each litter with its own little knot of
mourners. Wherefore they kissed each other and shivered."

=Irony in Setting.=--An emotional contrast of this nature between the
mood of the characters and the mood of the setting may be pushed to
the point of irony. In a story by Alphonse Daudet, entitled "The
Elixir of the Reverend Father Gaucher," a certain monastery is saved
from financial ruin by the sale of a cordial which Father Gaucher has
invented and distilled. But the necessity of sampling the cordial
frequently during the process of manufacturing it leads the reverend
father eventually to become an habitual drunkard. And toward the end
of the story an ironic contrast is drawn between the solemn monastery,
murmurous with chants and prayers, and Father Gaucher in his
distillery hilariously singing a ribald drinking-song.

=Artistic and Philosophical Employment.=--The uses of setting that
have been thus far considered have been artistic rather than
philosophical in nature; but very recent writers have grown to use the
element not only for the sake of illustrating character and action but
also for the sake of determining them. The sociologists of the
nineteenth century have come to regard circumstance as a prime motive
for action, and environment as a prime influence on character; and
recent writers have applied this philosophic thesis in their
employment of the element of setting.

=1. Setting as a Motive Toward Action.=--The way in which the setting
may suggest the action is thus discoursed upon by Stevenson in his
"Gossip on Romance":--

"Drama is the poetry of conduct, romance the poetry of circumstance.
The pleasure that we take in life is of two sorts--the active and the
passive. Now we are conscious of a great command over our destiny;
anon we are lifted up by circumstance, as by a breaking wave, and
dashed we know not how into the future. Now we are pleased by our
conduct, anon merely pleased by our surroundings. It would be hard to
say which of these modes of satisfaction is the more effective, but
the latter is surely the more constant....

"One thing in life calls for another; there is a fitness in events and
places. The sight of a pleasant arbour puts it in our mind to sit
there. One place suggests work, another idleness, a third early rising
and long rambles in the dew. The effect of night, of any flowing
water, of lighted cities, of the peep of day, of ships, of the open
ocean, calls up in the mind an