nd by placing on his lips words which only a cruel man would
utter. So far, so good. Each sort of demonstration will add something to
a reader's realization of the character. But more is necessary. Cruelty
is not a particularly unique trait; moreover, if a trait is unique,
merely investing a character with it will not serve to give him the
solidity and liveliness of a real person. Whether cruelty or any other
trait is brought out, if it alone is brought out, the person will be a
disembodied moral attribute rather than a man or woman. To secure a
maximum effect upon a reader, the writer must manage to show some
particular cruel person rather than a cruel person. And he must resort
to the same means employed to show the strict character-trait,
description or direct statement, dialogue, and action. But the writer's
aim will be different. He will be concerned with the person's appearance
and effect upon an observer or listener rather than with his nature. As
Stevenson did for Villon in "A Lodging for the Night," the writer of a
story involving a cruel person may call him a "rag of a man, dark,
little, and lean, with hollow cheeks and thin black locks," or may
employ any other combination of words that will give a definite picture
of the man, viewed merely as a physical object, whether he be thin or
fat, ruddy or pale, tall or short. And, in setting down a cruel
person's speeches, the writer not only may make them cruel in content,
but also may make them unique and individual by some mannerism of
speech.

What I am trying to show is the fact that characterization, as the term
is commonly employed, includes description as well as the strict
portrayal of character. I have taken up the matter of the description of
persons under that head, and I shall take up, in this chapter, the
matter of speech as both illustrating character and individualizing the
person. The whole difficulty of discussing technique lies in the
necessity to treat in isolation matters which are influential in
numerous directions in a story. In the latter part of this book I am
following the conventional mode of discussing separately the matters of
description of persons, dialogue, and the portrayal of character, but
only after much pondering whether such treatment is advisable. The
advantage is clearness; the disadvantage is loss of relation between
matters mutually influential. For instance, writing dialogue is
descriptive writing in a very real sense. A rea