ntics--than in
the novels of Jane Austen. What is the use, then, of Professor Perry's
definition of realism, since it remains open to so many exceptions?
And in his chapter on romance the critic does not even attempt to
formulate a definition.

=The True Distinction One of Method, Not of Material.=--We have now
examined several of the current explanations of the difference
between romance and realism and have found that each is wanting. The
trouble with all of them seems to be that they attempt to find a
basis for distinguishing between the two schools of fiction in the
subject-matter, or materials, of the novelist. Does not the real
distinction lie rather in the novelist's attitude of mind toward his
materials, whatever those materials may be? Surely there is no such
thing inherently as a realistic subject or a romantic subject. The
very same subject may be treated realistically by one novelist and
romantically by another. George Eliot would have built a realistic
novel on the theme of "The Scarlet Letter"; and Hawthorne would have
made a romance out of the materials of "Silas Marner." The whole
of human life, or any part of it, offers materials for romantic
and realist alike. Therefore no distinction between the schools is
possible upon the basis of subject-matter: the real distinction must
be one of method in setting subject-matter forth. The distinction is
not external, but internal; it dwells in the mind of the novelist;
it is a matter for philosophic, not for literary, investigation.

=Scientific Discovery and Artistic Expression.=--If we seek within the
mental habits of the novelist for a philosophic distinction between
realism and romance, we shall have to return to a consideration of that
threefold process of the fiction-making mind which was expounded in the
preceding chapter of this book. Scientific discovery, philosophic
understanding, and artistic expression of the truths of human life
are phases of creation common to romantics and realists alike; but
though the writers of both schools meet equally upon the central
ground of philosophic understanding, is it not evident that the
realists are most interested in looking backward over the antecedent
ground of scientific discovery, and the romantics are most interested in
looking forward over the subsequent ground of artistic expression?
Suppose, for the purpose of illustration, that two novelists of equal
ability--the one a realist, the other a romantic--have