Scenario

“ We speak, very truly, of impending trouble, and in observing the signs of what the trouble is, we are at the same time expecting, forecasting—in short, framing an idea, becoming aware of meaning. When the trouble is not only impending but completely actual and present, we are overwhelmed. ”

“ Are we simply separating and contrasting two sides of everybody’s opinion? To which one replies that we are not discussing what we know and believe about the relations of past, present, and future, or of the relation of cause and effect to each other in time. [11] We all know the present depends for its causes on the past, and the future depends for its causes upon the present. ”

“ There is a Plan, an infinite, a just, a universal Plan, to which all things, mundane or otherwise, must, in the end, conform. To keep ourselves informed as to the part that we were meant to take in this great Plan, it seems to me, should be our constant study and our constant strong desire. ”

“ In plot there is a like selection of persons, situations, and incidents so arranged as to disclose the working of that order which obtains in man's life. The law may be simple and shown by means of few persons and incidents in a brief way, as in ancient drama, or complex and exhibited with many characters in an abundance of action over a wide scene as in Shakspere; in either case equally there is a selection from the whole mass of man's life of what shall illustrate the causal union in its order and show it in action. ”

“ If there be room for a choice, the sooner a circumstance be introduced, the better. Circumstances are proper for that coolness of mind, with which a period as well as a work is commenced. In the progress, the mind warms, and has a greater relish for matters of importance. When a circumstance is placed at the beginning or near the beginning of the period, the transition from it to the principal subject is agreeable: it is like ascending or mounting upward. ”

“ If we regard the fulfilment of our purpose as contingent upon any circumstances, past, present, or future, we are not making use of first cause; we have descended to the level of secondary causation, which is the region of doubts, fears, and limitations, all of which we are impressing upon the universal subjective mind with the inevitable result that it will build up corresponding external conditions. ”

“ Foresight of possible consequences leads to more careful and extensive observation of the nature and performances of the things he had to do with, and to laying out a plan—that is, of a certain order in the acts to be performed. ”

“ If you use the chronological sequence of events, which has already been discussed, showing how each event or group of events indicates the character, you will have an easily followed plan. Such a plan, or that of treating the whole life from the point of view of the central, controlling motive, is the ideal method. If you choose to unify the whole by showing how events, friends, interests of various kinds, and the other manifestations of the hero's life all establish the central motive, you will have a more difficult, though more elastic form. ”

“ Your future is the not yet temporally expressed region wherein you, as finite being, seek your own further expression. That future is still, in one aspect, as we shall see, causally undetermined, precisely in so far as therein something unique, that is yours and yours only, is to appear in the form of various individually designed expressions of your life-purpose, — various individual deeds. ”

“ In the development of time into causation, persistence becomes state and change becomes event. In the development of judgment into conception, consciousness becomes recollection and choice becomes inference. ”

“ It has seemed to me that there are three phases,—the event itself, the feeling that brought it forth, and the feeling to which it gave birth; for no event is historically important unless it has transformed in some way the ideals and standards of the people,—unless it has shifted, in some way, their point of view, and made them act differently from the way in which they would have acted had the event never occurred. ”

“ In other words, we no longer take either horn of the dilemma, but we regard all knowable truths both as ends and as means; as the goal of one stage of knowledge and as the points of departure for another stage. ”

“ Technically, the plot is the underlying plan “of which no part can be removed without ruin to the whole”; it is the development of the struggle or conflict which every “short-story” possesses in common with the drama.
What in “The Excursion” is the struggle? What part does the dialogue between the two sisters play in the revelation of the struggle? If the struggle were made dominant, what lamentable result would follow for the “situation” value of the whole narrative? Is there a hint near the conclusion that the struggle may have an outcome? ”

“ A chance meeting, the receipt of a letter or a telegram, a particular turn given to a certain conversation, even the mere emergence into consciousness of a previously latent feeling or thought, may mark quite definitely the moment of germination, so to speak, of a given crisis; and it is comparatively easy to dramatize such a moment. But how few crises come to a definite or dramatic conclusion! Nine times out of ten they end in some petty compromise, or do not end at all, but simply subside, like the waves of the sea when the storm has blown itself out. ”

“ In the life of any individual, association, or nation, there will probably be one or more occurrences which may be considered as success or failure according to the dramatic features of the event and the ultimate results. ”

“ A circumstance—not altogether clear, nor worth taking much trouble in the endeavour to render it so, is—on the occasion of this dialogue, the change made, of the supernatural vehicle, from a vision into a "trance." ”

“ The vastness of a plan which includes both a history and a criticism of society, an analysis of its evils, and a discussion of its principles, authorizes me, I think, in giving to my work the title 'The Human Comedy.' Is this too ambitious? ”

“ The process by which principles are discovered and appropriated is other than that by which, in practice, they are applied; and our most sacred and disinterested convictions ought to take shape in the tranquil regions of the air, above the tumult and the tempest of active life. ”

“ In a succession of events, say of sense-impressions, A B C D E..., the presence of B means the absence of A and C, but the presentation of this succession involves the simultaneous presence in some mode or other of two or more of the presentations A B C D. In reality, past, present, and future are differences in time, but in presentation all that corresponds to these differences is in consciousness simultaneously. ”

“ At other times, without such a distinct "act of will", and without any observable change in the attractiveness of either alternative, we simply find, after awhile, that a decision has emerged, and that we now know what we are going to do. ”

“ Whether the incidents, or the characters, are copied from life, is of little importance—The only question is, if the circumstances, and situations, are altogether improbable? If not—whether the consequences might not have followed from the circumstances?—This is a grand question, applicable to all the purposes of education, morals, and legislation—and on this I rest my moral—'Do men gather figs of thorns, or grapes of thistles?' asked a moralist and a reformer. ”

“ What is wanted, as a rule, is some new effort of logical imagination, some glimpse of a possibility never conceived before, and then the direct perception that this possibility is realised in the case in question. ”

“ It is to study the succession of events, not as separate units, but as links of one vast chain, on every one of which is inscribed a phrase discoursing of the progress of the human race, and showing the growth of man in the complex, from infancy to adolescence. ”

“ Implies a Plan, and that Plan embraces human Conduct.—If we suppose the supreme Being to be, not only a Creator and Ruler, but a wise and intelligent one, then we must suppose him to have some plan of operations. ”

“ When we have certain things given, then certain other things are given too; or we know that certain other occurrences will or may take place. There is hence nothing but events, appearances which happen, and the ways which these appearances have of happening. And how, in the name of science, can any one want any more? ”

“ What will people think?—What will happen in the future?—and so on, and so forth.’
‘And what about the vital considerations?’
‘What do you call vital?’ I asked in my turn. ”

“ We survey the scene that moves around, with a gaze no longer distracted by every hope that flutters by; and it is therefore that we find ourselves more calculated than before for the graver occupations of our race. ”

“ Throughout these tales the plan has been to present a picture of ordinary life, with its small daily events, its pleasures, and its trials, so as to draw out its capabilities of being turned to the best account. ”

“ The stages of the process are, feeling rising into consciousness as desire, the perception of the means to realize an end which raises the desire from the statical to the dynamic stage of motive, and finally a voluntary or intentional action. ”

“ A detailed observation of a man’s conduct over a period of time and through a succession of historical crises will yield sufficient evidence for an over-all judgment as to his intentions, and hence to his place in the historical drama in which he was engaged. ”

“ Clearly only the contact, or immediate proximity of the two occurrences. If any sequence could in fact be more wonderful than another, it should rather seem to be for the consequent to impart grandeur to the precedent—the effect to the cause,—than for the cause to impart grandeur to the effect. ”

“ Where the plot is intricate, or contains elements of a kind unlikely to have originated independently, we may be justified in suspecting diffusion from one centre. Then it is that the history and circumstances of a nation become important factors in the inquiry ”

“ It is enduring, a course of action, a process including memory, observation and foresight, a pressure forward, a glance backward and a look outward. It is of moral moment because it marks a transition in the direction of breadth and clarity of action or in that of triviality and confusion. Progress is present reconstruction adding fullness and distinctness of meaning, and retrogression is a present slipping away of significance, determinations, grasp. ”

“ It is intended, therefore, to interrupt, from time to time, the main current of the narrative, for the purpose of viewing the people at borne, and of investigating, as far as the materials at command will permit, the condition of society, and the advance of civilisation. ”

“ And of an anarchical world, in which phenomena succeed each other capriciously, I should say again that it is a realm of chance, meaning that I find before me wills, or rather decrees, when what I am expecting is mechanism. ”

“ The safest conclusion, if conclusions are to be drawn at all, is that what has hitherto been, will, in the nature of things, continue,—that whatever separations exist will be marked by zones of latitude. For other evidence we must search in vain. ”

“ Ideas of near and remote, probable and improbable, desirable and undesirable, consequences,—ideas of fit and unfit, direct and indirect means of bringing about or preventing those consequences,—ideas of difficulties and obstacles, facilities and openings must tend to appear, to compete with each other, to disappear and reappear in rapid succession, or merely to approach consciousness ready to appear when their services should be needed. ”

“ Throughout it was essentially one phase of human organization. When one comes to examine the final result, it is astonishing to remark the small amount of essential change, of positively final and irreparable alteration, in the conditions of the common life. ”

“ Each stage of development brings back the recollection of the course taken in the preceding stage, and the development has been so often repeated, that all doubt—and with all doubt, all consciousness of action—is suspended. ”

“ An idea comes to me, or I to it', she says, airily, 'a scene—a situation—a young man, a young woman, and on that mental hint I begin to build', but the question naturally arises, she must make a beginning? ”

“ Perhaps the most common, and certainly the very best, place to "start the trouble"—to put the exciting force which arouses the characters to conflict—is the very first possible instant after the clear, forceful and foreshadowing introduction. ”

“ The conjunctions of experience befall more or less invariably, variably, or never. The idea of one term will then engender a fixed, a wavering, or a negative expectation of another, giving affirmative, the hypothetical, disjunctive, interrogative, and negative judgments, and judgments of actuality and possibility about certain things. ”

“ Adaptation of means to an end may be produced in two ways that we at present know of; by processes of natural selection, and by the agency of an intelligence in which an image or idea of the end preceded the use of the means. ”

“ When in a situation associated with the evolution of the society, a decision has to be taken; on image models, the decision is based on feelings, or impressions, or some local models. On a symbolic model, such a decision is based on parameters and their associated values. ”

“ In such a crisis, two facts are prominent: the unusual range of activity offered to the individual—may he not traverse the whole scale of experience?—and the dependence of the individual upon himself. ”

“ I am aware that a little activity of imagination, and a slight exercise of metaphysical ingenuity, may amuse us, by showing how the chain of circumstances is so linked together, that the smallest skirmish, or the slightest occurrence of any kind, that ever occurred, may be said to have been essential, in its actual termination, to the whole order of subsequent events. ”