h from
"An Autumn Effect" by Mr. Stevenson. The simple events are perfectly
ordered, and there is a delightful surprise at the end. This paragraph
has a plot. Yet the thirty pages of "An Autumn Effect" could not be
said to have a plot.

"Bidding good-morning to my fellow-traveler, I left the road
and struck across country. It was rather a revelation to
pass from between the hedgerows and find quite a bustle on
the other side, a great coming and going of school-children
upon by-paths, and, in every second field, lusty horses and
stout country-folk a-ploughing. The way I followed took me
through many fields thus occupied, and through many strips
of plantation, and then over a little space of smooth turf,
very pleasant to the feet, set with tall fir-trees and
clamorous with rooks, making ready for the winter, and so
back again into the quiet road. I was now not far from the
end of my day's journey. A few hundred yards farther, and,
passing through a gap in the hedge, I began to go down hill
through a pretty extensive tract of young beeches. I was
soon in shadow myself, but the afternoon sun still colored
the upmost boughs of the wood, and made a fire over my head
in the autumnal foliage. A little faint vapor lay among the
slim tree-stems in the bottom of the hollow; and from
farther up I heard from time to time an outburst of gross
laughter, as though clowns were making merry in the bush.
There was something about the atmosphere that brought all
sights and sounds home to one with a singular purity, so
that I felt as if my senses had been washed with water.
After I had crossed the little zone of mist, the path began
to remount the hill; and just as I, mounting along with it,
had got back again from the head downwards, into the thin
golden sunshine, I saw in front of me a donkey tied to a
tree. Now, I have a certain liking for donkeys, principally,
I believe, because of the delightful things that Sterne has
written of them. But this was not after the pattern of the
ass at Lyons. He was of a white color, that seemed to fit
him rather for rare festal occasions than for constant
drudgery. Besides, he was very small, and of the daintiest
proportions you can imagine in a donkey. And so, sure
enough, you had only to look at him to see he had never
wo