that the novelist who carried his research into
the theory of the art further than any other--the only real _scholar_
in the art--is the novelist whose methods are most likely to be
overlooked or mistaken, regarded as simply a part of his own original
quiddity. It should be possible to isolate them, to separate them in
thought from the temperament by which they were coloured; they belong
to the craft, which belongs to no man in particular. They still wait
to be fully assimilated into the criticism of fiction; there is much
more in them, no doubt, than the few points that I touch on here. But
I pass on to one or two of the rest.

XIII

What, then, is a dramatic subject? Hitherto I have been speaking of
novels in which some point of view, other than that of the reader, the
impartial onlooker, is prescribed by the subject in hand. In big
chronicles like Thackeray's it is clear that the controlling point of
view can only be that of the chronicler himself, or of some one whom
he sets up to tell the story on his behalf. The expanse of life which
the story covers is far too great to be shown to the reader in a
series of purely dramatic scenes. It is absolutely necessary for the
author or his spokesman to draw back for a general view of the matter
from time to time; and whenever he does so the story becomes _his_
impression, summarized and pictured for the reader. In Esmond or The
Virginians or The Newcomes, there are tracts and tracts of the story
which are bound to remain outside the reader's direct vision; only a
limited number of scenes and occasions could possibly be set forth in
the form of drama. A large, loose, manifold subject, in short,
extensive in time and space, full of crowds and diversions, is a
pictorial subject and can be nothing else. However intensely it may be
dramatized here and there, on the whole it must be presented as a
conspectus, the angle of vision being assigned to the narrator. It is
simply a question of amount, of quantity, of the reach of the subject.
If it passes a certain point it exceeds the capacity of the straight
and dramatic method.

Madame Bovary and The Ambassadors, again, are undramatic in their
matter, though their reach is comparatively small; for in both of them
the emphasis falls upon changes of mind, heart, character, gradually
drawn out, not upon any clash or opposition resolved in action. They
_might_ be treated scenically, no doubt; their authors might
conceivably ha