e reader's
sympathy that he may follow the fortunes of the person or persons with
greater interest than the bare content of the story would evoke. For
instance, if a story shows a character whose unlovely traits lead him
into difficulties, investing him also with some pleasing attribute will
deepen a reader's interest in his fate by arousing active pity for him.
I have touched upon this matter before and from another angle in
discussing the necessity that the writer select a mode of narration
which will permit him to express his sympathy for a character that he
may evoke a reader's. Stevenson's treatment of Herrick in "The Ebb-Tide"
was instanced, and one who has read the book will recall that its author
gave Herrick attributes of mind and soul more pleasing than inefficiency
and weakness, though weakness was the single quality demanded in Herrick
to render inevitable the course of events.[O]

No specific technique of characterization by action can be stated; it is
a matter of conceiving and elaborating the whole story justly. The fact
for the writer is that a person's acts reveal his inner nature, and the
necessity that the writer must meet is to devise events and characters
having a natural and plausible relation. If this is done, the essential
substance of the story will be sound, at least, so far as character is
concerned. Then the writer must meet the other necessity to make his
people appear to be real men and women apart from any distinction of
their inner natures. If both necessities are met, a reader will be faced
by real people doing things for real and adequate reasons, which is a
great part of the art of fiction.

All the acts of a person's life, great and small, would reveal his whole
nature. But a story usually does not take a person from birth to death,
and, if it does, it is concerned with a phase of the life rather than
with the whole life. The art of fiction is highly selective, and
necessarily so. Not only must the writer of fiction produce his effects
within a limited space, but he must consciously eliminate here and
suppress there in order to make apparent the real significance of his
picture of life. The significance of one man's life may lie in his
constant loyalty to and sacrifice for his family; the significance of
another's in his complete disregard of his obligations as a husband and
father. In either case, the writer who sees material for a short story
or novel in such a life must select for