ts occupants, with the behavior common in well-bred
society, would no doubt fail of the intended dramatic effect, and the
spectators would declare the representation unnatural.

However our jargon of criticism may confound terms, we do not need to be
reminded that art and nature are distinct; that art, though dependent on
nature, is a separate creation; that art is selection and idealization,
with a view to impressing the mind with human, or even higher than human,
sentiments and ideas. We may not agree whether the perfect man and woman
ever existed, but we do know that the highest representations of them in
form--that in the old Greek sculptures--were the result of artistic
selection of parts of many living figures.

When we praise our recent fiction for its photographic fidelity to nature
we condemn it, for we deny to it the art which would give it value. We
forget that the creation of the novel should be, to a certain extent, a
synthetic process, and impart to human actions that ideal quality which
we demand in painting. Heine regards Cervantes as the originator of the
modern novel. The older novels sprang from the poetry of the Middle Ages;
their themes were knightly adventure, their personages were the nobility;
the common people did not figure in them. These romances, which had
degenerated into absurdities, Cervantes overthrew by "Don Quixote." But
in putting an end to the old romances he created a new school of fiction,
called the modern novel, by introducing into his romance of
pseudo-knighthood a faithful description of the lower classes, and
intermingling the phases of popular life. But he had no one-sided
tendency to portray the vulgar only; he brought together the higher and
the lower in society, to serve as light and shade, and the aristocratic
element was as prominent as the popular. This noble and chivalrous
element disappears in the novels of the English who imitated Cervantes.
"These English novelists since Richardson's reign," says Heine, "are
prosaic natures; to the prudish spirit of their time even pithy
descriptions of the life of the common people are repugnant, and we see
on yonder side of the Channel those bourgeoisie novels arise, wherein the
petty humdrum life of the middle classes is depicted." But Scott
appeared, and effected a restoration of the balance in fiction. As
Cervantes had introduced the democratic element into romances, so Scott
replaced the aristocratic element, when it had disapp