A CUP OF TEA
Setting. Note the setting of this and “The Water-Hole,” “The Knight’s Move,” “The Weaver Who Clad the Summer,” “A Certain Rich Man.” In which of them is the outer setting a place for the rehearsal of the story which follows? In which is the setting that of the immediate story-action? What is the general value of a table scene to the writer who wishes to present his story in the “rehearsed” manner? How does a camp-fire compare with it? (Read, for example, Kipling’s “The Courting of Dinah Shadd.”)
Introduction, with Emphasis on Characters. Why is so long an introductory paragraph given to Burnaby?
Study the comment on guests and hostess, and observe that the English financier must have an important part in the ensuing action. “Sir John had inherited an imagination.” Is this stated characteristic proved by subsequent disclosures?
How is Burnaby’s entrance emphasized?
“She was interested by now” (page 48), an old device and an excellent one for catching the reader’s attention. The logic is this: “If that fascinating lady is interested, there must be a reason.” Sir Conan Doyle employs it often in the Sherlock Holmes stories, when Sherlock asks for a repetition of a situation supposedly just presented. It is thus put before the reader who assumes that it must be worth hearing once, if Sherlock will hear it twice.
What reason exists for Burnaby’s story as a predecessor to Sir John’s? Does it motivate the telling of Sir John’s? If so, does it also prejudice the reader in favor of one or the other men? Does it incite curiosity as to the squawman with a promise that curiosity will be satisfied? Suppose that some other cause produced Sir John’s story and the reader were left to surmise what became of Bewsher. Would sympathy be with Bewsher in an increased or diminished degree?
Why is Burnaby’s story briefer than Sir John’s? Would it be possible to reverse the comparative lengths with a new story-value? Try telling Bewsher’s story as he might tell it to Burnaby at the time of the tea incident.
How is point given to the squaw man’s name? What is the significance of the broken champagne glass? Have literary artists often fallen back on a broken glass by way of expressing emotion? Is it true to real life? Does it seem true in fiction?
Is there sufficient suggestion that Bewsher’s story is connected with that of Masters to justify initial interest in Sir John’s narrative? (See the dénouement of Burnaby’s.)
Where did you receive a hint that Masters is identifying himself with Morton?
The Heart of the Whole Story: Masters’ Story. Notice that Mr. Burt recognizes, as all artists do, the various climaxes of the narrative. This is indicated in what Sir John calls “high lights.”
The Initial Impulse (The “first high light”): Morton’s plan to cultivate the friendship of Bewsher.
Steps toward Dramatic Climax: The importance of himself comes home to Morton (“The second high light”). “The third did not come until fifteen years later” (Bewsher has been in India; Morton, in a Banking House in London): Morton desires a wife, luxury, and social standing. Bewsher turns up; he and Morton fall in love with the same girl. Bewsher leads, but he needs money. The “third high light,” then, after fifteen years, is Bewsher’s supplication. Morton makes him a rich man, but does not promise to keep him so.
Dramatic Climax: Bewsher forges a check, and hands it to Morton in part payment of his indebtedness. Morton subsequently shows the check to the girl and then burns it before her eyes. He thus wins her, not aware that her heart is broken. Bewsher disappears.
Climax of Action: “The fourth high light” Morton marries the girl.
Dénouement: He suffers the realization that he can never be a gentleman; he has learned that the girl does not love him.
What statement of Sir John indicates a recognition of the turning point in the rivalry between him and Bewsher? Show that this outer or external dramatic climax is the counterpart of the “third high light.”
Dénouement of the Enveloping Narrative: After Sir John and his wife motor away, Burnaby explains the relations between the real and the fictive characters. What is the significance of his appellation, “timber-wolf”?
What is the office of Mrs. Malcolm’s closing remark?
“We are told that all writing is a process of elision, but no one seems to go further and say that short-story writing is the process of ‘hitting the high spots’ plus the art of making the intervals between the ‘high spots’ not only interesting but of such a quality that the ‘high spots’ do not seem strained and unnatural. I find that this is mostly done by the turn of a sentence, or by an apparently adventitious aphorism, or a paragraph of general comment.
“I do prefer the ‘I’ narrator greatly. 1st. It does away with the ‘Smart Alec,’ omniscient atmosphere of the third person, which seems to me the bane of most American short-stories—the author gives an impression of groping for his story, just as a person in real life gropes when he narrates an incident. Conrad does this, and does it so beautifully. It seems to me that a ‘thickness’ is achieved that can be got in no other way. This, of course, does not apply to a novel, because in a novel the ‘thickness’ is achieved by mere length.
“Secondly, as you say, it enables one to handle surprise more readily.
“Thirdly, the story can be told in colloquial language, and not in literary language, which makes it, so it seems to me, more poignant. What experience I have had convinces me that the poignancy of life is invariably expressed by silences and by broken words. The French know so well how to use dashes, for instance.
“Fourthly, and this is not paradoxical, despite the colloquial language, one has a slight feeling of aloofness from the characters or sees them through the medium of a third person; and this, it seems to me, is the way one sees things in real life....
“The story ordinarily comes to me as an incident or a theme, sometimes as a character in a certain incident. Then usually nothing happens for a long time. If I try to think about it too much, so much the worse. In about a month, I’ll think about it again and then, as a rule, it begins to evolve. A great deal of the incident occurs to me while I am actually writing.”—Maxwell Struthers Burt.