The reader is made to think that the gold
lies so near the surface that he will be required to take very
little trouble in digging for it. And the writer is enabled,--at
any rate for a time, and till his neck has become, as it were,
warm to the collar,--to throw off from him the difficulties and
dangers, the tedium and prolixity, of description. This rushing
'in media res' has doubtless the charm of ease. 'Certainly when I
threw her from the garret window to the stony pavement below, I
did not anticipate that she would fall so far without injury to
life or limb.' When a story has been begun after this fashion,
without any prelude, without description of the garret or of the
pavement, or of the lady thrown, or of the speaker, a great amount
of trouble seems to have been saved. The mind of the reader fills
up the blanks,--if erroneously, still satisfactorily. He knows, at
least, that the heroine has encountered a terrible danger, and has
escaped from it with almost incredible good fortune, that the
demon of the piece is a bold demon, not ashamed to speak of his
own iniquity, and that the heroine and the demon are so far united
that they have been in a garret together.
Pages:
106
107
108
109
110
111
112
113
114
115
116
117
118
119
120
121
122
123
124
125
126
127
128
129
130