EIGHTH READER

I. NARRATION

Narration gives an account of happenings, tells a story. It _deals with things in action; action is the prime quality of narration, the quality which marks it off from other types or forms of literature.

There are three elements in narration-action, character drawing, and setting. The action occurs in the form of the plot, which advances the story, stage by stage, to the ending. Character drawing presents the characters of the story their outward appearance and their natures. The setting gives the scenery and circumstances of the story, whether on land or sea, in the present or the past, in surroundings of wealth or poverty.

Narration is the most widely used of literary forms, including as it does a number of different kinds of writings - novels, short stories, plays, histories, biographies, and books of travel. Of all these, the short story is the most popular nowadays, for the short story is brief, has unity, and moves swiftly to the climax, that is, the moment of supreme interest. Edgar Allan Poe, the author of "The Gold Bug," was the first writer to gain great success in the modern short story. Three other American writers, Hawthorne, Bret Harte, and O. Henry, have won fame in short-story writing. In English literature, Rudyard Kipling and A. Conan Doyle are among the most notable writers of short stories. Stories by all these authors are given; they well illustrate the salient features of narration and show the different ways in which stories are written.

THE GOLD BUG

I

Many years ago, I contracted an 'intimacy1 with a Mr. William Legrand. He was of an ancient Huguenot family, and had once been wealthy; but a series of misfortunes had reduced him to want. To avoid the mortification consequent upon his disasters, he left New Orleans, the city of his forefathers, and took up his residence at Sullivan's Island, near Charleston, South Carolina.

This island is a very singular one. It consists of little else than the sea sand, and is about three miles long. Its breadth at no point exceeds a quarter of a mile. It is separated from the mainland by a scarcely perceptible creek, oozing its way through a wilderness of reeds and slime, a favorite resort of the marsh-hen. The vegetation, as might be supposed, is scant, or at least dwarfish. No trees of any magnitude are to be seen; but the whole island, with the exception of the western point, and a line of hard, white beach on the seacoast, is covered with a dense undergrowth of the sweet myrtle, so much prized by the horticulturists of England. The shrub here often attains the height of fifteen or twenty feet, and. forms an almost impenetrable coppice, burdening the air with its fragrance.

In the inmost recesses of this coppice, not far from the 1 For words marked ", see Dictionary.

eastern or more remote end of the island, Legrand had built himself a small hut, which he occupied when I first, by mere accident, made his acquaintance. This soon ripened into friendship-for there was much in the recluse to excite interest and esteem. I found him well educated, with unusual powers of mind, but infected with misanthropy, and subject to perverse moods of alternate enthusiasm and melancholy. He had with him many books, but rarely employed them. His chief amusements were gunning and fishing, or sauntering along the beach and through the myrtles, in quest of shells or entomological specimens. In these excursions he was usually accompanied by an old negro, called Jupiter, who had been freed before the reverses of the family, but who could be induced, neither by threats nor by promises, to abandon what he considered his right of attendance upon the footsteps of his young "Massa Will." It is not improbable that the relatives of Legrand, conceiving him to be somewhat unsettled in intellect, had contrived to instil this obstinacy into Jupiter, with a view to the supervision and guardianship of the wanderer.

The winters in the latitude of Sullivan's Island are seldom very severe, and in the fall of the year it is a rare event indeed when a fire is considered necessary. About the middle of October, 18—, there occurred, however, a day of remarkable chilliness. Just before sunset I scrambled my way through the evergreens to the hut of my friend, whom I had not visited for several weeks. Upon