series. For this reason, Stevenson states in his
advice to the young writer, from which we have already quoted: "Let
him choose a motive, whether of character or passion: carefully
construct his plot so that every incident is an illustration of the
motive, and every property employed shall bear to it a near relation
of congruity or contrast; ... and allow neither himself in the
narrative, nor any character in the course of the dialogue, to utter
one sentence that is not part and parcel of the business of the story
or the discussion of the problem involved. Let him not regret if this
shortens his book; it will be better so; for to add irrelevant matter
is not to lengthen but to bury. Let him not mind if he miss a thousand
qualities, so that he keeps unflaggingly in pursuit of the one he has
chosen." And earlier in the same essay, he says of the novel: "For
the welter of impressions, all forcible but all discreet, which life
presents, it substitutes a certain artificial series of impressions,
all indeed most feebly represented, but all aiming at the same effect,
all eloquent of the same idea, all chiming together like consonant
notes in music or like the graduated tints in a good picture. From
all its chapters, from all its pages, from all its sentences,
the well-written novel echoes and re-echoes its one creative and
controlling thought; to this must every incident and character
contribute; the style must have been pitched in unison with this; and
if there is anywhere a word that looks another way, the book would be
stronger, clearer, and (I had almost said) fuller without it."

The only way in which the writer of narrative may attain the unity
that Stevenson has so eloquently pleaded for is to decide upon a
definite objective point, to bear in mind constantly the culmination
of his series of events, and to value the successive details of his
material only in so far as they contribute, directly or indirectly, to
the progress of the series toward that culmination. To say the thing
more simply, he must see the end of his story from the beginning and
must give the reader always a sense of rigorous movement toward that
end. His narrative, as a matter of construction, must be finished,
before, as a matter of writing, it is begun. He must know as
definitely as possible all that is to happen and all that is not to
happen in his story before he ventures to represent in words the very
first of his events. He must not, as some beg