CHAPTER IX. IMPERSONAL ACCOUNTS 612-645

I. ANNALS--What annals are--Famous old annals--Stow--Suggestions on material--Examples 613

II. CHRONICLES--Definition--Froissart, Ayala, "General Chronicle of Spain"--Saxo Grammaticus--Holinshed--True relations--Examples 626

BIBLIOGRAPHY 647-660 INDEX 661-672

LIST OF STORIES

NARRATIVES OF FICTITIOUS EVENTS

=Myths= PAGE

The World's Creation and the Birth of Wainamoinen. From the _Kalevala_ 14

_Students' Themes_-- Origin of the Moon Emanuel Baja 16 The First Cocoanut Tree Manuel Reyes 18 The Lotus Ida Treat 21

=Legends=

Kenach's Little Woman William Canton 28

_Students' Themes_-- A Legend of Gapan Teofilo Corpus 36 Manca: a Legend of the Incas Dorothea Knoblock 38 The Place of the Red Grass Sixto Guico 42

=Fairy Tales=

The Boggart From the English 55

_Students' Themes_-- Cafre and the Fisherman's Wife Benito Ebuen 57 The Friendship of an Asuang and a Duende Emanuel Baja 58 A Tianac Frightens Juan Santiago Ochoa 61 The Black Cloth of the Calumpang Eusebio Ramos 63

=Nursery Tales=

Princess Helena the Fair From the Russian 69

_Students' Themes_-- Juan the Guesser Bienvenido Gonzalez 73 The Shepherd who became King Vicente Hilario 78

=Fables=

Jupiter and the Countryman From the _Spectator_ 90 The Drop of Water (Persian) From the _Spectator_ 91 The Grandee at the Judgment Seat Kriloff 91 The Lion and the Old Hare From the _Hitopadesa_ 92 The Fox and the Crab From the Turkish 93 The Fool who Sells Wisdom From the Turkish 94 The Archer and the Trumpeter From the Turkish 95

_Students' Themes_-- The Courtship of Sir Butterfly Maximo M. Kalaw 96 The Hat and the Shoes José R. Perez 98 The Crocodile and the Peahen Elisa Esguerra 99 The Old Man, his Son, and his Grandson Eutiquiano Garcia 100

=Parables=

The Three Questions Tolstoy 104

_Students' Themes_-- A Master and his Servant Eusebio Ramos 110 The Parable of the Beggar and the Givers Dorothea Knoblock 111

=Allegories=

The Artist Oscar Wilde 120 The House of Judgment Oscar Wilde 120

_Students' Themes_-- The Chain that Binds Elizabeth Sudborough 123 The Love which Surpassed All Other Loves Florence Gifford 125

=Tales of Mere Wonder=

The Story of the City of Brass From the _Arabian Nights_ 132

_Student's Theme_-- The Magic Ring, the Bird, and the Basket Facundo Esquivel 147

=Imaginary Voyages=

Mellonta Tauta Edgar Allan Poe 155

_Student's Theme_-- Busyong's Trip to Jupiter Manuel Candido 173

=Tale of Scientific Discovery and Mechanical Invention=

A Curious Vehicle Alexander Wilson Drake 200

_Students' Themes_-- The Spyglass of the Past Hazel Orcutt 218 Up a Water Spout Edna Collister 221

=Detective Story and Tale of Mere Plot=

Thou Art the Man Edgar Allan Poe 228

_Student's Theme_-- The Picture of Lhasa Hazel Orcutt 248

=Tales of More-or-Less Probable Adventure=

Fight with a Bear Charles Reade 257

_Student's Theme_-- Secret of the Jade Tlaloc Dorothea Knoblock 267

=Society Stories=

The Fur Coat Ludwig Fulda 277

_Student's Theme_-- The Lady in Pink Wilma I. Ball 289

=Humorous Stories=

The Expatriation of Jonathan Taintor Charles Battell Loomis 302

_Students' Themes_-- Kileto and the Physician Lorenzo Licup 307 The Lame Man and the Deaf Family Santiago Rotea 311

=Occasional Stories=

The Lost Child François Coppée 315

_Students' Themes_-- The Peace of Yesterdays Katherine Kurz 334 A Christmas Legend Ida F. Treat 342

=Moral Story=

Jeannot and Colin Voltaire 348

=Pedagogical Narratives=

Gertrude's Method of Instruction Pestalozzi 365

_Student's Theme_-- Lawin-lawinan (a Filipino game) Leopoldo Uichanco 368

=Stories of Present-Day Realism=

The Piece of String Maupassant 374

_Students' Themes_-- A Social Error Ida Treat 382 The Lot of the Poor Agnes Palmer 388 Filipino Fear Walfrido de Leon 390

=Psychological Weird Tales=

The Signal-Man Charles Dickens 403

_Student's Theme_-- Like a Thief in the Night Dorothea Knoblock 420

=Stories That Emphasize Character and Environment=

Muhammad Din Rudyard Kipling 432

_Students' Themes_-- The Fetters Katherine Kurz 436 When Terry Quit Dorothea Knoblock 446 Nora Titay and Chiquito Joaquina E. Tirona 453

=Stories That Emphasize Character and Events=

The Necklace Maupassant 460

_Student's Theme_-- Andong Justo Avila 470

NARRATIVES OF ACTUAL EVENTS

=Incidents=

A Near Tragedy Fielding 482 An Incident before Sadowa: Birds Divulge Army Secrets Newspaper 483 An Incident Related in a Letter Robert Louis Stevenson 484

_Students' Themes_-- A Hero Dead Ida Treat 485 My First Day at School Máximo Kalaw 487 The Guinatan Prize Leopoldo Faustino 488

=Anecdotes=

Coleridge's Retort 493 An Inevitable Misfortune 494 A Point Needing to be Settled 494 Patience 494 Preaching and Practice 495 Johnson's Dictionary 495 The Boy Kipling 496 Sir Godfrey Kneller Spence 496 Pope and the Trader Spence 497 The Capitan Municipal and the Jokers José Feliciano 497 An Instance of Bamboo Spanish Pilar Ejercito 498 Mr. Taft's Mistake Amando Clements 499

=Eye-Witness Accounts=

The Portuguese Revolution Newspaper 503

_Student's Theme_-- A Contrast Adolfo Scheerer 509

=Tales of Actual Adventures=

The Bear Hunt Tolstoy 514

_Students' Themes_-- Saladin and I Fight an Alupong Cecilio Esquivel 525 I Get Two Beatings Facundo Esquivel 527 The Fall of Juan Gregorio Farrales 528 A Narrow Escape from a Wild Carabao José Cariño 529

=Travellers' Sketches=

On the Way to Talavera George Borrow 534 Smyrna--First Glimpses of the East Thackeray 539

_Student's Theme_-- A Trip from Curimao to Laoag Fernando Maramag 551

=Journals and Diaries=

Extracts from Pepys' Diary 562

_Students' Themes_-- A Diary of Four Days Facundo Esquivel 564 A Journal: Mock Heroic Victoriano Yamzon 567

=Autobiography and Memoirs=

The Life of David Hume, Esq. Written by himself 575 Student autobiography Domingo Guanio 585 What I Remember of the Coming of the Americans Leopoldo Faustino 588

=Biographies=

Queen Christina Hawthorne 595

_Students' Themes_-- Juan Luna's Life Dolores Asuncion 604 Life of Elizabeth Glade Nellie Barrington 607 The Biography of a Traitor Walfrido de Leon 609

=Annals=

The State of England, in Stephen's Reign _Peterborough Chronicle_ 616

_Students' Themes_-- Annals of Mangaldan Translated by Bernabe Aquino 621 Annals of Pagsanjan Dolores Zafra 622

=Chronicles=

Rivalry between Two Towns Froissart 630

_Students' Themes_-- A Short History of Ilagan Fernando Maramag 636 Some Incidents of the Rebellion of 1898: A True Relation Marcelino Montemayor 639

INTRODUCTION

There are many interesting possibilities for both the reader and the writer in a study of narrative types. It is a truism to say that everybody loves a story. Every race, every nation, every tribe, every family, has its favorite narratives. Every person has his and likes to repeat them. Even the driest old matter-of-fact curmudgeon delights in relating an incident if nothing else. Perhaps he tells you of how he lost and found again his pocket talisman--a buckeye, maybe, or a Portuguese _cruzado_. He will assure you that he does not really believe that the unfortunate events that followed his loss of it were occasioned by its absence, or the return of good-luck casually connected with its recovery; but still, he adds, he feels much better with the old thing in his pocket. "And that was a queer coincidence, wasn't it?" he insists, starting again over the details of the happening. So with us all: we all know and love stories, our own or another person's.

It is a fine thing to write a story. It is good through one's imagination and skill to entertain one's fellows or through one's accurate observation of life and history to benefit society. The narrator has always been honored. In earliest times he was the seer and prophet, forming the religion of his wandering tribe; later he was the welcomed guest, for whom alone the frowning castle's gate stood always open; and after the dark ages, in the time of the revival-of-the-love-of-written-things, he was the favorite at the court of favoring princes, who lavished upon him preferment and money and humbly offered him the laurel crown, their highest tribute. In our own day his reward surpasses that of kings and presidents. They come to him, and for immortality invoke his name. In earliest times he composed in verse so that his story might be remembered and handed down. In latest times he writes most often in prose--a more difficult medium to handle with distinction, but one more widely understood and more readily appreciated than poetry.

Narrative as a general type needs no definition. What pure description is the ordinary reader might hesitate to assert, or exposition, or argumentation; but not story: he knows that. Let an author combine these others with a series of events, let him put them in as aids to the understanding or as ornaments on the thread of his recital, and they are accepted without question as elements of narration, be it prose or verse in form, true or fictitious in content. That is to say, though a story often contains to some extent all the other forms of writing too, we think of it as narrative because it carries us along a course of events. Frequently the teller spends much time in studying different styles and kinds of description and in analyzing various devices used to secure definite effects, because he wishes to call to his aid every bit of skill possible in portraying his characters and places; but general readers take his fine points of description and exposition as matters of course and are crudely interested in the happenings he has to relate. They are unconscious of the fact that much of their enjoyment comes from knowing how a hero looks, what his surroundings are, and what his disposition and usual character. A story-writer gives no small amount of attention also to transcribing conversations; but the ordinary reader takes these likewise as expected parts of narrative. But there is one thing that the author and the reader agree on at the outset as necessary to be settled; namely, the kind of story to be written or to be read.

It is pleasant to know that there are definite types of narratives that the world has always loved, and that there are new forms growing up as civilization becomes more complex. Some of the kinds of stories discussed in this book are older than the English language, older than Christianity, older even than the divisions of Aryan speech. They seem to be inherent forms of all literatures, to be as ancient as thought and as young as inspiration. They are in use to-day in every tongue.

This book attempts to set forth the distinguishing elements of the types that have persisted, those matters that a writer must take into account when producing or a critic when judging. Though its title emphasizes the fact that now-a-days most persons think of stories as being always in prose, the book discriminates but little in this respect. In reality a student of narrative cares hardly at all whether the vehicle be meter or not. He is concerned with something else. Language form is rather an accident of the time and the fashion than anything essential. It is not dependent on the author's personality even. Chaucer undoubtedly would write in prose to-day, whereas our modern idealists would certainly have lisped in numbers a hundred years ago. We study narrative types, therefore, with the idea that verse tales are but measured and rhythmical expression of the same forms--sometimes the best, sometimes merely the most popular expression--but that the development in presentation has been toward prose, especially for the more psychological and complex material.

On the basis of content, narratives fall naturally into two large divisions: those that recount imaginary happenings and those that recount actual happenings. These large divisions in turn fall into smaller and still smaller groups upon one basis or another--source, purpose, method, or what not.

Under the division of narratives of fictitious events we notice six groups, when we are thinking of source and purpose: (1) the primitive-religious; (2) the symbolic-didactic; (3) the ingenious-astonishing; (4) the merely entertaining; (5) the instructive; (6) the artistic. Within these groups come the following individual types: (1) myth, legend, fairy tale, nursery saga; (2) fable, parable, allegory; (3) the tale of mere wonder, the imaginary voyage with a satiric or expository purpose, the tale of scientific discovery and mechanical invention, the detective story; (4) the probable adventure, the society story, the humorous and picaresque story, the occasional story; (5) the moral tale, the pedagogical narrative, the realistic sketch; (6) the psychological weird tale; the story that emphasises place and character, the story that emphasizes events and character.

On the basis of form and of the attitude of the teller, narratives of actual events fall into three groups. The first set has five types: incident, anecdote, eye-witness account, traveler's sketch, and the tale of actual adventure. The second set includes journal and diary, autobiography and memoirs, biography. The third set is composed of annals, and chronicles and true relations. Instead of naming these sets, we might describe them thus: The first is made up of particular accounts of the doings of the writer and others in chance groups; the second, of more-or-less extended accounts of the sayings and doings of individual personages who for the time are important and either write about themselves or are written about; the third, of impersonal accounts of the doings of larger or smaller sections of mankind as units.

Of course, the types fade into one another, and it is only in analyzing that a person would draw a hard and fast line between any two of them; but it is permissible to draw this line for the convenience of study and discussion. After an investigator has learned all the kinds, he may classify a given story into one or the other group according to the predominating characteristics, or he may make a group of narratives of mixed kinds, and consider the various elements.

If he is trying, however, to write also, as well as to study according to the suggestions of this book, it would be a good plan for him to endeavor to produce at each attempt a rather more than less pure example of the type under consideration, so as to get as a result not only an interesting narrative, but a working model either for criticism or further production. For a person to have studied carefully an analysis of a type, to have read a distinct literary example of it, and to have attempted to put together a narrative that contains the essential elements, ought to mean that he has in his possession a piece of knowledge that will be valuable to him all his life, irrespective of any purely artistic quality of his achievement. That quality will probably be present much more surely than he at first expects; for a large part of the excellence of a piece of literature results from definite knowledge on the part of the writer, a clear aim to produce a particular kind of composition, and an indefatigable perseverance in revision of details. By emphasis on knowledge and work one would not preclude inspiration. Indeed, one would thereby court it; for, as we all know, it comes usually only to the expert and patient toiler. Even Robert Burns labored long over his reputedly spontaneous songs. The thought came to him often at the plough, it is true; but he confesses that afterwards he spent many hours polishing his lines.