this. We are not
entirely dependent upon the latest novelty. And perhaps the sources I
apply to for _history_, have spoiled my relish for stories as they are
now-a-days written and admired. The difference between the wood-cut
style of an old city-chronicle, and the photographic, stereoscopic,
stippled minuteness and finish of a modern novel, is altogether too
wide. In the one, all is raw material, blocks seldom sufficiently hewn,
joints gaping, subjects so shaken together that only an expert or
genuine amateur can pick out what answers his purpose. In our
artificial modern days on the contrary, all is so smooth and polished,
so conscious and premeditated, so reduced to mere form and style, that
the subject often utterly vanishes, the _what_ is forgotten in the
_how_, and owing to the very psychological finesse of the narrator we
come to be almost indifferent to the human beings on whom he practises.
I for my part still occupy so obsolete a stand-point, that in every
story the chief interest for me lies in the story itself. One man may
tell it better than another, but for that I hardly care. If an incident
that has really happened or been evoked by imagination makes an
impression on me in the rough and incomplete version of an old
chronicle, I would rather not have it tricked out with any gewgaws of
style, but trust to my own fancy to supply omissions. But you moderns,"
and here he threw a sarcastic glance at the chess-player and the
smoker, "you are never satisfied till you have bestowed all conceivable
ornamentation and decoration on any and every story whatsoever, even
though it should be most fair when naked as God made it."

"Each age has its own style of attire, and _nolens volens_, we have to
conform to fashion," said the recumbent figure on the sofa without
disturbing itself further.

"And each age acts and relates its own stories," interpolated the
chess-player. "So long as the right of the strongest prevailed, stories
were decidedly material in their interest, from Achilles down to the
noble knight of La Mancha. Since life has become more spiritual,
and its incidents more internal, they can no longer be outwardly
expressed by a few coarse strokes, as was the case with a middle-aged
dagger-and-sword-romance. Mere outline with some light and shade no
longer suffices; we want the whole range of colour, the most delicate
gradations of tint, and all the charms of chiaroscuro, and as we
ourselves have become in a g