spectacles will horrify. Likewise, a person may produce a feeling of
disgust in an observer or reader, but so will an infinite number of
other persons, all radically different from each other and the first.
But the emotional effect of the west coast of Scotland is special and
peculiar to that setting; there is no single word in the language
characterizing it. That is why Stevenson had to write "The Merry Men" to
state it, just as Poe had to write "The Fall of the House of Usher" to
state the specific emotional effect of that particular house, and Hardy
had to write "The Return of the Native" to state the emotional value of
his Wessex moors.

Moreover, when the writer finds the germ of his story in a person seen
actually or in imagination, it is more than likely that the emphasis of
the completed work will be on character, and when he finds it in an
event or situation, it is more than likely that the emphasis of the
completed work will be on plot. But when a countryside or house or
stretch of sea-coast suggests a story, it can hardly result otherwise
than that the completed work will emphasize the emotional value of the
setting.

The setting of the strict story of atmosphere may determine its
emotional effect, but the emotional tendency of the setting must not be
affected adversely by the people or the events. That is why the setting
is not atmosphere, though it may determine the atmosphere. A gloomy and
terrific setting will have small emotional effect upon a reader if the
people and events of the story are not such as to deepen the impression
initiated by the setting, for the people and events cannot be
emotionally neutral. If they are seemingly real, that is, if the story
is well told apart from the matter of atmosphere, they will make some
impression on a reader. Unless their impression is of a piece with that
of the setting, the unity of emotional effect will be destroyed. And if
there is no unity of emotional effect, there is no atmosphere, in the
strict sense.

Confession is good for the soul; let me say that if there is a technique
of writing so as to produce a unity of emotional effect I am unable to
state it. The matter is exceptionally delicate, and only the broadest
sort of abstract statement can be made. One can state--as I have
stated--that the emotional effect of a story of atmosphere is usually
initiated by and dependent on the setting, and that the emotional effect
initiated by the setting must be rei