ble to state a few facts that will
demonstrate the essential fallacy of such discussion.

In the first place, realism characterizes a method, one that might
better be called the method of stating the concrete in detail. If a
story is concerned largely with the more common actualities of everyday
life, it is possible that its writer may best create his illusion of
reality by itemizing the physical facts in some detail.

In the second place, "realism" has been elevated from a mere technical
method into an artistic creed or dogma. The assumption is made that only
the more tangible matters of life are realities, and that fiction should
seek to present only the real.

It is unnecessary to do more than state that the first term of this
assumption is false. Not only are there facts of the spirit as well as
facts of the body and the phenomenal universe, but the spiritual fact is
precisely the fact which is fictionally significant. Fiction deals with
man for man, and man is man just and only because he has an intelligence
and a soul, enabling him to impose his will upon brute matter and to
rise superior to evil fortune.

The second term of the realists' assumption is that fiction should
present only the real. And the essential fallacy of the assumption is
this: it ignores the fact that the first aim of fiction is to interest.
Philosophy, not fiction, must give us a test of truth and reality.
Irrespective of what is real--a question that the confirmed realist
answers falsely, because partially and exclusively--one who denies the
reality and significance of the spiritual life of man, and therefore
refuses to give it fictional treatment, debars himself from presenting
much interesting matter.

It might not be too dull, incidentally, to go into the question of how
much the world of the spirit shall be allowed to impose its necessities
on the world of the flesh, but the matter is subordinate, part of the
general question of verisimilitude. Frequently, to give concrete
fictional treatment to a fact of the soul, the writer will have to
falsify deliberately as to physical facts, as Stevenson did in "Dr.
Jekyll and Mr. Hyde."

Realism, the technical method expanded into an artistic dogma, has much
to answer for. In the hands of the French, it has been responsible for
much that is uselessly unpleasant and brutal; in the hands of English
and American writers, it has been responsible for much dullness. The
unpleasant facts and petty