hem real. Sentimental Tommy really did lose that
literary competition because he wasted a full hour searching vainly
for the one right word; Hetty Sorrel really killed her child; and Mr.
Henry must have won that midnight duel with the Master of Ballantrae,
though the latter was the better swordsman. These incidents conform to
truths we recognize. And not only in the fiction that clings close to
actuality do we feel a sense of truth. We feel it just as keenly in
fairy tales like those of Hans Christian Andersen, or in the worthiest
wonder-legends of an earlier age. We are told of The Steadfast Tin
Soldier that, after he was melted in the fire, the maid who took away
the ashes next morning found him in the shape of a small tin heart;
and remembering the spangly little ballet-dancer who fluttered to him
like a sylph and was burned up in the fire with him, we feel a
fitness in this little fancy which opens vistas upon human truth. Mr.
Kipling's fable of "How the Elephant Got His Trunk" is just as true
as his reports of Mrs. Hauksbee. His theory may not conform with the
actual facts of zoological science; but at any rate it represents a
truth which is perhaps more important for those who have become again
like little children.

Just as we feel by instinct the reality of fiction at its best, so
also with a kindred instinct equally keen we feel the falsity of
fiction when the author lapses from the truth. Unless his characters
act and think at all points consistently with the laws of their
imagined existence, and unless these laws are in harmony with the laws
of actual life, no amount of sophistication on the part of the author
can make us finally believe his story; and unless we believe his
story, his purpose in writing it will have failed. The novelist, who
has so many means of telling truth, has also many means of telling
lies. He may be untruthful in his very theme, if he is lacking in
sanity of outlook upon the things that are. He may be untruthful in
his characterization, if he interferes with his people after they are
once created and attempts to coerce them to his purposes instead of
allowing them to work out their own destinies. He may be untruthful
in his plotting, if he devises situations arbitrarily for the sake
of mere immediate effect. He may be untruthful in his dialogue, if he
puts into the mouths of his people sentences that their nature does
not demand that they shall speak. He may be untruthful in his commen