t plot. This is the form of
narration employed in newspapers in giving the events of the day. It
is used in journals, memoirs, biographies, and many elementary
histories. It makes little demand upon an author further than that he
shall say clearly something that is interesting. Interesting it must
be, if the author wishes it to be read; readers will not stay over
dull material. Newspapers and magazines look out for interesting
material, and it is for the matter in them that they are read. So
memoirs and biographies are read, not to find out what happens at
last,--that is known,--but to pick up information concerning an
interesting subject.

Plot.

Or the sequence may be a more subtle and binding relation of cause and
effect. This is the sequence employed in stories. One thing happens
because another thing has happened. Generally the sequence of time and
the sequence of cause and effect correspond; for effects come after
causes. When, however, more than one cause is introduced, or when some
cause is at work which the author hides until he can most
advantageously produce it, or when an effect is held back for purposes
of creating interest, the events may not be related exactly in the
order in which they occurred. When any sequence is introduced in
addition to the simple sequence of time, or when the time sequence is
disturbed for the purpose of heightening interest, there is an
arrangement of the parts which is generally termed plot.

Plot is a term difficult to define. We feel, however, that Grant's
"Memoirs" have no plot, and we feel just as sure that "King Lear" has
a plot. So, too, we say that "Robinson Crusoe" has little, almost no
plot; that the plot is simple in "Treasure Island," and that "Les
Miserables" has an intricate plot. A plot seems to demand more than a
mere succession of events. _Any arrangement of the parts of a
narrative so that the reader's interest is aroused concerning the
result of the series of events detailed is a plot._

It often occurs that a book which, as a whole, is without a plot,
contains incidents which have a plot. In "Travels with a Donkey," by
Stevenson, no one cares for the plot of the whole book,--in fact there
is none; yet the reader is interested in the purchase of the "neat and
high bred" Modestine up to the "last interview with Father Adam in a
billiard-room at the witching hour of dawn, when I administered the
brandy." This incident has a plot. The following is a paragrap