Virgil

I've been reading Henry James's The Turn of the Screw and I came across this fabulous sentence that has had me pondering it and breaking it down for days now.

The limit of this evil time had arrived only when, on the dawn of a winter’s morning, Peter Quint was found, by a labourer going to work, stone dead on the road from the village: a catastrophe explained—superficially at least—by a visible wound to his head; such a wound as might have been produced (and as, on the final evidence, had been) by a fatal slip, in the dark and after leaving the public-house, on the steepish icy slope, a wrong path altogether, at the bottom of which he lay.

Let me fragment it into phrases and clauses:

The limit of this evil time had arrived (main clause)
only when…Peter Quint was found…stone dead (adverbial modifier of “had arrived,” subordinate clause)
on the dawn of a winter’s morning (adverbial modifier of “had arrived,” adverb phrase)
by a labourer going to work (adverbial modifier of “was found,” adverb phrase)
on the road from the village (adverbial modifier of “was found,” adverb phrase)
a catastrophe explained…by a visible wound to his head (past participle phrase modifying “stone dead”)
superficially at least (adverb phrase modifying “explained”)
such a wound as might have been produced by a fatal slip (subordinate clause, conditional modifying “visible wound”)
and as, on the final evidence, had been (parallel subordinate clause definite modifying “visible wound”)
in the dark and after leaving the public-house (adverb phrase modifying “slip”)
on the steepish icy slope (adjective phrase modifying “stone dead”)a wrong path altogether (adjective phrase modifying “on the road to the village”)
at the bottom of which he lay (adjective clause modifying either “icy slope” or wrong path”)

The sentence seems to break down into four parts:
1. The main clause and the modifiers that go along with it: “The limit of this evil time had arrived only when, on the dawn of a winter’s morning, Peter Quint was found, by a labourer going to work, stone dead on the road from the village”
2. The modifying past participle phrase that explains how he was found: “a catastrophe explained—superficially at least—by a visible wound to his head”
3. The two parallel subordinate clause that modifies the wound and the slip: “such a wound as might have been produced (and as, on the final evidence, had been) by a fatal slip, in the dark and after leaving the public-house”
4. A string of adjective modifiers, modifying various nouns throughout the previous part of the sentence: “on the steepish icy slope, a wrong path altogether, at the bottom of which he lay.”

One could write a lot about this sentence. The fact that it’s another winding sentence which ends with the body down the slope of the sentence aesthetically reproduces the subject of the sentence.

Second, it’s a right branching sentence, meaning that the main clause occurs first and the cumulative modifiers occur after it, giving it a sort of tail to the sentence, ending with the most important or the most tangibly rich material at the end. Notice how the kernel of the sentence is rather dull: “The limit had arrived.” The limit is an abstraction, and the verb “had arrived” is passive. There’s nothing interesting or forceful about that at all. I grant you, the “limit of the evil time” is an interesting notion, but that’s still abstract, abstractions modified by abstractions (evil and time). The tangible imagery accumulates to the significant conclusion.

Third it presents the relationship between the focal points of the two halves of the sentence: the evil time with the body of Peter Quint. To break the two focal points into their own sentence is to weaken the relationship, or rather by putting them together is to strengthen the relationship. And both the notion of evil linked to Peter Quint (and his ghost) is crucial to the theme of the story. This sentence shows James is a real master at both the art of telling a story and writing sentences.

Fourth, it’s an incredibly stately sentence. To break each part of the sentence down to its own sentence (say as Hemingway is stereotyped to do) would reduce such a critical sentence in the story to a bunch of deflated phrases pumped up into puny clauses that would cause the themes here to squeak rather than roar.

Fifth, and the most important to me, the cumulative nature of the modifiers, modifying various points in the sentence, at the beginning, at the middle, at the end, back and forth, non-sequential, creates a three dimensionality to the scene. Each modifier backfills more information, enriches the vision: “on the dawn of a winter’s morning,” “ by a labourer going to work,” “stone dead on the road from the village,” “ a visible wound to his head,” “by a fatal slip, in the dark and after leaving the public-house, on the steepish icy slope, a wrong path altogether, at the bottom of which he lay.” More and more information is cumulatively added to flesh out the scene, making it more real, giving the voice speaking more authority and persuasion. The very act of seeking more information to put in, to accumulate, enhances the creativity. Backfilling creates richness. Here’s the best I could do to fragment all the information into a less complex set of sentences:

The limit of this evil time had arrived only when Peter Quint was found stone dead on the road from the village, a wrong path altogether. He was found on a winter’s morning with a visible wound to his head. Such a wound might have been produced by a fatal slip, and later on it was determined it had been caused by the slip in the dark and after leaving the public-house, on the steepish icy slope. He was found by a labourer at dawn laying at the bottom.

Now if all the imagery there would have come to me writing that paragraph, still notice how amateurish that paragraph sounds besides James’s magnificent sentence.