1884.] on the Art of Fiction. 77 



to dialogue, the rapidity of the action, those things which naturally 

 suggest themselves to the practised eye, deserve to be very carefully 

 considered by the beginner. In fact, a novel is like a play : it may 

 be divided into scenes and acts, tableaux and situations, separated by 

 the end of the chapter instead of the drop scene : the writer is the 

 dramatist, stage-manager, scene-painter, actor, and carpenter, all in 

 one : it is his single business to see that none of the scenes flag or fall 

 flat : he must never for one moment forget to consider how the piece 

 is looking from the front. 



The next simple Rule is that the drawing of each figure must be 

 clear in outline, and, even if only sketched, must be sketched without 

 hesitation. This can only be done when the writer himself sees his 

 figures clearly. Characters in fiction do not, it must be understood, 

 spring Minerva-like from the brain. They grow : they grow some- 

 times slowly, sometimes quickly. From the first moment of concep- 

 tion, that is to say, from the first moment of their being seen and 

 caught, they grow continuously and almost without mental effort. If 

 they do not grow and become every day clearer, they had better be 

 put aside at once, and forgotten as soon as may be, because that is a 

 proof that the author does not understand the character he has himself 

 endeavoured to create. To have on one's hands a half-created being 

 vrithout the power of finishing him must be a truly dreadful thing. 



The only way out of it is to kill and bury him at once 



On the other hand, how possible, how capable of development, how 

 real becomes a true figure, truly understood by the creator, and truly 

 depicted ! Do we not know what they would say and think under all 

 conceivable conditions ? We can dress them as we will ; we can 

 place them in any circumstances of life : we can always trust them, 

 because they will never fail us, never disappoint us, never change, 

 because we understand them so thoroughly. So well do we know 

 them that they become our advisers, our guides, and our best friends, 

 on whom we model ourselves, our thoughts, and our actions. The 

 writer who has succeeded in drawing to the life, true, clear, distinct, 

 60 that all may understand, a single figure of a true man or woman, 

 has added another exemplar or warning to humanity. Nothing, then, 

 it must be insisted upon as of the greatest importance, should be 

 begun in writing until the characters are so clear and distinct in the 

 brain, so well known, that they will act their parts, bend their dia- 

 logue, and suit their action to whatever situations they may find 

 themselves in, if only they are becoming to them. Of course, clear 

 outline drawing is best when it is accomplished in the fewest strokes, 

 and the greater part of the figures in Fiction, wherein it differs from 

 Painting, in which everything should be finished, require no more 

 work upon them, in order to make them clear, than half-a-dozen bold, 

 intelligible lines. 



As for the methods of conveying a clear understanding of a 

 character, they are many. The first and the easiest is to make it clear 

 by reason of some mannerism or personal peculiarity, some trick of 



