us, after a succession of literary schools which have given us
deformed, superhuman, poetical, pathetic, charming or magnificent
pictures of life, a realistic or naturalistic school has arisen, which
asserts that it shows us the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but
the truth.

All these theories of art must be recognized as of equal interest, and
we must judge the works which are their outcome solely from the point
of view of artistic value, with an _a priori_ acceptance of the
general notions which gave birth to each. To dispute the author's
right to produce a poetical work or a realistic work, is to endeavor
to coerce his temperament, to take exception to his originality, to
forbid his using the eyes and wits bestowed on him by Nature. To
blame him for seeing things as beautiful or ugly, as mean or epic, as
gracious or sinister, is to reproach him for not being made on this or
that pattern, and for having eyes which do not see exactly as ours
see.

Let him be free by all means to conceive of things as he pleases,
provided he is an artist. Let us rise to poetic heights to judge an
idealist, and then prove to him that his dream is commonplace,
ordinary, not mad or magnificent enough. But if we judge a
materialistic writer, let us show him wherein the truth of life
differs from the truth in his book.

It is self-evident that schools so widely different must have adopted
diametrically opposite processes in composition.

The novelist who transforms truth--immutable, uncompromising, and
displeasing as it is--to extract from it an exceptional and delightful
plot, must necessarily manipulate events without an exaggerated
respect for probability, molding them to his will, dressing and
arranging them so as to attract, excite, or affect the reader. The
scheme of his romance is no more than a series of ingenious
combinations, skillfully leading to the issue. The incidents are
planned and graduated up to the culminating point and effect of the
conclusion, which is the crowning and fatal result, satisfying the
curiosity aroused from the first, closing the interest, and ending the
story so completely that we have no further wish to know what happened
on the morrow to the most engaging actors in it.

The novelist who, on the other hand, proposes to give us an accurate
picture of life, must carefully eschew any concatenation of events
which might seem exceptional. His aim is not to tell a story to amuse
us, or to appeal to o