t is in many respects the most difficult, since the
writer must have regard for unity and the related principles, as well as
for the qualities which peculiarly distinguish it. Experience, beauty,
and truth are all available as subject-matter, and all the principles
governing literary composition are concerned. Here we shall find the
poem, the drama, the oration in some of its forms, most essays of the
better sort, the greater part of good critical writing, literary
description, and all narrative forms except the matter-of-fact
historical writing of unliterary scholars.

=15. Two Things Requisite in Writing.=--It is to be borne in mind that
the foregoing classifications are by no means absolute. Gardiner in his
"Forms of Prose Literature" says very truly that the "essential
elements, not only of literature, but of all the fine arts, are: first,
an organic unity of conception; and second, the pervasive personality of
the artist." It is true that much of our writing does not aspire to
literary character, but in very little of our writing of any sort can we
afford to neglect the first of these elements, and in very little of it
do we care to leave the second out of account. Even in exposition of the
simpler sort we may give to our writing the distinction of a more
luminous style and the stronger appeal of a warmer personal interest, if
we shape it into organic unity and make evident in it "the pervasive
personality of the artist."

THE STORY IN PARTICULAR

=16. The Art of the Story.=--However abstract the thinking of civilized
man may become, "all our intelligence," to quote Ladd's "Outlines of
Physiological Psychology," "is intelligence about something or other,
... resting on a basis of sensations and volitions." Difficult as it is
and difficult as are the problems involved in its construction, the
story is from some points of view the most elementary of literary forms.
It is concerned directly with matters of sensation and volition. If it
is to play upon our emotions, it must revive sensations and volitions,
make us in some degree part of the action. Experience is at once its
warp and woof, but while it gives us new experiences, it must, in
connection with them, revive old ones and so become tangible and real
for us.

Of the memories that have come to us through the senses of sight,
hearing, touch, smell, and taste, those that are visual are probably the
most clearly defined and persistent for most people. Th