STYLE IN NARRATION. 1. William Makepeace Thackeray. Born 1811. Died 1863. FROM Vanity Fair, CHAPTER XXXII. IN WHICH JOS TAKES FLIGHT, AND THE WAR IS BROUGHT TO A CLOSE. [The effect of the passage which follows may best be summed up in the words of Professor Wendell : 'An interesting composition from this point of view [rhetorical mass] is the chapter in Vanity Fair which tells of the battle of Waterloo. In point of fact, I rather think Thackeray had never seen a great battle, and was too prudent an artist to venture on the description of a very notable kind of thing which he knew only from hearsay. He lays his scene in Brussels, then, and tells with great vividness and detail the story of the panic there,-not essentially a different thing from any other scene of general excitement and confusion and terror; a great deal nearer the ordinary experience of human beings than any form of battle, murder, or sudden death. But he never lets you forget that what has made this panic is Waterloo: every now and then you hear the growling of the cannon, and feel, hovering not far off, the dreadful shadow of Bonaparte. So-in my little Tauchnitz edition-he writes for twenty-two pages, dwelling at greatest length on that part of his subject which he was best able to treat, and leaving in the reader's mind-what every writer really wishes to leave there— a deep sense of reality and of power. But this has not told his whole story. In the last page and a half he tells very briefly what had been doing in the field all this time, and in his very last paragraph—and the very last words of it—he tells the fact which makes the passage an essential part of his story. . . For skilful massing that chapter has always impressed me as notable. It is the space given to Brussels that emphasizes the part of the story which Thackeray could tell best; it is the placing of that single sentence about George Osborne-not even a sentence, only a relative clause-which leaves it once for all inevitably in the reader's memory."—English Composition, p. 171. Specifically, the battle is kept before the reader in several ways there is first the narrative of the general alarm at the news that the French had entered Belgium, and the panic which followed the marching out of the English from Brussels; then follows Jos's scare, played upon by the resoluteness of Mrs. O'Dowd, the braggart tale of the Belgian hussar, and Rebecca's trickery; the proclamation of the actual result of Quatre Bras; the arrival of Tom Stubble with news from the field; the long night watches; the nearer and vaguer and more appalling rumors of the second day; the flight of Jos; and the brief narrative of Waterloo itself. In each of these well-blended episodes the style is fitted to the point of view; there is some scurry at first; Jos's absurdities are genuinely humorous; and the simple dignity of the style in the last scene adds much to the climax. The purpose of the whole is undoubtedly to convey through style, as well as through the events, the miscellaneous effect of panic. The closing chapter of The Newcomes deserves comparison with this. As in the foregoing passage from Silas Marner (III., 7) the spelling of the English edition is retained.] WE of peaceful London city have never beheld— and please God never shall witness-such a scene of hurry and alarm as that which Brussels presented. Crowds rushed to the Namur gate, from which direction the noise proceeded, and many rode along the level chaussée, to be in advance of any intelligence from the army. Each man asked his neighbour for news; and even great English lords and ladies con |