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....