observed and
studied carefully the same events and characters of actual life; and
suppose further that they agree in their conception of the truth behind
the facts. Suppose now that each of them writes a novel to embody this
conception of the truth, in which they are agreed. Will not the realist
regard as most important the scientific process of discovery by means
of which he arrived at his conception; and will he not therefore strive
to make that process clear to the reader by turning back to the point at
which he began his observations and then leading the reader forward
through a similar scientific study of imagined facts until the reader
joins him on the ground of philosophic understanding? And, on the
other hand, will not the romantic regard as most important the
artistic process of embodying his conception; and will he not therefore
be satisfied with any means of embodying it clearly and effectively,
without caring whether or not the imagined facts which he selects for
this purpose are similar to the actual facts from which he first induced
his philosophic understanding?

=The Testimony of Hawthorne.=--This thought was apparently in
Hawthorne's mind when, in the preface to "The House of the Seven
Gables," he wrote his well-known distinction between the Romance and
the (realistic) Novel:--"When a writer calls his work a Romance, it
need hardly be observed that he wishes to claim a certain latitude,
both as to its fashion and material, which he would not have felt
himself entitled to assume had he professed to be writing a Novel. The
latter form of composition is presumed to aim at a very minute
fidelity, not merely to the possible, but to the probable and ordinary
course of man's experience. The former--while, as a work of art, it
must rigidly subject itself to laws, and while it sins unpardonably so
far as it may swerve aside from the truth of the human heart--has
fairly a right to present that truth under circumstances, to a great
extent, of the writer's own choosing or creation."

=A Philosophic Formula.=--But Hawthorne's statement, although it
covers the ground, is not succinct and definitive; and if we are to
examine the thesis thoroughly, we had better first state it in
philosophic terms and then elucidate the statement by explanation and
by illustration. So stated, the distinction is as follows: _In setting
forth his view of life, the realist follows the inductive method of
presentment, and the romantic f