s right place without an effort,
when the time comes, compared with that in which a strain and an
exaggerated stress are perceptible. The process of writing a novel
seems to be one of continual forestalling and anticipating; far more
important than the immediate page is the page to come, still in the
distance, on behalf of which this one is secretly working. The writer
makes a point and reserves it at the same time, creates an effect and
holds it back, till in due course it is appropriated and used by the
page for which it is intended. It must be a pleasure to the writer, it
is certainly a great pleasure to the critic, when the stroke is
cleanly brought off. It is the same pleasure indeed; the novelist
makes the stroke, but the critic makes it again by perceiving it, and
is legitimately satisfied by the sense of having perceived it with
good artistry. It is spoilt, of course, if the stroke is handled
tactlessly and obtrusively; the art of preparation is no art if it
betrays itself at the outset, calling attention to its purpose. By
definition it is unrecognizable until it attains its end; it is the
art of rendering an impression that is found to have been made, later
on, but that evades detection at the moment. The particular variety I
have been considering is one of which Balzac is a great master; and
perhaps his mastery will appear still more clearly if I look at a book
in which his example is _not_ followed in this respect. It is a finer
book, for all that, than most of Balzac's.

XVI

It is Anna Karenina; and I turn to it now, not for its beauty and
harmony, not because it is one of the most exquisitely toned, shaded,
gradated pieces of portraiture in fiction, but because it happens to
show very clearly how an effect may be lost for want of timely
precaution. Tolstoy undoubtedly damaged a magnificent book by his
refusal to linger over any kind of pictorial introduction. There is
none in this story, the reader will remember. The whole of the book,
very nearly, is scenic, from the opening page to the last; it is a
chain of particular occasions, acted out, talked out, by the crowd of
people concerned. Each of these scenes is outspread before the
spectator, who watches the characters and listens to their dialogue;
there is next to no generalization of the story at any point. On every
page, I think, certainly on all but a very few of the many hundred
pages, the hour and the place are exactly defined. Something