r she would not have been more successful
in some other epoch when some other literary form than the novel had
happened to be in fashion. In France the novel tempted Victor Hugo,
who was essentially a lyric poet, and the elder Dumas, who was
essentially a playwright. There are not lacking signs of late that the
drama is likely in the immediate future to assert a sharper rivalry
with prose-fiction; and novelists like Sir James Barrie and the late
Paul Hervieu have relinquished the easier narrative for the more
difficult and more dangerous stage-play. But there is no evidence that
the novel is soon to lose its vogue. It has come to stay; and as the
nineteenth century left it to the twentieth so the twentieth will
probably bequeath it to the twenty-first unimpaired in prosperity.

Perhaps the best evidence of the solidity of its position is to be
found in the critical consideration which it is at last receiving.
Histories of fiction in all literatures and biographies of the
novelists in all languages are multiplying abundantly. We are
beginning to take our fiction seriously and to inquire into its
principles. Long ago Freytag's "Technic of the Drama" was followed
by Spielhagen's "Technic of the Novel," rather Teutonically
philosophic, both of them, and already a little out of date.
Studies of prose-fiction are getting themselves written, none of
them more illuminative than Professor Bliss Perry's. The novelists
themselves are writing about the art of fiction, as Sir Walter Besant
did, and they are asking what the novel is, as the late Marion
Crawford has done. They are beginning to resent the assertion of
the loyal adherents of the drama, that the novel is too loose a form
to call forth the best efforts of the artist, and that a play
demands at least technical skill whereas a novel may be often the
product of unskilled labor.

Questions of all kinds are presenting themselves for discussion. Has
the rise of realism made romance impossible? Is there a valid
distinction between romance and romanticism? Is the short-story a
definite form, differing from the novel in purpose as well as in
length? What is the best way to tell a story--in the third person, as
in the epic--in the first person, as in an autobiography--or in
letters? Which is of most importance, character or incident or
atmosphere? Is the novel-with-a-purpose legitimate? Why is it that
dramatized novels often fail in the theatre? Ought a novelist to take
sides wi