n of minor incidents to a final outcome is an essential
necessity of the plot. The plot, indeed, is the arrangement of incidents
with reference to the denouement. The development of the plot should be
such as to indicate an end toward which the succession of incidents is
tending, and yet such as to keep the reader in suspense with regard to
the nature of that end. There must be novelty in the happenings, and yet
the novelty must not be so great as to keep the reader confused or
strain belief. The permanent hold upon us of a piece of fiction is
enhanced if it embodies some central truth, illustrating the working out
of some law of life, or involved in the personal attitude of the writer
toward some problem of existence. Only dilettanteism and superficiality
forget that an artist, giving the form of beauty to his conceptions, is
trying to make them as significant to others as they are to him, and
that aesthetic and ethical, or spiritual, significance are inextricably
interwoven. It will, of course, be the care of the artist to see that
any didactic purpose is not obtrusive.

_F_2b_ 1. A tray of glasses was placed on the table with great
solemnity by the "wricht," who made no sign and invited
none. 2. You might have supposed that the circumstance
_F_2b_ had escaped the notice of the company, so abstracted and
unconscious was their manner, had it not been that two
graven images a minute later are standing by the table.

_m_3k_ 3. "Ye 'ill taste, Tammas," with settled melancholy.

_m_3k_ 4. "Na, na; I've nae incleenation the day; it's an awful
_F_2a_ dispensation, this, Jeems. 5. She wuld be barely saxty."

_m_3k_ 6. "Ay, ay, but we maun keep up the body sae lang as we're
here, Tammas."

_c_2/c_4_ 7. "Weel, puttin' it that way, a'm not sayin' but yir
_m__2 richt," yielding unwillingly to the force of circumstance.

_c_4/m_3_ 8. "We're here the day and there the morn, Tammas. 9. She
_m__3 was a fine wumman--Mistress Stirton--a weel-livin' wumman:
this will be a blend, a'm thinkin'."

_c_4/m_3_ 10. "She slippit aff sudden in the end; a'm judgin' it's
_m__3 frae the Muirtown grocer; but a body canna discreeminate
on a day like this."

11. It was George Howe's funeral that broke the custom and
_F_2b_ closed the "service." 12. When I came into the ga