Those few persons who study literature who read, that is to say, not altogether for the story of the story, or for the knowledge contained in books of research or of criticism, but take an interest in the form as well as the matter of a book-those persons are always asking themselves questions:"The form is changing-why?" "Is the new form better or worse than the old one?" "What has caused the change?" "Where will the change lead to?" and so on, and so on.

It is in the art of narration that change of form shows more than in any other branch of literature, and by the art of narration I do not mean only storytelling in its usual sense, but also all descriptive writing. For fiction may perish, as the prophets tell us that it will; but while the world goes round descriptive writing, in one form or another, must ever remain with us. Some one gifted with this art of narration will always be wanted to describe to other people what they either have not seen or could not see for themselves. Now, surely the art has changed its form very materially in our day, and I wish to enquire into this change; to try to account for it; and to plead for the new methods of the art.

The change is from prolixity to brevity; from colorless detail to vivid outline; from long words to short ones. "Skip descriptions" used to be a sort of unwritten law with readers-but descriptions are now condensed into a few exquisitely-chosen words, which are wedged into the narrative, and can no more be skipped in reading it than the currants in a cake can be omitted in the eating. The diffuse, ready-made, conventionally-adjectived "description" of the Victorian Era has absolutely disappeared among writers who take

any rank at all. Far more pains are bestowed on a few words of modern description than went to a whole page of so-called descriptive writing in those days. Then it was the reader who had the hardest work to do, not the writer --for what can be a greater mental effort than trying to realize to oneself any scene which is described indistinctly?

The reader of former days was constantly expected to use his imagination, instead of having the picture painted for him so vividly that it required no effort on his part to visualize it.

You will see what I mean if you contrast a descriptive passage from Scott with one from any good modern writer. To gain any impression of the country which Scott is describing, a reader would need to close his eyes and think long and carefully:-

"The Cheviots rose before me in frowning majesty; not, indeed, with the sublime variety of rock and cliff which characterizes mountains of the primary class, but huge, round-headed, and clothed with a dark robe of russet, gaining by their extent and desolate appearance an influence upon the imagination which possessed a character of its own."

Here the reader who is called upon to image the frowning majesty of the Cheviots finds himself, before he has fairly visualized this, confronted with the staggering question: "What are the characteristics of mountains of the primary class?" True, the author supplies the answer that "a sublime varioty of rock and cliff" is their characteristic; but the reader keeps ransacking his brain none the less for half-remembered bits of information about "rocks of the primary class", while his eye

goes on reading farther down the page of the "huge, round-headed" mountains, and he wonders what the character of that "influence" might be, which he is told they "exercised upon the imagination".

Or let us take another example-because it is impious to find fault with Scott-and Galt shall furnish the text this time:

"The year was waning into autumn, and the sun setting in all that effulgence of glory with which, in a serene evening, he commonly at that season terminates his daily course behind the distant mountains of Dumbartonshire and Argyle. A thin mist, partaking more of the lacy character of a haze than the texture of a vapor, spreading from the river, softened the nearer features of the view; while the distant were glowing in the golden blaze of the western skies, and the outlines of the city on the left appeared gilded with a brighter light," etc., etc.

Here not only the construction of the sentence is slovenly to a degree, but the whole manner of relation is intolerably tedious. It is a typical description of that era when authors either could not describe or would not give themselves the trouble to do so. Just read alongside of Galt's wearisome wordiness a line or two from Kipling:

"The animal delight of that roaring day of sun and wind will live long in our memory-the rifted purple flank of Lackawee, the long vista of the lough darkening as the shadows fell; the smell of a new country, and the tearing wind that brought down mysterious voices of men from somewhere high above us."

Or, to take another "modern instance," can words go farther than this from Stevenson:

"On this particular Sunday there was no doubt but that the spring had come at last. It was warm, with a latent shiver in the air that made the warmth

only the more welcome. The shallows of the stream glittered and tinkled among bunches of primroses. Vagrant scents of the earth arrested Archie by the way with moments of ethereal intoxication. The gray, quakerish dale was still only awakened in places and patches from the sobriety of its winter coloring; and he wondered at its beauty; an essential beauty of the old earth it seemed to him . . . and when he had taken his place on a boulder, near some fairy falls, and shaded by a whip of a tree that was already radiant with new leaves, it still more surprised him that he should find nothing to write . . . he lingered yet a while in the kirk-yard. A tuft of primroses was blooming hard by the leg of an old black table tombstone, and he stopped to contemplate the random apologue. They stood forth on the cold earth with a trenchancy of contrast; and he was struck with a sense of incompleteness in the day . . . the chill there was in the warmth, the gross black clods about the opening primroses, the damp, earthly smell that was everywhere intermingled with the scents."

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These examples of modern description are typical of the new movement at its best; they exhibit all the virtues of the school and none of its vices; but, to be quite impartial, I must point out what these vices are. The first, and most marked, is the over-use of onomatopoetic words.

Now, there is no doubt that the use of a description is to convey its impression vividly, and to this end there is, perhaps, no cheaper method than the use of words which express themselves. Starting from this basis, repudiating the much-used verb, adjective, and adverb of literature, some writers have quite run away with the method, so to speak, and have succeeded in going off the rails of "literature" -of classicality-in consequence of this bolt into unknown paths. Description

must be vivid, they say, no matter how the effect is obtained. The results of this departure are rather startling. I quote at random from a very typical book of this class-"The Red Badge of Courage":

"His canteen banged rhythmically, and his haversack bobbed softly-he wriggled in his jacket-the purple darkness was filled with men who jabbered -he felt the swash of the water-his knees wobbled-the ground was cluttered with men-a spatter of musketry -the fire dwindled to a vindictive popping-the man was blubbering-another man grunted--the guns squatted in a row like savage chiefs-they argued with abrupt violence, it was a grimpow-wow."

It is all ridiculously effective, expressive, convincing; but too uncouth by far to be admitted to the high places of literature. There is a very practical working test for language: i. e., to ask whether any other word could have expressed the intended meaning as well; and this test has not always been applied here. Many more shapely words would have expressed the meaning admirably without giving offence to the ear, and yet without being stiff-without conveying any impression of primness-that bugbear of modern writers.

Another vice of the less practised followers of the new school is a total want of all construction in their sentences. Because prolixity and overelaborated phrasing were the snares of bygone writers, this is no reason why we should cut up our sentences into four or five words:-Nothing is easier. The method is simple. It presents no difficulties. It is distinct. It appeals to many. It is new. Therefore it pleases. For a time. But not permanently. Men of intelligence yawn. The trick is too readily seen through. It is like an infant's reader:-"My cat is called Tom. Do you like cats? No,

I like dogs. I like both cats and dogs," etc.. etc.

But this is enough of fault-finding; and every new movement must go through some ridiculous phases of growth; and instead of laughing at these we must acknowledge the benefit that the movement has been in the main. Just look at Kipling's language -the masterly way in which he employs words old and new indifferently, but always the best word. Try to substitute any other for one chosen by him, and you will quickly recognize his art. "A boat came nosing carefully through the fog." "Over that pockmarked ground the regiment must pass." "Beautiful ladies who watched the regiment in church were wont to speak of Lew as an angel. They did not hear his vitriolic comments on their morals and manners as he walked back to barracks."

What an advance there is here from the days when only well-known words were employed-"a shady grove,” “a handsome youth," "a graceful girl," "a lofty mountain," "a rapid stream"the noun and the adjective were then as inevitably coupled together as B follows A in the alphabet; no one thought of altering the arrangement. The change is sure also to be a lasting good, because it is the outcome of thought, not of fashion-no man, even if he catch up mannerisms of style quickly, can produce fresh adjectives by imitation; this is a bit of work that must always come straight from the author's own brain.

The second great change which I notice in the better class of descriptive writing is that it is almost entirely done by simile. The power of mere words is, when all is said and done, very limited. You may choose your words never so cleverly, but if you trust to words alone you will not get half the effect that can be gained by one good simile. This is a strong point

with our hero Kipling. To quote him once again:

"The low-browed battleships slugged their bluff noses into the surge and rose dripping like half-tide rocks." "The weather was lorious-a blazing sun and a light swell to which the cruisers rolled lazily, as hounds roll on the grass at a check." These are examples of simile employed in short description. But it is to Thomas Hardy, who must surely stand out as the very prince of all our modern descriptive writers, that we must look for examples of the constant use of simile. He never even attempts to describe without it; having apparently gauged the value of mere words to convey impressions. He seems to consider that our imaginations always need the crutch of simile, and that we can only be made to realize something that we have not seen by the help of something that we have seen. Let me give you two examples of his wordpictures, which are much more exhaustive and quite as unconventional as anything in Kipling, yet by reason of the travail shown in them, greater incomparably. The elaboration without tediousness in the following description is a marvel of workmanship. And notice the constant use which is made of simile:

"They could then see the faint summer fogs in layers, woolly level, and apparently no thicker than counterpanes, spread about the meadows in detached remnants of small extent. On the gray moisture of the grass were marks where the cows had lain through the night-dark green islands of dry herbage, the size of their carcases in the general sea of dew . . . or perhaps the summer fog was more general, and the meadows lay like a white sea, out of which the scattered trees rose like dangerous rocks. Birds would soar through it into the upper radiance and hang on the wing, sunning themselves, or alight on the wet rails subdividing

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the meads, which now shone like glass rods. Minute diamonds of moisture from the mist hung, too, upon Tess's eyelashes, and drops upon her hair, like seed pearls." Or again:-"There had not been such a winter for years. came on in stealthy and measured glides, like the moves of a chess-player. One morning the few lonely trees and the thorns of the hedgerow appeared as if they had put off a vegetable for an animal integument. Every twig was covered with a white nap as of fur grown from the rind during the night, giving it four times its usual dimensions; the whole bush or the tree forming a staring sketch in white lines on the mournful gray of the sky and horizon. Cobwebs revealed their presence on sheds and walls where none had ever been observed till brought out into visibility by the crystallizing atmosphere-hanging like loops of white worsted from salient points of the outhouses, posts, and gates."

Description can go no farther. And here are all the qualities grouped together-vividness, minuteness without prolixity (for who would wish one detail omitted?), free use of words wherever derived, and with it all exquisite selection.

Now, I have given enough of examples to prove that the change in descriptive writing is really accomplished; but it is more difficult to say exactly what has caused the change.

I am inclined to think that though, it is in part a literary movement, it owes a great deal to another cause. There is a well-known saying that "the demand creates the supply," which may give us some clue to all this change. This is an impatient, nervous generation-over-busy, over-stimulated; and unless a writer can write a description which interests the reader in spite of himself, he had better not write at all, The author who appeals to an overworked, nervous reader is

Student's Ch

one who conveys his meaning almost instantaneously to the reader's mind without effort on his part. This is what really good descriptive writers can do; it is what the best writers of the new school do. Perhaps the inherent love of novelty that there is in all of us is also an element in the new movement. We would rather have any change than none, and style has to come under this law as surely as every other art; but, as I have pointed out, this word-revolution is one which has been brought about thinkingly, so it is

The National Review.

likely to prove a permanent one, not a mere rebellion against the powers that be.

Some critics are a little apt to assert that nothing new can be classic; which is just as foolish as it is to say that everything old is classic. It remains with the younger men of the new school to show that their work may take as high rank, for all its newness, as the great work of long ago. this not only in spite of its revolutionary tendencies, but by reason of them. Jane H. Findlater.

And

There have been issued two important parliamentary papers1 dealing with this comparatively newly-opened region-the report on the Uganda railway by Sir Guilford Molesworth, K. C. I. E., and Lieutenant-Colonel Macdonald's account of his expeditions into the surrounding territory. Even glanced at superficially, they demand attention, but the interest is deepened to those who, knowing how the Englishman lives, and too often dies, in tropical Africa, can read between the tersely-written lines, and realize at what cost this extension of dominion has been won for us. The story of the Uganda railway would make a romance in itself, as would that of many a similar undertaking, carried out successfully in spite of heat, starvation, and fever, and afterwards recorded in brief official terms. But this work was done with precaution and foresight, and, therefore, without needless loss of life-some there must always befor the sick were skilfully tended, and it thus compares favorably with other

1 Parliamentary Papers, Africa, Nos. 5 and 9.

railways in the tropics whose every sleeper was laid in blood.

It may be taken as an axiom in many parts of Africa that one railroad is far better than either troops or gunboats (which latter on the East Coast station cost some £110,000 per annum) for the putting down of slavery, while without it the advent of the white trader only encourages the hateful system. The reason for this is plain. The slaves formerly shipped over seas in dhows from Muscat were often all a minority, while wherever the European sets up his factory there is need of means of transport between the hinterland and the coast, for merchandise travels long distances in Africa. To all intents and purposes there are no roads. Beasts die on the West Coast of something akin to fever, on the East of the tsetse fly, and the head of the tengatenga man is the only means of replacing them. Therefore, as most negroes despise laborious work, the inland and unostentatious slave trade keeps pace with the extension of the white man's commerce. In West Africa this is also