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from "The Corners." 6. A woman at the station. 7. Mrs. Humphrey's kitchen. 8. The trail of war. Subjects for character studies. 1. The village oracle. 2. The landlord of the Lion Inn. 3. The old stage-driver. 4. The conductor. 5. An old-fashioned music-master. 6. A pirate captain. 7. A country beau. 8. Deacon Bradley. 9. The school bully. 10. The female suffragist. 11. One of the four hundred. 12. A disciple of Mrs. Eddy. 13. "The man with the hoe." 14. The scissors grinder. 15. Captain Doty of the police. 16. A candidate for office. THE COMPLETE STORY The invention of situations and plots can hardly be a matter of class-room instruction. If stories come to one, it is well. Study of the detailed means of making them living for the reader will then be worth while. The student should be encouraged to invent plots of his own, but as a simplification of this difficulty, to the end that some exercise in the writing of a complete story may be had, plots of some successful published stories are here given with suggestions regarding methods of treatment. I Scene, a saloon where both men and women are drinking. One of them, a girl, thinks she sees at the window the face of Christ with his tender eyes. She leaves and will not permit the others to go with her. At a little distance she comes upon the stranger waiting for her. He tells her that when she wakes it will be to a new life and she will be his, bidding her go to a house he points out and remain for the night. She obeys, and the man passes into the shadow. Introductory sentence in the original, giving the atmosphere of the story: "This was the story the mystic told." Concluding sentence in the original, connecting it with our sense of unfathomable mysteries: "And this the listener gravely asked, 'One was chosen, the others left. Were the others less in need of grace?'" Divisions of the story. 1. Visualizing description of the saloon and of the street outside through which the stranger passes. 2. Appearance of the face at the pane and its effect on the young girl (_m_3_ "effect"). This is the difficult part of the story, and the reader can be made to believe in it only through sympathy with the girl's feeling. 3. The talk of her companions and her answers (_m_3_). 4. Her search for the stranger in the night (_m_3_). 5. His talk to her whe
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