of Giotto's painting, is mainly lack of
background.

=The Second Stage.=--Somewhat later in the history of fiction, as in
the history of figure painting, we find instances in which the element
of setting is used for a decorative purpose, and is brought into an
artistic relation with the elements of action and character. Such a
use is made of landscape, for example, in the "Orlando Furioso" of
Ariosto and the "Faerie Queene" of Spenser. The settings depicted by
these narrative poets are essentially pictorial, and are used as a
decorative background to the action rather than as part and parcel of
it. If we seek an example in prose rather than in poetry, we need only
turn to the "Arcadia" of Sir Philip Sidney. In this again the setting
is beautifully fashioned, but is employed merely for a decorative
purpose. The background of pastoral landscape bears no necessary
relation to the figures in the foreground. It exists for the sake of
art rather than for the sake of life. This employment of the element
of setting for a purpose essentially pictorial subsists in many later
works of fiction, like the "Paul and Virginia" of Bernardin de
Saint-Pierre. In this the setting is composed and painted for the sake
of its own sentimental beauty, and is obtruded even at the expense of
the more vital elements of character and action. The story is, as it
were, merely a motive for decorative composition.

=The Third Stage: 1. Setting as an Aid to Action.=--It is only in
fiction of a more modern spirit that the element of setting has been
brought into living relation with the action and the characters; and
it is only in the last century that the most intimate possibilities
of such a relation have been appreciated and applied. Of course the
most elementary means of making the setting "part and parcel of the
business of the story" is to employ it as a utilitarian adjunct to
the action. Granted certain incidents that are to happen, certain
scenery and properties are useful, in the novel just as in the
theatre; and if these are supplied advisedly, the setting will, as
it were, become a part of what is happening instead of remaining
merely a decorative background to the incidents. The first English
author to establish firmly this utilitarian relation between the
setting and the action was Daniel Defoe. Defoe was by profession a
journalist; and the most characteristic quality of his mind was an
habitual matter-of-factness. Plausibility was what he