, working inductively, and
the romantic, working deductively, are equally able to present the
truth of fiction.

CHAPTER III

THE NATURE OF NARRATIVE

We have now considered the subject-matter of fiction and also
the contrasted attitudes of mind of the two great schools of
fiction-writers toward setting forth that subject-matter. We must
next turn our attention to the technical methods of presenting the
materials of fiction, and notice in detail the most important devices
employed by all fiction-writers in order to fulfil the purpose of
their art.

Rhetoricians, as everybody knows, arbitrarily but conveniently
distinguish four forms, or moods, or methods, of discourse: namely,
narration, description, exposition, and argumentation. It may be
stated without fear of well-founded contradiction that the natural
mood, or method, of fiction is the first of these,--narration.
Argumentation, for its own sake, has no place in a work of fiction.
There is, to be sure, a type of novel, which is generally called in
English "the novel with a purpose," the aim of which is to persuade
the reader to accept some special thesis that the author holds
concerning politics, religion, social ethics, or some other of the
phases of life that are readily open to discussion. But such a novel
usually fails of its purpose if it attempts to accomplish it by
employing the technical devices of argument. It can best fulfil its
purpose by exhibiting indisputable truths of life, without persuasive
comment, _ex cathedra_, on the part of the novelist. In vain he
argues, denounces, or defends, appeals to us or coaxes us, unless his
story in the first place convinces by its very truthfulness. If his
thesis be as incontestable as the author thinks it is, it can prove
itself by narrative alone.

Exposition, for its own sake, is also out of place in fiction. The
aim of exposition is to explain,--an aim necessarily abstract; but
the purpose of fiction is to represent life,--a purpose necessarily
concrete. To discourse of life in abstract terms is to subvert the
natural mood of art; and the novelist may make his meaning just as
clear by representing life concretely, without a running commentary of
analysis and explanation. Life truly represented will explain itself.
There are, to be sure, a number of great novelists, of whom George
Eliot may be taken as the type, who frequently halt their story
to write an essay about it. These essays are often inst