STARTING POINT AND FIRST PROCESSES. “Mr. Eberdeen’s House” was to
have been originally only the effect of an old New England House upon
a New Englander who had become rather enfranchised from his austere
beginnings, and returned to find them only more crabbed, more grim,
than ever, and himself strangely, inexplicably connected with them.
The explanation of how he was connected with this distasteful setting,
and of why it was distasteful to him evolved the author’s theme.
The hero’s great-grandmother had fled from the same grimness and
straight-lacedness and puritanism by running away with a Frenchman,
just before the birth of her child, of whom Mr. Eberdeen was, contrary
to his bleak, orthodox suspicions, the father. The author’s plan was to
have Mr. Eberdeen, representing all that was distasteful to the hero
(Hastings) in the New England character, the hero’s ancestor without
his knowing it--the great-grandmother after she had fled, having
presumably taken the name, for herself and child, of Tremaine.
The ghosts seemed to Mr. Johnson the only media through which to tell
the story pictorially. Whether one believes ghosts in a story real or
not is, in his opinion, beside the point, so long as they _seem_ real
enough for the sake of the telling. They may be compared to the _deus
ex machina_ of Euripides, of to the scenes in motion pictures which
show what some one is dreaming or thinking.
ANALYSIS OF THE DEVELOPED STORY. Some inner stories may be detached
from the outer husk as a letter is drawn from its envelope (find
examples in these collections). Others are a necessary part of the
external interest and refuse to be separated without damage to each.
This story is one of the latter sort.
Jack Hastings and Julia Elliott are betrothed. He has come to New
England, after some time in Paris, to make her a visit. It is
understood, at the end of the action, that they will go abroad to live.
So much for the outer wrappings which are bound so closely to the heart
of the matter, as is indicated in the
_Preparation for the Significant Part, or the Inner Story_: Jack’s
mystic knowledge of “Mr. Eberdeen’s” house; his strange mood; “they
talked of it bein’ ha’nted.” These details are followed by the more
immediate preparation; Jack is ill and sleepy, he sleeps. (Or _does_
he sleep?)
Here, then, the outer story merges, by way of Jack as a medium, with
the inner.
_Dramatic Climax of the Entire Story_: (Formed by the developed scene
which constitutes the inner action.)
_Explanation_: The characters are Jack Hastings, his counterpart,
and the woman. Jack in his dream or vision apparently represents in
his thoughts part of the personality of his great-grandfather; the
ghostly counterpart represents that ancestor as he really behaved,
at what must have been the original enactment of the scene. (Except,
of course, that Jack was absent from that drama, played long before
his birth.) This unique treatment of dual personality should be
studied with Markheim, William Wilson, Jekyll and Hyde. For daring
and yet naturalness combined with mysticism, it surpasses them. The
end of the scene, in Jack’s vision, shows the ancestor about to do
violence to his wife (Jack’s great-grandmother), but restrained by
Jack himself. (Interpreted, this is to say that the better nature of
Jack’s ancestor had actually triumphed and he had rushed from his
wife.)
_The Climax of Action_ (_Whole of the Story_): Jack Hastings awakes
to find that he has been ill. He lies in a state of semi-realization,
of semi-lapse into the world of his recent adventure.
_Dénouement_: Julia and Hastings plan to live abroad. The old man
whom Jack had met appears and suggests that he saw the lady of the
house go from it to meet Henry. (Is this old man a figment of the
fancy or is he real?) In this addition to Jack’s vision is furnished
the _dénouement_ of the inner story, Julia leads Jack to Mr.
Eberdeen’s room, which proves to be the one wherein he had seen the
ghostly drama. The original of “John” is the portrait Julia had hung
upon the panel. Julia reveals that when Jack came downstairs he had
looked like the portrait. Clinching the reality of the whole thing is
the discovery of the gray chiffon, with the bloodstains.
COMMENT. This, then, is a narrative the mystery of which must be
explained by each reader to his own satisfaction. If the reader
“believes” in the supernatural, he will take the whole thing, ghostly
scene and all, as somehow occurring. If he does not “believe,” he
will then accept the scene as the obsession of a sick man--with a
few details left in mystery. I should class it as a story of the
supernatural, wherein the appearance is visible to the sick or the
clairvoyant mind. Knowing that the germinal idea had to do with the
effect of a house upon a man, and that the story is developed by
emphasis on this feeling, deepened by a ghostly visitation, one would
find it impossible to characterize the story as other than one of
atmosphere. And it is the best atmosphere story in the four Yearbooks.
The right way to achieve an atmosphere story, Stevenson told us long
ago, is to begin with a mood induced by a place; Mr. Johnson has
pursued the plan.
Atmosphere is, then, bound up with setting; plot interest follows in
importance; character is of note mainly in the unique manifestation
of dual personality. A dreamer, an artist, an idealist--any sensitive
medium--would fittingly play the part demanded. The love interest
enriches the action and humanizes the character.