Harriott Ely Fansler

“ She showed us how a neighborly man becomes a miser, how a miser becomes once more a neighborly man; how a lovable but morally and physically timid man becomes a scoundrel. Most of our short stories now-a-days display an element of such analysis; many of them are wholly constituted upon an inquiry; some, beginning just in front of the crisis, give us a feeling of past complicating events, and with one flash show us the present tangle; others with a swift relentlessness pile happening upon happening until, panting for breath, we stumble upon the momentous climax. ”

“ Now, whether it is a marvellous coincidence, or whether it was that the name itself has an imperceptible effect upon the character, I have never yet been able to ascertain; but the fact is unquestionable, that there never yet was any person named Charles who was not an open, manly, honest, good-natured, and frank-hearted fellow, with a rich, clear voice, that did you good to hear it, and an eye that looked you always straight in the face, as much as to say: "I have a clear conscience myself, am afraid of no man, and am altogether above doing a mean action." ”

“ An older representative of the society story is the pastoral romance, once a very popular form of the love tale. In it we have a picture of country life, but it is not the hard, toil-beleaguered life of the real peasant. It is the imaginary out-of-doors living-for-a-few-days of the courtier who masquerades as a shepherd and sits cavalierly on a grassy bank with a golden crook in his hand, sighing out his heart in silvery madrigals. His lady-love is no ordinary milk-maid, but a courtly princess on vacation. ”

“ Eyes had not beheld one more beautiful. She wore a garment of brilliant pearls, on her head was a crown of red gold, on her neck was a necklace of jewels, and upon her forehead were two jewels the light of which was like that of the sun. She seemed as though she were looking at the people round about her, and observing them to the right and left.
When the Emeer Moosa beheld this damsel, he wondered extremely at her loveliness, and he saluted her respectfully. But Talib said to the Emeer, "This damsel is dead. There is no life in her. ”

“ But the incredulous mayor shook his head.
"You will not make me believe, Master Hauchecorne, that Master Malandain, who is a man worthy of all respect, has taken this bit of cord for a pocket-book."
The peasant, furious, raised his hand, and spit at his side to bear witness to his honour, repeating:
"F'r all that, it's God's truth, holy truth, your worship. There! My soul and my salvation knows it's true!" ”

“ To write a literary art legend, an author selects in history some period that he likes very much or some hero or heroine he has always admired, and notes down a number of facts that are connected with one another and with his subject; then he lets his imagination loose upon them. He uses terms and expressions of the age of which he is writing; phrases that now appear quaint add a flavor of reality to the tale. But he is careful, however, not to misuse words and thus commit what the critics call anachronism, by putting the idioms peculiar to one age or one people into the mouth of another. ”

“ Christina soon proved herself a bold and sturdy little girl. When she was two years old the king and herself, in the course of a journey, came to the strong fortress of Colmar. On the battlements were soldiers clad in steel armor, which glittered in the sunshine. There were likewise great cannons, pointing their black mouths at Gustavus and little Christina and ready to belch out their smoke and thunder; for, whenever a king enters a fortress, it is customary to receive him with a royal salute of artillery. ”

“ Realism
"Realism," says Mr. Howells, "is nothing more and nothing less than the truthful treatment of material." The business of the narrator is to observe and record, he says; all that enters into fiction should be simple, natural and honest. The material must be plain, average, everyday humanity. There is no need of a hero or heroine. There is no need of a plot. The love of the passionate and heroic is a crude and unwholesome thing.
Following these tenets there has grown up a school of writers who undertake to present the world just as it is with no heightening and no lowering of color. ”

“ The next morning was sunshiny, with no trace of yesterday's gloom, and the little street seemed to have become dry as if by magic, and to have lost for the time being its dinginess in the sunshine poured out on it so liberally. Miss Hicks sat at her window, busied with re-trimming an old bonnet; but there was no reflection of sunshine in her face. The reaction due to what she had done last night had come over her, and the memories which had seemed sweet then were unpleasant and bitter this morning. All her life, she thought sadly, was made up of unrealised hopes and ungranted desires ”

“ The great literary beauty of the "Revelation" depends on the exquisite use of allegory; the leaves of the tree of life are for the healing of the nations; the water of the river of life is for everyone that thirsteth.
Allegory and parable distinguished
Mention of Hawthorne's use of allegory calls to mind the distinction a student of narrative types must make between parable on the one hand and a particular kind of allegory on the other, that kind in which there are no abstractions. He asks himself, What is the difference when both narratives have only people for actors? ”

“ Then the Emeer Moosa took Talib and Abdes-Samad with him, and they ascended a mountain which was close by. And looking down upon the city, they saw it was greater and more beautiful than anything they had ever beheld. Its palaces were lofty, its domes were shining; rivers were running within it, and there were delightful gardens with trees bearing ripe fruit. But they did not see a human being within its walls. ”

“ They are halos, if ever there was a halo. So wonderfully magical are they that I think thou wilt modify thy language, and perhaps say that Frankenstein produces halos almost, if not quite, to the very perfection. Why, they seem to dazzle and bewilder like the very sun itself. They do not actually emit light, but they look like the soul of light. More like beautiful thoughts are they, spirits of loveliness, than like anything tangible. ”

“ If we had not once loved each other so dearly, or even if we had now ceased to feel a mutual respect, this state of affairs might perhaps have lasted for years, but our ideas of the true meaning of marriage were too lofty, our sense of our own dignity as human beings too profound to permit us to be content with so incomplete a realization of our ideals. ”

“ From the center of this cloud shone a ray of light, forming a circle in which were all the colors of the rainbow.
Carlos could scarcely believe his eyes, till he heard a sweet voice call his name. He hastened to climb the hill, and at the top found a very beautiful woman, around whom shone a light that made the stones and bushes sparkle like gems.
When the man had drawn near, our Blessed Lady—for it was she—told him that she wished a church to be built on that spot, and bade him go to Gapan and tell this fact to the priest. ”

“ I do not know how to explain the miracle, but we love each other more dearly than ever. We are celebrating a new honeymoon. The great questions of life drove us apart, but is it only the little ones which have reunited us? Would you suppose that one could find a half-desiccated heart in the pocket of an old fur coat? ”

“ Yet you must be careful not to over-do the allegory; for in the fourth place, you should strive for minute versimilitude. The nearer like the details of a real journey your small incidents are, the better your readers will be pleased with your large incidents. It is the little surprises of familiarity among strangeness that create the emotion of pleasure.
Last of all, and first of all, and altogether requisite is this virtue: To be a good narrator of imaginary voyages, you must be, like Defoe, the "best of liars." Nothing is too stupendous to tell if you only know how to tell it. ”

“ Let the most vigorous of human imaginations but attempt to take a single step toward the comprehension of a circuit so unutterable! It would scarcely be paradoxical to say that a flash of lightning itself, traveling forever upon the circumference of this inconceivable circle, would still forever be traveling in a straight line. That the path of our sun along such a circumference—that the direction of our system in such an orbit—would, to any human perception, deviate in the slightest degree from a straight line even in a million of years, is a proposition not to be entertained ”

“ Kenach rose quickly and went to him, and as they looked out the sleet beat on their faces, but in the midst of the storm there was a space of light, as though it were moonshine, and the light streamed from an Angel, who stood near the wall of rock with outspread wings, and sheltered the blackbird's nest from the wintry blast.
And the monks gazed at the shining loveliness of the Angel, till the wind fell and the snow ceased and the light faded away and the sharp stars came out and the night was still. ”

“ In another instant it was rattling down the mountainside, Chad and Jim were firmly bound, and the march back had begun.
The few rays of sunlight that found entrance into the Buddhist lamasery served only to reveal the filthiness of the place; but not even the disgusting sights and odors could suppress the strangers' curiosity. In the first room was an immense statue of Buddha with a large cylinder in front of it. "A prayer wheel," whispered Chad. Jim nodded.
Suddenly Chad's eyes flashed with an inspiration. ”

“ There are many delightful hours possible for one who enjoys composition, if he can but get a bit of a lift here and there or a new impulse to an occasionally flagging imagination. All but the very earliest literature has been produced thus—namely, by a conscious writing to a type, with an idea either of direct imitation, as in the case of Chaucer, who gloried in his "authorities;" or of variation and combination, as in the case of Walpole; or of equaling or surpassing in excellence, as in the case of James Fenimore Cooper; or of satire and supersedence, as in the case of Cervantes. ”

“ While on the one side legend shades off into myth and wonder tales, on the other it shades off into anecdote. A tendency to write legend instead of fact is always present. As soon as a man or a place becomes prominent, fictitious stories begin to spring up, founded not only on what was done, but also on what might have been done. But to persist, a legendary account must be true to the character and traits of the hero or town or tribe or race with which it deals ”

“ Shuttleworthy's heart good to see the old fellow swallow it, as he did, quart after quart; so that, one day, when the wine was in and the wit, as a natural consequence, somewhat out, he said to his crony, as he slapped him upon the back: "I tell you what it is, 'Old Charley,' you are, by all odds, the heartiest old fellow I ever came across in all my born days; and, since you love to guzzle the wine at that fashion, I'll be darned if I don't have to make thee a present of a big box of the Chateau Margaux. ”

“ Parable contrasted with fable
The parable, like the fable, is a short didactic story; but the lesson of the parable is always spiritual, though not necessarily religious. The fable never rises above the common-place: it preaches a worldly morality. Self-interest and prudence are its tenets; it often satirizes; it laughs at mankind. The parable, on the contrary, is always serious: it is earnest and high in its purpose. ”

“ The master of the house, dressed in a white turban and light blue pelisse, lolled under the coffee-house awning; the slave in white with a crimson striped jacket, his face as black as ebony, brought up pipes and lemonade again, and returned to his station at the coffee house, where he curled his black legs together and began singing out of his flat nose to the thrumming of a long guitar with wire string. ”

“ One cloudy afternoon when a heavy rain seemed swaying back and forth in a thick mist which was then lowering, and long red streaks of lightning followed by loud rolling thunder seemed trying to break the mist to let the rain fall, there were in a little nipa house in the country below, among aged cocoanut palms, two lonely persons suffering from superstition and fear of the extraordinary phenomena that surrounded them. ”

“ Jane put away her sewing, gently woke Meg, and prepared to go downstairs to get supper ready. She stopped to look at the sunset before she went down. Along the road beyond came the rattle of wheels; a buggy passed in which sat a woman in solitary state. A striped silk dress enveloped her ample person, a hat with nodding red roses and a broad white brim shaded a pair of stupid, comfortable eyes, and cast its shadow over a mouth that fairly sagged with good humor and good living. ”

“ Not all detective stories, however, are so dangerous or so interesting as these. Most, rather, are amusing or merely entertaining; but we class them in the ingenious group because of the effort at pure plot. There are many crude attempts at writing detective stories, and the cheap, ten-cent-novel kind disgusts persons of taste; but the popularity of the type attests its excellence. When in the hands of such men as Edgar Allan Poe and A. Conan Doyle, it yields an artistic short-story. "The Purloined Letter" and the "Adventures of Sherlock Holmes" are worthy of their fame. ”