A  New  England  Nun  presents  excellent  illustration  of
the  intimate  relation  that  exists  between  the  act  and  the
character  adjusted  to  the  act.  The  note  that  the  author
wishes  to  strike  is  contained  in  the  closing  paragraph:
Louisa  Ellis's  deliberate  renunciation  of  her  birthright  —
a  faithful  husband  and  assured  life-companionship  —  in
exchange  for  the  isolation  of  the  cloistered  nun,  where,  in
the  society  of  the  fluffy  canary  bird  and  the  rampageous
Ceesar,  she  might  pass  her  days  sewing  linen  seams  and
distilling  roses.  As  the  personality  best  suited  to  the  ex-
position of  this  humble  preference  for  neatness  and  fidel-
ity to  the  little  details  of  prim  housekeeping,  the  author
selects  a  New  England  village  and  a  conventional  old
maid.  Between  the  simple  action  of  the  story  and  the
principal  agent  there  is  a  fitness  of  adjustment  that  re-
sults in  remarkable  unity  of  effect.  If,  now,  this  story  were
to  be  recast  so  that  instead  of  plain  Louisa  Ellis  we  should
have  a  Genoese  noblewoman  of  historic  lineage,  residing
in  her  ancestral  palace  on  the  Strada  Nuova,  the  loss  of
effect  would  at  once  become  evident.  It  is  not  that  the
conception  of  Genoese  nobility  is  essentially  inconsis-
tent with  that  of  maiden  ladies  and  of  renunciation  of  all
marital  responsibilities,  yet  the  reader  is  at  once  con-


128    RHETORICAL  PRINCIPLES  OF  NARRATION

scious  of  an  incongruity  in  the  one  characterization  that
does  not  offend  him  in  the  other.  The  narrative  carries
conviction  and  satisfaction  when  the  reader  feels  that
the  peculiarities  of  characterization  blend  with  the  nar-
rative and  invigorate  it,  and  when  he  is  not  forced  into
believing  that  the  narrative  exists  for  the  mere  sake  of
setting  forth  oddities  of  characterization.
With  the  amateur  the  method  is  often  quite  different.
