The Craft of Fiction

by Percy Lubbock

  XVII

  The whole intricate question of method, in the craft of fiction, Itake to be governed by the question of the point of view--the questionof the relation in which the narrator stands to the story. He tells itas _he_ sees it, in the first place; the reader faces the story-tellerand listens, and the story may be told so vivaciously that thepresence of the minstrel is forgotten, and the scene becomes visible,peopled with the characters of the tale. It may be so, it very oftenis so for a time. But it is not so always, and the story-tellerhimself grows conscious of a misgiving. If the spell is weakened atany moment, the listener is recalled from the scene to the mere authorbefore him, and the story rests only upon the author's directassertion. Is it not possible, then, to introduce another point ofview, to set up a fresh narrator to bear the brunt of the reader'sscrutiny? If the story-teller is _in_ the story himself, the author isdramatized; his assertions gain in weight, for they are backed by thepresence of the narrator in the pictured scene. It is advantagescored; the author has shifted his responsibility, and it now fallswhere the reader can see and measure it; the arbitrary quality whichmay at any time be detected in the author's voice is disguised in thevoice of his spokesman. Nothing is now imported into the story fromwithout; it is self-contained, it has no associations with anyonebeyond its circle.

  Such is the first step towards dramatization, and in very many a storyit may be enough. The spokesman is there, in recognizable relationwith his matter; no question of his authority can arise. But now adifficulty may be started by the nature of the tale that he tells. Ifhe has nothing to do but to relate what he has seen, what anyone mighthave seen in his position, his account will serve very well; there isno need for more. Let him unfold his chronicle as it appears in hismemory. But if he is himself the subject of his story, if the storyinvolves a searching exploration of his own consciousness, an accountin his own words, after the fact, is not by any means the bestimaginable. Far better it would be to see him while his mind isactually at work in the agitation, whatever it may be, which is tomake the book. The matter would then be objective and visible to thereader, instead of reaching him in the form of a report at secondhand. But how to manage this without falling back upon the author and_his_ report, which has already been tried and for good reasons, as itseemed, abandoned? It is managed by a kind of repetition of the samestroke, a further shift of the point of view. The spectator, thelistener, the reader, is now himself to be placed at the angle ofvision; not an account or a report, more or less convincing, is to beoffered him, but a direct sight of the matter itself, while it ispassing. Nobody expounds or explains; the story is enacted by its lookand behaviour at particular moments. By the first stroke the narratorwas brought into the book and set before the reader; but the actionappeared only in his narrative. Now the action is there, proceedingwhile the pages are turned; the narrator is forestalled, he is watchedwhile the story is in the making. Such is the progress of the writerof fiction towards drama; such is his method of evading the drawbacksof a mere reporter and assuming the advantages, as far as possible, ofa dramatist. How far he may choose to push the process in hisbook--that is a matter to be decided by the subject; it entirelydepends upon the kind of effect that the theme demands. It may respondto all the dramatization it can get, it may give all that it has togive for less. The subject dictates the method.

  And now let the process be reversed, let us start with the purelydramatic subject, the story that will tell itself in perfectrightness, unaided, to the eye of the reader. This story neverdeviates from a strictly scenic form; one occasion or episode followsanother, with no interruption for any reflective summary of events.Necessarily it must be so, for it is only while the episode isproceeding that no question of a narrator can arise; when the scenecloses the play ceases till the opening of the next. To glance uponthe story from a height and to give a general impression of itscourse--this is at once to remove the point of view from the readerand to set up a new one somewhere else; the method is no longerconsistent, no longer purely dramatic. And the dramatic story is notonly scenic, it is also limited to so much as the ear can hear and theeye see. In rigid drama of this kind there is naturally no admissionof the reader into the private mind of any of the characters; theirthoughts and motives are transmuted into action. A subject wrought tothis pitch of objectivity is no doubt given weight and compactness andauthority in the highest degree; it is like a piece of modelling,standing in clear space, casting its shadow. It is the most finishedform that fiction can take.

  But evidently it is not a form to which fiction can aspire in general.It implies many sacrifices, and these will easily seem to be more thanthe subject can usefully make. It is out of the question, of course,wherever the main burden of the story lies within some particularconsciousness, in the study of a soul, the growth of a character, thechanging history of a temperament; there the subject would beneedlessly crossed and strangled by dramatization pushed to its limit.It is out of the question, again, wherever the story is too big, toocomprehensive, too widely ranging, to be treated scenically, with noopportunity for general and panoramic survey; it has been discovered,indeed, that even a story of this kind _may_ fall into a longsuccession of definite scenes, under some hands, but it has alsoappeared that in doing so it incurs unnecessary disabilities, and willlikely suffer. These stories, therefore, which will not naturallyaccommodate themselves to the reader's point of view, and the reader'salone, we regard as rather pictorial than dramatic--meaning that theycall for some narrator, somebody who _knows_, to contemplate the factsand create an impression of them. Whether it is the omniscient authoror a man in the book, he must gather up his experience, compose avision of it as it exists in his mind, and lay _that_ before thereader. It is the reflection of an experience; and though there may beall imaginable diversity of treatment within the limits of thereflection, such is its essential character. In a pictorial book theprinciple of the structure involves a point of view which is not thereader's.

  It is open to the pictorial book, however, to use a method in itspicture-making that is really no other than the method of drama. It issomebody's experience, we say, that is to be reported, the generaleffect that many things have left upon a certain mind; it is a fusionof innumerable elements, the deposit of a lapse of time. Thestraightforward way to render it would be for the narrator--the authoror his selected creature--to view the past retrospectively anddiscourse upon it, to recall and meditate and summarize. That ispicture-making in its natural form, using its own method. But exactlyas in drama the subject is distributed among the characters andenacted by them, so in picture the effect may be entrusted to theelements, the reactions of the moment, and _performed_ by these. Themind of the narrator becomes the stage, his voice is no longer heard.His voice _is_ heard so long as there is narrative of any sort,whether he is speaking in person or is reported obliquely; his voiceis heard, because in either case the language and the intonation arehis, the direct expression of his experience. In the drama of his mindthere is no personal voice, for there is no narrator; the point ofview becomes the reader's once more. The shapes of thought in theman's mind tell their own story. And that is the art of picture-makingwhen it uses the dramatic method.

  But it cannot always do so. Constantly it must be necessary to offerthe reader a summary of facts, an impression of a train of events,that can only be given as somebody's narration. Suppose it wererequired to render the general effect of a certain year in a man'slife, a year that has filled his mind with a swarm of many memories.Looking into his consciousness after the year has gone, we might findmuch there that would indicate the nature of the year's events withoutany word on his part; the flickers and flashes of thought from momentto moment might indeed tell us much. But we shall need an account fromhim too, no doubt; too much has happened in a year to be wholly acted,as I call it, in the movement of the man's thought. He mustnarrate--he must make, that is to say, a picture of the events as hesees them, glancing back. Now if he speaks in the first person therecan, of course, be no u
ncertainty in the point of view; he has hisfixed position, he cannot leave it. His description will represent theface that the facts in their sequence turned towards _him_; the fieldof vision is defined with perfect distinctness, and his story cannotstray outside it. The reader, then, may be said to watch a reflectionof the facts in a mirror of which the edge is nowhere in doubt; it isrounded by the bounds of the narrator's own personal experience.

  This limitation may have a convenience and a value in the story, itmay contribute to the effect. But it need not be forfeited, it isclear, if the first person is changed to the third. The author may usethe man's field of vision and keep as faithfully within it as thoughthe man were speaking for himself. In that case he retains thisadvantage and adds to it another, one that is likely to be very muchgreater. For now, while the point of view is still fixed in space,still assigned to the man in the book, it is free in _time_; there nolonger stretches, between the narrator and the events of which hespeaks, a certain tract of time, across which the past must appear ina more or less distant perspective. All the variety obtainable by ashifting relation to the story in time is thus in the author's hand;the safe serenity of a far retrospect, the promising or threateningurgency of the present, every gradation between the two, can be drawninto the whole effect of the book, and all of it without any changeof the seeing eye. It is a liberty that may help the storyindefinitely, raising this matter into strong relief, throwing thatother back into vaguer shade.

  And next, still keeping mainly and ostensibly to the same point ofview, the author has the chance of using a much greater latitude thanhe need appear to use. The seeing eye is with somebody in the book,but its vision is reinforced; the picture contains more, becomesricher and fuller, because it is the author's as well as hiscreature's, both at once. Nobody notices, but in fact there are nowtwo brains behind that eye; and one of them is the author's, whoadopts and shares the _position_ of his creature, and at the same timesupplements his wit. If you analyse the picture that is now presented,you find that it is not all the work of the personage whose vision theauthor has adopted. There are touches in it that go beyond anysensation of his, and indicate that some one else is looking over hisshoulder--seeing things from the same angle, but seeing more, bringinganother mind to bear upon the scene. It is an easy and naturalextension of the personage's power of observation. The impression ofthe scene may be deepened as much as need be; it is not confined tothe scope of one mind, and yet there is no blurring of the focus by adouble point of view. And thus what I have called the sound of thenarrator's voice (it is impossible to avoid this mixture of metaphors)is less insistent in oblique narration, even while it seems to befollowing the very same argument that it would in direct, becauseanother voice is speedily mixed and blended with it.

  So this is another resource upon which the author may draw accordingto his need; sometimes it will be indispensable, and generally, Isuppose, it will be useful. It means that he keeps a certain hold uponthe narrator _as an object_; the sentient character in the story,round whom it is grouped, is not utterly subjective, completely givenover to the business of seeing and feeling on behalf of the reader. Itis a considerable point; for it helps to meet one of the greatdifficulties in the story which is carefully aligned towards a singleconsciousness and consistently so viewed. In that story the man orwoman who acts as the vessel of sensation is always in danger ofseeming a light, uncertain weight compared with the other people inthe book--simply because the other people are objective images,plainly outlined, while the seer in the midst is precluded from thatadvantage, and must see without being directly seen. He, who doubtlessought to bulk in the story more massively than any one, tends toremain the least recognizable of the company, and even to dissolve ina kind of impalpable blur. By his method (which I am supposing to havebeen adopted in full strictness) the author is of course forbidden tolook this central figure in the face, to describe and discuss him; thelight cannot be turned upon him immediately. And very often we see themethod becoming an embarrassment to the author in consequence, andthe devices by which he tries to mitigate it, and to secure somereflected sight of the seer, may even be tiresomely obvious. But theresource of which I speak is of a finer sort.

  It gives to the author the power of imperceptibly edging away from theseer, leaving his consciousness, ceasing to use his eyes--though stillwithout substituting the eyes of another. To revert for a moment tothe story told in the first person, it is plain that in that case thenarrator has no such liberty; his own consciousness must always lieopen; the part that he plays in the story can never appear in the sameterms, on the same plane, as that of the other people. Though he isnot visible in the story to the reader, as the others are, he is atevery moment _nearer_ than they, in his capacity of the seeing eye,the channel of vision; nor can he put off his function, he mustcontinue steadily to see and to report. But when the author isreporting _him_ there is a margin of freedom. The author has not socompletely identified himself, as narrator, with his hero that he cangive him no objective weight whatever. If necessary he can allow himsomething of the value of a detached and phenomenal personage, likethe rest of the company in the story, and that without violating theprinciple of his method. He cannot make his hero actuallyvisible--there the method is uncompromising; he cannot step forward,leaving the man's point of view, and picture him from without. But hecan place the man at the same distance from the reader as the otherpeople, he can almost lend him the same effect, he can make of him adramatic actor upon the scene.

  And how? Merely by closing (when it suits him) the open consciousnessof the seer--which he can do without any look of awkwardness orviolence, since it conflicts in no way with the rule of the method.That rule only required that the author, having decided to share thepoint of view of his character, should not proceed to set up anotherof his own; it did not debar him from allowing his hero's act ofvision to lapse, his function as the sentient creature in the story tobe intermitted. The hero (I call him so for convenience--he may, ofcourse, be quite a subordinate onlooker in the story) can at anymoment become impenetrable, a human being whose thought is sealed fromus; and it may seem a small matter, but in fact it has the result thathe drops into the plane of the people whom he has hitherto been seeingand judging. Hitherto subjective, communicative in solitude, he hasbeen in a category apart from them; but now he may mingle with therest, engage in talk with them, and his presence and his talk are nomore to the fore than theirs. As soon as some description ordiscussion of them is required, then, of course, the seer must resumehis part and unseal his mind; but meanwhile, though the reader gets nodirect view of him, still he is there in the dialogue with the rest,his speech (like theirs) issues from a hidden mind and has the samedramatic value. It is enough, very likely, to harden our image of him,to give precision to his form, to save him from dissipation into thatluminous blur of which I spoke just now. For the author it is aresource to be welcomed on that account, and not on that accountalone.

  For besides the greater definition that the seer acquires, thusdetached from us at times and relegated to the plane of hiscompanions, there is much benefit for the subject of the story. In thetale that is quite openly and nakedly somebody's narrative there isthis inherent weakness, that a scene of true drama is impossible. Intrue drama nobody _reports_ the scene; it _appears_, it is constitutedby the aspect of the occasion and the talk and the conduct of thepeople. When one of the people who took part in it sets out to reportthe scene, there is at once a mixture and a confusion of effects; forhis own contribution to the scene has a different quality from therest, cannot have the same crispness and freshness, cannot strike inwith a new or unexpected note. This weakness may be well disguised,and like everything else in the whole craft it may become a positiveand right effect in a particular story, for a particular purpose; itis always there, however, and it means that the full and unmixedeffect of drama is denied to the story that is rigidly told from thepoint of view of one of the actors. But when that point of view isheld in the manner I have describe
d, when it is open to the author towithdraw from it silently and to leave the actor to play his part,true drama--or something so like it that it passes for true drama--isalways possible; all the figures of the scene are together in it, oneno nearer than another. Nothing is wanting save only that direct,unequivocal sight of the hero which the method does indeed absolutelyforbid.

  Finally there is the old, immemorial, unguarded, unsuspicious way oftelling a story, where the author entertains the reader, the minstreldraws his audience round him, the listeners rely upon his word. Thevoice is then confessedly and alone the author's; he imposes nolimitation upon his freedom to tell what he pleases and to regard hismatter from a point of view that is solely his own. And if there isanyone who can proceed in this fashion without appearing to lose theleast of the advantages of a more cautious style, for him theminstrel's licence is proper and appropriate; there is no more to besaid. But we have yet to discover him; and it is not very presumptuousin a critic, as things are, to declare that a story will never yieldits best to a writer who takes the easiest way with it. He curtailshis privileges and chooses a narrower method, and immediately thestory responds; its better condition is too notable to be forgotten,when once it has caught the attention of a reader. The advantages thatit gains are not nameless, indefinable graces, pleasing to a criticbut impossible to fix in words; they are solid, we can describe andrecount them. And I can only conclude that if the novel is still asfull of energy as it seems to be, and is not a form of imaginative artthat, having seen the best of its day, is preparing to give place tosome other, the novelist will not be willing to miss the inexhaustibleopportunity that lies in its treatment. The easy way is no way at all;the only way is that by which the most is made of the story to betold, and the most was never made of any story except by a choice anddisciplined method.

  XVIII

  In these pages I have tried to disengage the various elements of thecraft, one from another, and to look at them separately; and this hasinvolved much rude simplification of matters that are by no meanssimple. I have chosen a novel for the sake of some particular aspect,and I have disregarded all else in it; I could but seek for the bookwhich seemed to display that aspect most plainly, and keep it in viewfrom that one angle for illustration of my theme. And the result is,no doubt, that while some tentative classification of the ways of anovelist has been possible, the question that now arises, at the pointI have reached, must be left almost untouched. It is the question thatconfronts a writer when he has possessed himself of his subject anddetermined the point of view from which it is to be approached. How isits development to be handled? Granted that the instruments of thecraft, dramatic and pictorial and so forth, are such as they have beendescribed, which of them is the appropriate one for this or that stagein the progress of the story to be told? The point of view gives onlya general indication, deciding the look that the story is to wear as awhole; but whether the action is to run scenically, or to be treatedon broader lines, or both--in short, the matter of the treatment indetail is still unsettled, though the main look and attitude of thebook has been fixed by its subject.

  My analysis of the making of a few novels would have to be pushed verymuch further before it would be possible to reach more than one or twoconclusions in this connection. In the handling of his book a novelistmust have some working theory, I suppose, to guide him--some theory ofthe relative uses and values of the different means at his disposal;and yet, when it is discovered how one writer tends perpetuallytowards one mode of procedure, another to another, it hardly seemsthat between them they have arrived at much certainty. Each employsthe manner that is most congenial to him; nobody, it may be, gives usthe material for elaborating the hierarchy of values that now we need,if this argument is to be extended. We have picked out the modes ofrendering a story and have seen how they differ from each other; butwe are not nearly in a position to give a reasoned account of theirconjunction, how each is properly used in the place where its peculiarstrength is required, how the course of a story demands one here,another there, as it proceeds to its culmination. I can imagine thatby examining and comparing in detail the workmanship of many novels bymany hands a critic might arrive at a number of inductions in regardto the relative properties of the scene, the incident dramatized, theincident pictured, the panoramic impression and the rest; there isscope for a large enquiry, the results of which are greatly needed bya critic of fiction, not to speak of the writers of it. The few booksthat I have tried to take to pieces and to re-construct are notenough--or at least it would be necessary to deal with them moresearchingly. But such slight generalizations as I have chanced upon bythe way may as well be re-stated here, before I finish.

  And first of the dramatic incident, the scene, properly socalled--this comes first in importance, beyond doubt. A novelistinstinctively sees the chief turns and phases of his story expressedin the form of a thing acted, where narrative ceases and a directlight falls upon his people and their doings. It must be so, for thisis the sharpest effect within his range; and the story must naturallyhave the benefit of it, wherever the emphasis is to fall moststrongly. To the scene, therefore, all other effects will appear to besubordinated in general; and the placing of the scenes of the storywill be the prime concern. But precisely because it has this highvalue it will need to be used prudently. If it is wasted it losesforce, and if it is weakened the climax--of the story, of a particularturn in the story--has no better resource to turn to instead. And soit is essential to recognize its limitations and to note the purposeswhich it does _not_ well serve; since it is by using it for these thatit is depreciated.

  In the scene, it is clear, there can be no foreshortening of time orspace; I mean that as it appears to the eye of the reader, it displaysthe whole of the time and space it occupies. It cannot cover more ofeither than it actually renders. And therefore it is, for its length,expensive in the matter of time and space; an oblique narrative willgive the effect of further distances and longer periods with muchgreater economy. A few phrases, casting backwards over an incident,will yield the sense of its mere dimensions, where the dramatizedscene might cover many pages. Its salience is another matter; but ithas to be remembered that though the scene acts vividly, it actsslowly, in relation to its length. I am supposing that it stands aloneand unsupported, and must accordingly make its effect from thebeginning, must prepare as well as achieve; and evidently in that casea burden is thrown upon it for which it is not specially equipped. Atany moment there may be reasons for forcing it to bear theburden--other considerations may preponderate; but nevertheless ascene which is not in some way prepared in advance is a scene which inpoint of fact is wasting a portion of its strength. It isaccomplishing expensively what might have been accomplished for less.

  That is the disability of the dramatic scene; and I imagine thenovelist taking thought to ensure that he shall press upon it aslittle as possible. As far as may be he will use the scene for thepurpose which it fulfils supremely--to clinch a matter alreadypending, to demonstrate a result, to crown an effect half-made byother means. In that way he has all the help of its strength withouttaxing its weakness. He secures its salient relief, and by saving itfrom the necessity of doing all the work he enables it to act swiftlyand sharply. And then the scene exhibits its value without drawback;it becomes a power in a story that is entirely satisfying, and a thingof beauty that holds the mind of the reader like nothing else. It hasoften seemed that novelists in general are over-shy of availingthemselves of this opportunity. They squander the scene; they arealways ready to break into dialogue, into dramatic presentation, andoften when there is nothing definitely to be gained by it; but theyneglect the fully wrought and unified scene, amply drawn out andplaced where it gathers many issues together, showing their outcome.Such a scene, in which every part of it is active, advancing thestory, and yet in which there is no forced effort, attempting a tasknot proper to it, is a rare pleasure to see in a book. One immediatelythinks of Bovary, and how the dramatic scenes mark and affirm thestructural
lines of that story.

  Drama, then, gives the final stroke, it is the final stroke which itis adapted to deliver; and picture is to be considered as subordinate,preliminary and preparatory. This seems a plain inference, on thewhole, from all the books I have been concerned with, not Bovary only.Picture, the general survey, with its command of time and space,finds its opportunity where a long reach is more needed than sharpvisibility. It is entirely independent where drama is circumscribed.It travels over periods and expanses, to and fro, pausing here,driving off into the distance there, making no account of the boundsof a particular occasion, but seeking its material wherever itchooses. Its office is to pile up an accumulated impression that willpresently be completed by another agency, drama, which lacks whatpicture possesses, possesses what it lacks. Something of this kind,broadly speaking, is evidently their relation; and it is to beexpected that a novelist will hold them to their natural functions,broadly speaking, in building his book. It is only a rough contrast,of course, the first and main difference between them that strikes theeye; comparing them more closely, one might find other divergencesthat would set their relation in a new light. But closer comparison iswhat I have not attempted; much more material would have to becollected and studied before it could begin.

  Of the art of picture there is more to be said, however. It hasappeared continually how the novelist is conscious of the thinness ofa mere pictorial report of things; for thin and flat must be thereflection that we receive from the mind of another. There is aconstant effort throughout the course of fiction to counteract theinherent weakness of this method of picture, the method that astory-teller is bound to use and that indeed is peculiarly his; andafter tracing the successive stages of the struggle, in that which Ihave taken to be their logical order, we may possibly draw the moral.The upshot seems to be this--that the inherent weakness is to beplainly admitted and recognized, and not only that, but asserted andemphasized--and that then it ceases to be a weakness and actuallybecomes a new kind of strength. Is not this the result that we haveseen? When you recall and picture an impression in words you give us,listeners and readers, no more than a sight of things in a mirror, nota direct view of them; but at the same time there is something ofwhich you do indeed give us a direct view, as we may say, and that isthe mirror, your mind itself. Of the mirror, then, you may make asolid and defined and visible object; you may dramatize this thing atleast, this mind, if the things that appear in it must remain aspictures only. And so by accepting and using what looked like a meredisability in the method, you convert it into a powerful and valuablearm, with a keen effect of its own.

  That is how the story that is centred in somebody's consciousness,passed through a fashioned and constituted mind--not poured straightinto the book from the mind of the author, which is a far-away matter,vaguely divined, with no certain edge to it--takes its place as astory dramatically pictured, and as a story, therefore, of strongerstuff than a simple and undramatic report. Thus may be expressed thereason which underlies the novelist's reluctance to _tell_ his storyand his desire to interpose another presence between himself and thereader. It seems a good reason, good enough to be acted upon moreconsistently than it is by the masters of the craft. For though theirreluctance has had a progressive history, though there are a fewprinciples in the art of fiction that have appeared to emerge and tobecome established in the course of time, a reader of novels is leftat last amazed by the chaos in which the art is still pursued--franklylet it be said. Different schools, debatable theories, principlesupheld by some and rejected by others--such disagreement would all beright and natural, it would be the mark of vigour in the art and thecriticism of it. But no connected argument, no definition of terms, noformulation of claims, not so much as any ground really cleared andprepared for discussion--what is a novel-reader to make of such acondition and how is he to keep his critical interest alive and alert?

  The business of criticism in the matter of fiction seems clear, at anyrate. There is nothing more that can usefully be said about a noveluntil we have fastened upon the question of its making and explored itto some purpose. In all our talk about novels we are hampered and heldup by our unfamiliarity with what is called their technical aspect,and that is consequently the aspect to confront. That Jane Austen wasan acute observer, that Dickens was a great humourist, that GeorgeEliot had a deep knowledge of provincial character, that our livingromancers are so full of life that they are neither to hold nor tobind--we know, we have repeated, we have told each other a thousandtimes; it is no wonder if attention flags when we hear it all again.It is their books, as well as their talents and attainments, that weaspire to see--their books, which we must recreate for ourselves if weare ever to behold them. And in order to recreate them durably thereis the one obvious way--to study the craft, to follow the process, toread constructively. The practice of this method appears to me at thistime of day, I confess, the only interest of the criticism of fiction.It seems vain to expect that discourse upon novelists will containanything new for us until we have really and clearly and accuratelyseen their books.

  And after all it is impossible--that is certain; the book vanishes aswe lay hands on it. Every word we say of it, every phrase I have usedabout a novel in these pages, is loose, approximate, a little more ora little less than the truth. We cannot exactly hit the mark; or if wedo, we cannot be sure of it. I do not speak of the just judgement ofquality; as for that, any critic of any art is in the samepredicament; the value of a picture or a statue is as bodiless as thatof a book. But there are times when a critic of literature feels thatif only there were one single tangible and measurable fact about abook--if it could be weighed like a statue, say, or measured like apicture--it would be a support in a world of shadows. Such aningenuous confession, I think it must be admitted, goes to the root ofthe matter--could we utter our sense of helplessness more candidly?But still among the shadows there is a spark of light that tempts us,there is a hint of the possibility that behind them, beyond them, wemay touch a region where the shadows become at least a little moresubstantial. If that is so, it seems that our chance must lie in thedirection I have named. The author of the book was a craftsman, thecritic must overtake him at his work and see how the book was made.

  INDEX

  Ambassadors, The, 145 _ff._, 156 _ff._, 189.

  Anna Karenina, 15, 52, 236 _ff._

  Austen, Jane, 272.

  Awkward Age, The, 189 _ff._

  Balzac, 48, 119, 203 _ff._, 220 _ff._, 241, 250.

  Barry Lyndon, 145.

  Bleak House, 129, 212 _ff._

  Bronte, Charlotte, 145.

  Clarissa Harlowe, 7, 152 _ff._

  Crime and Punishment, 144.

  Cure de Village, Le, 205.

  David Copperfield, 128 _ff._, 133 _ff._, 151.

  Defoe, 62.

  Denis Duval, 97.

  Dickens, Charles, 48, 128 _ff._, 133 _ff._, 151, 212 _ff._, 272.

  Dombey and Son, 214.

  Dostoevsky, 46, 47, 119, 144, 151.

  Eliot, George, 119, 273.

  Esmond, 97, 107 _ff._, 126 _ff._, 135, 188, 218.

  Eugenie Grandet, 205, 221 _ff._

  Fielding, Henry, 49, 119.

  Flaubert, Gustave, 60 _ff._, 117, 118, 189, 269.

  Harry Richmond, 130 _ff._

  Illusions Perdues, 212.

  James, Henry, 110, 111, 145 _ff._, 156 _ff._, 172 _ff._, 189 _ff._

  Jane Eyre, 145.

  Little Dorrit, 129, 214.

  Madame Bovary, 60 _ff._, 117, 118, 189, 269.

  Marius the Epicurean, 195, 196.

  Master of Ballantrae, The, 218.

  Maupassant, Guy de, 48, 112, 113.

  Meredith, George, 48, 130 _ff._

  Newcomes, The, 107, 108, 125, 188.

  Our Mutual Friend, 129, 214.

  Pater, Walter, 195, 196.

  Pendennis, 97, 107, 117.

  Pere Goriot, 205 _ff._

  Princesse de Cleves, La, 202.

  Recherche de l'Absolu, La,
205, 232 _ff._

  Resurrection, 249, 250.

  Richardson, Samuel, 7, 152 _ff._

  Scott, Sir Walter, 49.

  Sir Charles Grandison, 155.

  Splendeurs et Miseres des Courtisanes, 211.

  Stendhal, 48.

  Stevenson, R. L., 129, 212, 217.

  Thackeray, W. M., 49, 87, 88, 93 _ff._, 110 _ff._, 124 _ff._, 145, 188.

  Tolstoy, 15 _ff._, 26 _ff._, 43 _ff._, 119, 236 _ff._

  Turgenev, 121, 122.

  Vanity Fair, 94 _ff._, 124, 125.

  Virginians, The, 188.

  War and Peace, 26 _ff._, 43 _ff._

  Wings of the Dove, The, 174 _ff._

  Wrecker, The, 217.