The artist studies the selection he means to illustrate in just this way, and then draws his picture. When we see his picture we may accept it as good and true to the conditions, or call it poor and inapplicable. We should not be hasty, but should try to get his point of view before we criticise. If he violates any of the fixed conditions of the story his work is bad; if he gives us his interpretation and violates no fixed conditions, his work may be good or bad according to the standards we set up: are we always certain that our standards are correct?
In the fable The Fox and the Stork (Volume I, page 73) the artist has given us two beautiful pictures which in themselves tell almost the entire story, and his pictures are almost wholly from his own imagination, for there was given him to work with very little more than a fox, a stork, a wide dish and a vase. Such a pictorial imagination as he possessed is what should be cultivated in children. If they can be encouraged to draw what they see, they not only fix their own impressions, but they learn to see more vividly and more accurately.
In long stories there are many scenes; it may be that no two incidents happen in the same place. In the drama, which contains all the elements of the story, the scenes are limited in number, are fixed and unchanging and after the reader has arranged his scenery he may give his attention exclusively to the dialogue because he knows there will be no change in the scene. In the story the reader may need to be constantly alert, as when his hero takes a long and perilous journey the scenes may change with the quickness of a kaleidoscope, and yet all be important to the narrative. The more complex the story, the greater the variety in scene, and consequently the greater the opportunities for study. It is interesting work for children to pick out the scenes, to count them and then to compare them. Some of them are more vividly portrayed than others. Why? Some are more important as descriptions, and some because of the incidents occurring in them.
Sometimes, especially in speaking of the drama, the word scene is applied not only in its literal sense, but also to include not merely the place but the incidents that happen in the place, as well.
For instance, we may say, “The quarrel between Brutus and Cassius is a wonderful scene in Julius Cæsar.” Again, the word is used sometimes to mark the division of a play, as when we speak of the second scene in the first act of Macbeth. For our purposes, however, in our early reading with children, let us use it to signify only the place where events happen.
An author may tell us at the beginning of a story that the scene is laid in London, or in Calcutta, or in the Black Forest; but unless he employs some method of giving a vivid impression of the setting of the story, we soon lose sight of locality. Sometimes, of course, it is not necessary that we should remember the place—the story moves on independent of scene; but other stories depend in part for their interest and even for their plot upon their setting. In such cases, the author, by reference to the natural features characteristic of a region, or to the peculiar traits or mannerisms or turns of speech of his characters, keeps before us the place in which the scene is laid. Such peculiarities of a place or its inhabitants, when introduced into a story, are given the name of local coloring.
In A Christmas Carol (Volume VI, page 244), Dickens meant that we should be conscious throughout not only of a Christmas atmosphere, but of an English Christmas atmosphere. The references to the Christmas feeling are too obvious to require pointing out, but the methods by which the author makes us conscious that we are in London do not show so clearly at first sight. By a study of the paragraph which begins in the middle of page 253, and of the one immediately following it, we may get some idea of these methods.
“Meanwhile the fog and darkness thickened so, that the people ran about with flaring links.” A London boy would not need a footnote to tell him that the fogs of London are famous; that they are at times so thick that all traffic is obliged to cease. Nor would he need to be told that links are torches of tow and pitch, which enterprising London boys provided themselves with at foggy times, that they might earn money by piloting people about. The word brazier, too, is in commoner use in England than it is in the United States. The poulterers’ trade is another English touch.
Every one knows that the Lord Mayor is the chief official of the city of London, but perhaps we do not all know that Mansion House, with its great banqueting-hall where the state dinners are held, is the residence of the Lord Mayor.
Now-a-days we all know what English plum pudding is—it is served at many American tables on Christmas day. But nothing is more characteristically English, unless, indeed, it is the roast beef, not turkey, which the tailor was planning to have for his Christmas dinner.