Grandcourt.

The expedient of antithesis is also employed effectively in the
balance of scene against scene. The absolute desolation which
terminates "The Masque of the Red Death" is preceded by "a masked ball
of the most unusual magnificence." In Scott's "Kenilworth," we pass
from the superb festivities which Leicester institutes in honor of
Queen Elizabeth, to the lonely prison where Amy Robsart, his discarded
wife, is languishing. Victor Hugo is, in modern fiction, the greatest
master of antithesis of mood between scene and scene. His most
emphatic effects are attained, like those of Gothic architecture, by a
juxtaposition of the grotesque and the sublime. Often, to be sure, he
overworks the antithetic; and entire sections of his narrative move
like the walking-beam of a ferry-boat, tilting now to this side, now
to that. But in spite of his excess in employing this device, his
practice should be studied carefully; for at his best he illustrates
more convincingly than any other author the effectiveness of emphasis
by contrast.

The subtlest way of employing this expedient is to present an
antithesis of mood within a single scene. Dame Quickly's account of
Falstaff's death touches at once the heights of humor and the depths
of pathos. At the close of "Mrs. Bathurst," the tragic narrative is
interrupted by the passage of a picnic-party singing a light
love-song. Shylock, in his great dialogue with Tubal, is at the same
moment plunged in melancholy over the defection of his daughter and
flushed with triumph because he has Antonio at last within his
clutches. Each emotion seems more potent because it is contrasted with
the other. In Mr. Kipling's "Love-o'-Women," the tragic effect is
enhanced by the fact that the tale is told by the humorous Mulvaney.
Thus:--

"'An' now?' she sez, lookin' at him; an' the red paint stud lone on
the white av her face like a bull's-eye on a target.

"He lifted up his eyes, slow an' very slow, an' he looked at her long
an' very long, an' he tuk his spache betune his teeth wid a wrench
that shuk him.

"'I'm dyin', Aigypt--dyin',' he says; ay, those were his words, for I
remimber the name he called her. He was turnin' the death-color, but
his eyes niver rowled. They were set--set on her. Widout word or
warnin' she opened her arms full stretch, an' 'Here!' she sez. (Oh,
fwhat a golden mericle av a voice ut was.) 'Die here,' she sez; an'
Love-o'-Women dhropped forward, an' she hild him up,