect militarist technique of the German empire has cracked into socialist republics. In time those republics will build up a perfect technique of bureaus, and be ready for the cleansing fire.

“Technique defeats itself. I have repeated the word ‘passion’ because that is the force that starts the rout. The man who is passionate about beauty or scientific facts, about making love or going fishing or the potentialities of Russia or revolt against smug oppressors, is likely to find himself cramped by the technique of the art which he chooses as a medium, to discard it, and to find a technique of his own. Austin Dobson could endure the triolet for the expression of delicate inexactitudes regarding French curés, but when Shelley was singing a world aflame, he made for himself a new mode of expression which, to formalists, seemed inexpressibly crude.

“And so to the short story. I am not afraid of this new technique of the proper beginning, the correct ending, the clever dénouement, the geometrically plotted curve of action--because I do not believe that anybody who passionately has anything to say is going to cramp himself by learning its pat rules. But I do believe that--before they go and smash the technique, anyway!--young writers may be saved much spiritual struggle if they be taught that there is nothing sacred, nothing they unquestionably must follow, in any exactly formulated technique.

“They will, of course, if they succeed, make a technique of their own. That is a short cut to salvation for them. It is only when a technique is that of other writers, when it is so crystallized that it can be definitely exhibited, that it becomes dangerous. I know that Joseph Hergesheimer in such absorbingly beautiful short stories as ‘Wild Oranges,’ ‘Tol’able David,’ or ‘Asphodel’ has a technique, a very definite idea of what he is doing; or what he is going to do before he starts, and of why he has done things after he has done them. But he has not obediently imitated the technique of other writers. None knows better than Mr. Hergesheimer the great art of such men as Conrad, Galsworthy, George Moore; but none has less imitated them, less accepted their technique as his guidance.

“Curse Stevenson for that ‘playing the sedulous ape,’ which has led so many thousands astray. It was Stevenson’s weakness, not his strength, that aping; and because of it his light is flickering, while that of his contemporaries, Rossetti, Hardy, Swinburne, Flaubert, who were not sedulous apes but men passionate about beauty or the curious ways of daily man, burns evenly and forever. Stevenson had an unequalled opportunity; he was a pioneer, with a pioneer’s chance to stake out the first claim; yet once Kipling galloped into sight, roaring at deft Stevensonian technique, irreverent and violent as one of his own Rajputs, doing really dreadful things to the balanced decencies of proportion and melody, he routed Stevenson in a handful of years ... and today we have read Stevenson, but we do read Kipling.

“Of course, of course, of course. ‘Freedom is no excuse for violence.’ ‘The young man must train his mind.’ ‘From a study of the elders youth learns to avoid their mistakes’ (but he doesn’t!). ‘Only the strong are able to govern themselves, to make their own codes of ethics or of beauty.’ All those sage warnings--used equally against Martin Luther and the Bolsheviks, against the bad boy in school and Rodin. Basically, the disagreement between classicists and modernists is temperamental, and will, under various guises, endure forever. Only, let it be clearly recognized for what it is; let the classicist not mistake himself for a modernist; let the innovator not suppose because O. Henry is still so living a force that his followers have not already hardened his technique into a form classic and very dead.”

THE WEAVER WHO CLAD THE SUMMER

_Comment._--The death of Harris Merton Lyon gives added poignancy to the story whose idealism and inspiration made for it a place in the first of Mr. O’Brien’s collections. Judged by the test of Beauty, it is perhaps first on the list. The satisfaction vouchsafed each reader will be in proportion to his own Spirit of Work and his acceptance of the theme.

THEME. Since the Idea is foremost, it is quite fitting that it should be sounded early. The first approach is on page one (153, Yearbook) and in the form of a wonder as to what there could possibly be “in being a worker at the other, the evanescent thing.” The answer, or the satisfaction of the wonder, is given in the essential story, stripped of its covering, pages 158-170. The theme is emphasized, strongly, in the sentence on page 170: “_You did the Work of your Hand!_”

THE INNER STORY, which allegorically satisfies the questioner, is the beautifully tenuous tale of the Mariner. It is woven of words in a style perfectly to suggest the spirit of summer and the evanescence of her garments, yet underneath the light superstructure are the foundations of the short-story. The _struggle_ of the weaver, Andy Gordon, was successfully repeated for forty years. He died, knowing that he had been “a master-worker in a fabric that immediately dissolved,” yet content. His death is the _dénouement_ of the tale, just as the dialogue between the Voice and Andy (pages 159-161) forms the _initial incident_. What is the _dramatic climax_?

PRESENTATION. Andy Gordon’s story is told in an Italian restaurant, Pigalle’s, over a poker table. The narrator is at first denominated the Ancient Mariner; eventually he proves to be the Andy Gordon of his tale. (See pages 158 and 171.) What new evaluation of the weaver’s story do you make after learning that Andy was a violinist? Had you guessed any part of the whole situation before reading to the dénouement of the enveloping story? The narrator of the external action is, presumably, the author himself, who uses the first person “I.”

Contrast, between the restaurant scene and character on the one hand and the summer scenes with Andy on the other, is the chief aid used to enhance the narrative. Point out particular examples of its operation.

DETAILS. Division I emphasizes the character of the Mariner, at the same time it repeats the theme. (See above), in the words, “Sufficient unto eternity is the glory of the hour.” Why does the author give an entire division (III) to the lines: “Abruptly the old man left and went out into the snowy night. For there were tears in his eyes.”

What value has the reference to Bernhardt, page 153?

Why is it well to set the rehearsal on a _snowy_ evening? (Study the story for the answer.) Where is Pigalle’s restaurant?

What effect has the tinkling of the door-bell, at eleven o’clock?

What principle of emphasis is at work on the description of the maid who bore the “sweet ineffable name of Philomene”? On the Mariner (as described, page 155)?

What do you gather from the absinthe and the _cigarettes jaunes_?

What addition is made to the comprehension of the Mariner in the suggested resemblance to Socrates and to Verlaine?

What colors and materials are used in Summer’s dresses? Would others have served as well? After knowing the dénouement (that Andy was a violinist) how do you interpret the passage “Andy was about twenty-eight years old then,” etc., through the words “done by hand”? What other passages need similar interpretation?

How are the forty years so passed over as to emphasize, without needlessly repeating, Andy’s Work?

What is your own reaction to this story?

THE SUN CHASER

STARTING POINT. “You ask about the germinal idea of ‘The Sun Chaser.’ How can I tell you, for how do I know, what the germinal idea of my story is! I can recognize it after the story is written. But that makes it all the more difficult to say with certainty that the ‘idea’ is germinal. What Ambrose seeks is what every one of us in the world--even a Sun Chaser--wants: HAPPINESS. And the more ill-balanced or crippled a nature is, the more importunate is this demand for happiness....