ndly in the element of character. But
his stories are all foreground. When the scene is out of doors, it is
set vaguely in a conventional landscape: when it is indoors, it is set
vaguely in a conventional palace. Because of this, his narrative is
lacking in visual appeal. Most of his _novelle_ read like summaries of
novels,--setting forth an abstract synopsis of the action rather than
a concrete representation of it. He _tells_ you what happens,
instead of _making_ it happen before the eye of your imagination.
His characters are drawn in outline merely, instead of being livingly
projected in relation to a definite environment. The defect of his
narrative, like the defect of Giotto's painting, is mainly lack of
background.

Somewhat later in the history of fiction, as in the history of figure
painting, we find instances in which the element of setting is used
for a decorative purpose, and is brought into an artistic relation
with the elements of action and character. Such a use is made of
landscape, for example, in the "Orlando Furioso" of Ariosto and the
"Faerie Queene" of Spenser. The settings depicted by these narrative
poets are essentially pictorial, and are used as a decorative
background to the action rather than as part and parcel of it. If we
seek an example in prose rather than in poetry, we need only turn
to the "Arcadia" of Sir Philip Sidney. In this again the setting
is beautifully fashioned, but is employed merely for a decorative
purpose. The background of pastoral landscape bears no necessary
relation to the figures in the foreground. It exists for the sake of
art rather than for the sake of life. This employment of the element
of setting for a purpose essentially pictorial subsists in many
later works of fiction, like the "Paul and Virginia" of Bernardin de
Saint-Pierre. In this the setting is composed and painted for the sake
of its own sentimental beauty, and is obtruded even at the expense of
the more vital elements of character and action. The story is, as it
were, merely a motive for decorative composition.

It is only in fiction of a more modern spirit that the element of
setting has been brought into living relation with the action and the
characters; and it is only in the last century that the most intimate
possibilities of such a relation have been appreciated and applied.
Of course the most elementary means of making the setting "part and
parcel of the business of the story" is to employ it a