ok before the commencement
of publication. At first he scarcely did more than complete each
monthly instalment as required; and though afterwards he was generally
some little way in advance, yet always he wrote by parts, having the
interest of each separate part in his mind, as well as the general
interest of the whole novel. Thus, however desirable in the
development of the story, he dared not risk a comparatively tame and
uneventful number. Moreover, any portion once issued was unalterable
and irrevocable. If, as sometimes happened, any modification seemed
desirable as the book progressed, there was no possibility of
changing anything in the chapters already in the hands of the public,
and so making them harmonize better with the new.

But of course, with all this, the question still remains how far
Dickens' comparative failure as a constructor of plots really detracts
from his fame and standing as a novelist. To my mind, I confess, not
very much. Plot I regard as the least essential element in the
novelist's art. A novel can take the very highest rank without it.
There is not any plot to speak of in Lesage's "Gil Blas," and just as
little in Thackeray's "Vanity Fair," and only a very bad one in
Goldsmith's "Vicar of Wakefield." Coleridge admired the plot of "Tom
Jones," but though one naturally hesitates to differ from a critic of
such superb mastery and power, I confess I have never been struck by
that plot, any more than by the plots, such as they are, in "Joseph
Andrews," or in Smollett's works. Nor, if I can judge of other
people's memories by my own, is it by the mechanism of the story, or
by the intrigue, however admirably woven and unravelled, that one
remembers a work of fiction. These may exercise an intense passing
interest of curiosity, especially during a first perusal. But
afterwards they fade from the mind, while the characters, if highly
vitalized and strong, will stand out in our thoughts, fresh and full
coloured, for an indefinite time. Scott's "Guy Mannering" is a
well-constructed story. The plot is deftly laid, the events are
prepared for with a cunning hand; the coincidences are so arranged as
to be made to look as probable as may be. Yet we remember and love the
book, not for such excellences as these, but for Dandie Dinmont, the
Border farmer, and Pleydell, the Edinburgh advocate, and Meg
Merrilies, the gipsy. The book's life is in its flesh and blood, not
in its plot. And the same is true of D