e allegories cannot
constitute the main and, so to speak, "universal" part of the attraction
of the book. They may be a seasoning to some, a solid cut-and-come-again
to others, but certainly not to the majority. Even in _Gulliver_--the
Great Book's almost, perhaps quite, as great descendant--these
attractions, though more universal in appeal and less evasively
presented, certainly do not hold any such position. The fact is that
both Rabelais and Swift were consummate tellers of a story, and
(especially if you take the _Polite Conversation_ into Swift's claim)
consummate originators of the Novel or larger story, with more than
"incidental" attraction itself. But we are not now busied with Swift.

[Sidenote: Which lies, largely if not wholly, in its story-interest.]

Not much serious objection will probably be taken to the place allotted
to Master Francis as a tale-teller pure and simple, although it cannot
be said that all his innumerable critics and commentators have laid
sufficient stress on this. From the uncomfortable birth of Gargantua to
the triumphant recessional scene from the Oracle of the Bottle, proofs
are to be found in every book, every chapter almost, and indeed almost
every page; and a little more detail may be given on this head later.
But the presentation of Rabelais as a novelist-before-novels may cause
more demur, and even suggest the presence of the now hopelessly
discredited thing--paradox itself. Of course, if anybody requires
regular plot as a necessary constituent, only paradox could contend for
that. It _has_ been contended--and rightly enough--that in the general
scheme and the two (or if you take in Grandgousier, three) generations
of histories of the good giants, Rabelais is doing nothing more than
parody--is, indeed, doing little more than simply follow the traditions
of Romance--Amiles and Jourdains, Guy and Rembrun, and many others. But
some of us regard plot as at best a full-dress garment, at the absence
of which the good-natured God or Muse of fiction is quite willing to
wink. Character, if seldom elaborately presented, except in the case of
Panurge, is showered, in scraps and sketches, all over the book, and
description and dialogue abound.

[Sidenote: Contrast of the _Moyen de Parvenir_.]

But it is not on such beggarly special pleading as this that the claim
shall be founded. It must rest on the unceasing, or practically
unceasing, impetus of story-interest which carries the reader