en these phenomena and the
concerns of human beings. Perhaps in no other detail of craftsmanship
does Robert Louis Stevenson so clearly prove his mastery as in his
marshalling of the weather, always vividly and truthfully described,
to serve a purpose always fitting to his fictions.

=Romantic and Realistic Settings.=--Let us next consider the main
difference between the merits of a good romantic and a good realistic
setting. Since the realist leads us to a comprehension of his truth
through a careful imitation of the actual, the thing most to be
desired in a realistic setting is fidelity to fact; and this can be
attained only by accurate observation. But since the romantic is not
bound to imitate the actual, and fabricates his investiture merely for
the sake of embodying his truth clearly and consistently, the thing
most to be desired in a romantic setting is imaginative fitness to the
action and the characters; and this can sometimes be attained by
artistic inventiveness alone, without display of observation of the
actual. Verisimilitude is of course the highest merit of either sort
of setting; but whereas verisimilitude with the realist lies in
resemblance to actuality, verisimilitude with the romantic lies rather
in artistic fitness. The distinction may perhaps be best observed in
the historical novels produced by the one and by the other school. In
the setting of realistic historical novels, like George Eliot's
"Romola" and Flaubert's "Salammbo," what the authors have mainly
striven for has been accuracy of detail; but in romantic historical
novels, like those of Scott and Dumas pere, the authors have sought
rather for imaginative fitness of setting. The realists have followed
the letter, and the romantics the spirit, of other times and lands.

=A Romantic Setting by Edgar Allan Poe.=--As an example of a pure
romantic setting, far removed from actuality and yet thoroughly
truthful in artistic fitness to the action and the characters, we can
do no better than examine the often-quoted opening of Poe's "Fall of
the House of Usher":--

"During the whole of a dull, dark, and soundless day in the autumn of
the year, when the clouds hung oppressively low in the heavens, I had
been passing alone, on horseback, through a singularly dreary tract of
country; and at length found myself, as the shades of the evening drew
on, within view of the melancholy House of Usher. I know not how it
was--but, with the first glimpse of t