David Pryde has summed up the whole matter in a few well-chosen sentences: "Keeping the beginning and the end in view, we set out from the right starting-place, and go straight towards the destination; we introduce no event that does not spring from the 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."[63:A] How many elements are here referred to? There are plot, movement, unity, proportion, purpose, and climax. I have already dealt with some of these, and now propose to devote a few paragraphs to the rest.
Unity means unity of effect, and is first a matter of literary architecture—afterwards a matter of impression. It has been said of Macbeth that "the play moves forward with an absolute regularity; it is almost architectural in its rise and fall, in the balance of its parts. The plot is a complex one; it has an ebb and flow, a complication and a resolution, to use technical terms. That is to say, the fortunes of Macbeth swoop up to a crisis or turning-point, and thence down again to a catastrophe. The catastrophe, of course, closes the play; the crisis, as so often with Shakespeare, comes in its exact centre, in the middle of the middle act, with the Escape of Fleance. Hitherto Macbeth's path has been gilded with success; now the epoch of failure begins. And the parallelisms and correspondences throughout are remarkable. Each act has a definite subject: The Temptation; The First, Second, and Third Crimes; The Retribution. Three accidents, if we may so call them, help Macbeth in the first part of the play: the visit of Duncan to Inverness, his own impulsive murder of the grooms, the flight of Malcolm and Donalbain. And in the second half three accidents help to bring about his ruin: the escape of Fleance, the false prophecy of the witches, the escape of Macduff. Malcolm and Macduff at the end answer to Duncan and Banquo at the beginning. A meeting with the witches heralds both rise and fall. Finally, each of the crimes is represented in the Retribution. Malcolm, the son of Duncan, and Macduff, whose wife and child he slew, conquer Macbeth; Fleance begets a race that shall reign in his stead."[65:A]
From a construction point of view, a novel and a play have many points in common; and although the parallelism of events and characters is not necessary for either, the account of Macbeth just given is a good illustration of unity of effect and impression. Stevenson's "Kidnapped" and "David Balfour" are good examples of unity of structure.
Movement
How many times have you put a novel away with the remark: "It drags awfully!" The narrative that drags is not worthy of the name. There are a few writers who can go into byways and take the reader with them—Mr Le Gallienne, for instance—but, as a rule, the digressive novelist is the one whose book is thrown on to the table with the remark just quoted. A story should be progressive, not digressive and episodical. Hence the importance of movement and suspense. Keep your narrative in motion, and do not let it sleep for a while unless it is of deliberate intention. There is a definite law to be observed—namely, that as feeling rises higher, sentences become crisp and shorter; witness Acts i. and ii. in Macbeth. Suspense, too, is an agent in accelerating the forward march of a story. There is no music in a pause, but it renders great service in giving proper emphasis to music that goes before and comes after it. Notice how Stevenson employs suspense and contrast in "Kidnapped." "The sea had gone down, and the wind was steady and kept the sails quiet, so that there was a great stillness in the ship, in which I made sure I heard the sound of muttering voices. A little after, and there came a clash of steel upon the deck, by which I knew they were dealing out the cutlasses, and one had been let fall; and after that silence again." These little touches are capable of affecting the entire interest of the whole story, and should receive careful attention.
Aids to Description
THE POINT OF VIEW
So much has been said in praise of descriptive power, that it will not be amiss if I repeat one or two opinions which, seemingly, point the other way. Gray, in a letter to West, speaks of describing as "an ill habit that will wear off"; and Disraeli said description was "always a bore both to the describer and the describee." To some, these authorities may not be of sufficient weight. Will they listen to Robert Louis Stevenson? He says that "no human being ever spoke of scenery for above two minutes at a time, which makes one suspect we hear too much of it in literature." These remarks will save us from that description-worship which is a sort of literary influenza.
The first thing to be determined in descriptive art is the point of view. Suppose you are standing on an eminence commanding a wide stretch of plain with a river winding through it. What does the river look like? A silver thread; and so you would describe it. But if you stood close to the brink and looked back to the eminence on which you stood previously, you would no longer speak of a silver thread, simply because now your point of view is changed. The principle is elementary enough, and there is no need to dwell upon it further, except to quote an illustration from Blackmore: