iter
of fiction; but this ability is applied to best advantage when it is
exercised within certain limitations. In the first place, there is no
use in making the reader wait unless he is first given an inkling of
what he is to wait for. The reader should be tantalized; he should be
made to long for the fruit that is just beyond his grasp; and he
should not be left in ignorance as to the nature of the fruit, lest he
should long for it half-heartedly. A vague sense of "something
evermore about to be" is not so interesting to the reader as a vivid
sense of the imminence of some particular occurrence that he wishes
ardently to witness. The expedient of suspense is most effective when
either of two things and only two, both of which the reader has
imagined in advance, is just about to happen, and the reader, desirous
of the one and apprehensive of the other, is kept waiting while the
balance trembles. In the second place, there is seldom any use in
making the reader wait unless he is given in the end the thing he has
been waiting for. A short-story may occasionally set forth a suspense
which is never to be satisfied. Frank R. Stockton's famous tale, "The
Lady or the Tiger?", ends with a question which neither the reader nor
the author is able to answer; and Bayard Taylor's fascinating
short-story, "Who Was She?", never reveals the alluring secret of the
heroine's identity. But in an extended story an unsatisfied suspense
is often less emphatic than no suspense at all, because the reader in
the end feels cheated by the author who has made him wait for nothing.
There are, of course, exceptions to this statement. In "The Marble
Faun," Hawthorne is undoubtedly right in never revealing the shape of
Donatello's ears, even though the reader continually expects the
revelation; but, in the same novel, it is difficult to see what, if
anything, is gained by making the reader wait in vain for the truth
about the shadowy past of Miriam.

=11. Emphasis by Imitative Movement.=--Emphasis in narrative may also
be attained by imitative movement. Whatever is imagined to have
happened quickly should be narrated quickly, in few words and in rapid
rhythm; and whatever is imagined to have happened slowly should be
narrated in a more leisurely manner,--sometimes in a greater number of
words than are absolutely necessitated by the sense alone,--the words
being arranged, furthermore, in a rhythm of appreciable sluggishness.
In "Markheim," the dealer