ual nursery tale, the weather may be
non-existent. Or it may exist mainly for a decorative purpose, like
the frequent golden oriental dawns of Spenser's poem or the superb
and colorful symphonies of sky and sea in Pierre Loti's "Iceland
Fisherman." It may be used as a utilitarian adjunct to the action:
at the end of "The Mill on the Floss," as we have already noted, the
rains descend and the flood comes merely for the purpose of drowning
Tom and Maggie. Or it may be employed to illustrate a character: we
are told of Clara Middleton, in "The Egoist," that she possesses the
"art of dressing to suit the season and the sky"; and therefore the
look of the atmosphere at any hour helps to convey to us a sense of
her appearance. Somewhat more artistically, the weather may be planned
in pre-established harmony with the mood of the characters: this
expedient is wonderfully used in the wild and wind-swept tales of
Fiona MacLeod. On the other hand, the weather may stand in emotional
contrast with the characters: the Master of Ballantrae and Mr. Henry
fight their duel on a night of absolute stillness and stifling
cold. Again, the weather may be used to determine the action: in Mr.
Kipling's early story called "False Dawn," the blinding sandstorm
causes Saumarez to propose to the wrong girl. Or it may be employed
as a controlling influence over character: the tremendous storm toward
the end of "Richard Feverel," in the chapter entitled "Nature Speaks,"
determines the return of the hero to his wife. In some cases, even,
the weather itself may be the real hero of the narrative: the great
eruption of Vesuvius in "The Last Days of Pompeii" dominates the
termination of the story.

Although the weather is a subject upon everybody's tongue, there are
very few people who are capable of talking about it with intelligence
and art. Very few writers of fiction--and nearly all of them are
recent--have exhibited a mastery of the weather,--a mastery based at
once upon a detailed and accurate observation of natural phenomena and
a philosophic sense of the relation between these phenomena and the
concerns of human beings. Perhaps in no other detail of craftsmanship
does Robert Louis Stevenson so clearly prove his mastery as in his
marshaling of the weather, always vividly and truthfully described, to
serve a purpose always fitting to his fictions.

Let us next consider the main difference between the merits of a good
romantic and a good realistic s