¶ 8, 9. A stone rolls down the mountain side. (Lapse of time indicated here.)
¶ 10, 11. The characters are described, as they reveal themselves through their conversation.
¶ 12-23. They converse rather frankly of their several ambitions.
¶ 24-27. A wagon stops before the inn, but goes on when the landlord does not immediately appear.
¶ 28-31. A touch of sentimental byplay between the stranger and the maid.
¶ 32. A sadness creeps over the company, caused, perhaps, by the wind wailing without.
¶ 33-39. The grandmother discusses her death and burial.
None of these incidents, except those containing the rolling stone and the passing travelers, possess sufficient action or identity to be called an incident, except for some such analytical purpose. They are rather changes in the subject under discussion than separate happenings. With the exception already noted, it may be said that there is no time gap between these incidents, for each one begins at the expiration of its predecessor. The connection and relation of the sub-incidents is not always as close as this. In a longer story they could be more distinct and definite and yet preserve the unity of the work; but they should never disintegrate into minor climaxes,[37] nor into such a jerky succession of disassociated scenes as the following:
On a fair sweet spring morning in the lovely month of May, Squire Darley finishes an important letter. He reads it over the second time to see that there is no mistake.
"There, that'll do, I think," he soliloquizes. "And that'll fetch him, I think. Peculiar diseases require peculiar remedies." And he chuckled to himself. Then with deliberate care he addressed it to "Mr. H. C. Darley, New York City."