Basil

PART III. I. WHEN the blind are operated on for the restoration of sight, the same succouring hand which has opened to them the visible world, immediately shuts out the bright prospect again, for a time. A bandage is passed over the eyes, lest in the first tenderness of the recovered sense, it should be fatally affected by the sudden transition from darkness to light.

Bandaged sight after moral operation marks the plot turn from secret marriage to catastrophic knowing — so plot scores 83.

“Mr. Mannion is my confidential clerk, Sir—a most superior person, most highly talented, and well read, and all that.” “Is he a young man?” “Young! Oh, dear no! Mr. Mannion is forty, or a year or two more, if he’s a day”

Clerk introduced as superior, middle-aged, already ominous — cast seeds the later disfigured antagonist — so cast scores 85.

PART II. I. AN epoch in my narrative has now arrived. Up to the time of my marriage, I have appeared as an active agent in the different events I have described. After that period, and—with one or two exceptional cases—throughout the whole year of my probation, my position changed with the change in my life, and became a passive one.

Explicit shift from active courtship to passive probation year — paced as structural epoch — so pace scores 78.

WHAT am I now about to write? The history of little more than the events of one year, out of the twenty-four years of my life.… I am now about to relate the story of an error, innocent in its beginning, guilty in its progress, fatal in its results

Confessional triad innocent/guilty/fatal — plain moral rhetoric as narrative engine — so prose scores 84.

Mr. Sherwin kept a large linen-draper’s shop in one of the great London thoroughfares!… A linen-draper’s shop—a linen-draper’s daughter! Was I still…

Shop address detonates class geography — London thoroughfare as mésalliance map — so world scores 80.

Why do I undertake such an employment as this? Perhaps, because I think that my narrative may do good; because I hope that, one day, it may be put to some warning use.

Warning-use contract hooks before Margaret appears — confession as moral exhibit — so hook scores 86.

“Do you know me again?” he said. “Do you know me for Robert Mannion?” As he pronounced his name, he raised the shade and looked at me. The first sight of that appalling face, with its ghastly discolouration of sickness, its hideous deformity of feature, its fierce and changeless malignity of expression glaring full on me in the piercing noonday sunshine

Disfigured face as living emblem of revenge — psychological-gothic innovation for 1852 — so innov scores 87.

I have done. The calm summer evening has stolen on me while I have been writing to you; and Clara’s voice—now the happy voice of the happy old times—calls to me from our garden seat to come out and look at the sunset over the distant sea. Once more—farewell!

Sunset cottage with Clara replaces urban catastrophe — restorative letter-close — so ending scores 82.