ascribe such emotions to them. But, on the other
hand, it is indubitably true that human beings habitually translate
their own abstract feelings into the concrete terms of their
surroundings; and therefore, in a subjective sense at least, an
emotional harmony frequently does exist between the mood of a man
and the aspect of his environment. The same place may at the same
time look gloomy to a melancholy man and cheerful to a merry one;
and there is therefore a certain human fitness in describing it as
gloomy or as cheerful, according to the feeling of the character
observing it. Doubtless to a man tremendously bereaved the very rain
may seem a weeping of high heaven; and surely there are times when
it is deeply true, subjectively, to say that the morning stars all
sing together. What we may call emotional similarity of setting is
therefore not necessarily a fallacy. Even when it subverts the
actual, as in the fable of the morning stars, it may yet be
representative of reality. In its commoner and less exaggerative
phases it is very useful for purposes of suggestion; and only when
it becomes blatant through abuse may it be said to belie the laws of
life.

=Emotional Contrast in Setting.=--Frequently, however, emotional
similarity between the setting and the characters is less serviceable,
for the sake of emphasis, than emotional contrast. In the following
passage from Mr. Kipling's "Without Benefit of Clergy," the serene and
perfect happiness of Holden and Ameera is emphasized by contrast with
the night-aspect of the plague-infested city:--

"'My lord and my love, let there be no more foolish talk of going
away. Where thou art, I am. It is enough.' She put an arm round his
neck and a hand on his mouth.

"There are not many happinesses so complete as those that are snatched
under the shadow of the sword. They sat together and laughed, calling
each other openly by every pet name that could move the wrath of the
gods. The city below them was locked up in its own torments. Sulphur
fires blazed in the streets; the conches in the Hindu temples screamed
and bellowed, for the gods were inattentive in those days. There was a
service in the great Mahomedan shrine, and the call to prayer from the
minarets was almost unceasing. They heard the wailing in the houses of
the dead, and once the shriek of a mother who had lost a child and was
calling for its return. In the gray dawn they saw the dead borne out
through the city gates,