. Here again the need of the
story may sometimes seem to pull decisively in one direction or the
other; and we get a book that is mainly a broad and general survey, or
mainly a concatenation of particular scenes. But on the whole we
expect to find that the scene presently yields to some kind of
chronicle or summary, and that this in turn prepares the way and leads
into the occasion that fulfils it. The placing of this occasion, at
the point where everything is ready for it, where it will thoroughly
illuminate a new face of the subject and advance the action by a
definite stage, is among the chief cares of the author, I take it, in
planning his book. A scene that is not really wanted, and that _does_
nothing in particular--a scene that for lack of preparation fails to
make its effect--is a weakness in a story that one would suppose a
novelist to be always guarding against. Anyhow there is no doubt that
the scene holds the place of honour, that it is the readiest means of
starting an interest and raising a question--we drop into a scene on
the first page and begin to speculate about the people concerned in
it: and that it recurs for a climax of any sort, the resolution of the
question--and so the scene completes what it began. In Madame Bovary
the scenes are distributed and rendered with very rare skill; not one
but seems to have more and more to give with every fresh reading of
it. The ball, the _comices_, the evening at the theatre, Emma's
fateful interview with Leon in the Cathedral of Rouen, the remarkable
session of the priest and the apothecary at her deathbed--these form
the articulation of the book, the scheme of its structure. To the next
in order each stage of the story is steadily directed. By the time the
scene is reached, nothing is wanting to its opportunity; the action is
ripe, the place is resonant; and then the incident takes up the story,
conclusively establishes one aspect of it and opens the view towards
the next. And the more rapid summary that succeeds, with its pauses
for a momentary sight of Emma's daily life and its setting, carries
the book on once more to the climax that already begins to appear in
the distance.

But the most obvious point of method is no doubt the difficult
question of the centre of vision. With which of the characters, if
with any of them, is the writer to identify himself, which is he to
"go behind"? Which of these vessels of thought and feeling is he to
reveal from within?