s. In that way he has all the help of its strength without
taxing its weakness. He secures its salient relief, and by saving it
from the necessity of doing all the work he enables it to act swiftly
and sharply. And then the scene exhibits its value without drawback;
it becomes a power in a story that is entirely satisfying, and a thing
of beauty that holds the mind of the reader like nothing else. It has
often seemed that novelists in general are over-shy of availing
themselves of this opportunity. They squander the scene; they are
always ready to break into dialogue, into dramatic presentation, and
often when there is nothing definitely to be gained by it; but they
neglect the fully wrought and unified scene, amply drawn out and
placed where it gathers many issues together, showing their outcome.
Such a scene, in which every part of it is active, advancing the
story, and yet in which there is no forced effort, attempting a task
not proper to it, is a rare pleasure to see in a book. One immediately
thinks of Bovary, and how the dramatic scenes mark and affirm the
structural lines of that story.

Drama, then, gives the final stroke, it is the final stroke which it
is adapted to deliver; and picture is to be considered as subordinate,
preliminary and preparatory. This seems a plain inference, on the
whole, from all the books I have been concerned with, not Bovary only.
Picture, the general survey, with its command of time and space,
finds its opportunity where a long reach is more needed than sharp
visibility. It is entirely independent where drama is circumscribed.
It travels over periods and expanses, to and fro, pausing here,
driving off into the distance there, making no account of the bounds
of a particular occasion, but seeking its material wherever it
chooses. Its office is to pile up an accumulated impression that will
presently be completed by another agency, drama, which lacks what
picture possesses, possesses what it lacks. Something of this kind,
broadly speaking, is evidently their relation; and it is to be
expected that a novelist will hold them to their natural functions,
broadly speaking, in building his book. It is only a rough contrast,
of course, the first and main difference between them that strikes the
eye; comparing them more closely, one might find other divergences
that would set their relation in a new light. But closer comparison is
what I have not attempted; much more material would have to be