THE HAMILTON ASSOCIATION. 33 
mention no other, since I have not the time to make such compari- 
sons and distinctions as would be necessary for clearness. 
I end where I began by affirming that the novel is great, that 
it holds depths and breadths and heights, both for author and for 
reader, which may never be fully compassed. The great demand 
for works of fiction, far in excess as it is of the demand for any 
other kind of works, is not necessarily a sign of depravity or of 
frivolity ; it may be based upon the longing for that knowledge and 
guidance for which we seek in vain in philosophy or science, a 
knowledge of life as we must live it, and guidance that we may live 
it aright. We may not all seek for truth in the subtleties of meta- 
physics, we may not all count the stars and tell them by their 
names, but we must all live. Science may be for the few ; conduct 
is for all. For this reason the novel must ever be of interest and of 
value, and the novelist may be one of the greatest of human 
benefactors. His responsibilities are great in proportion to his 
power of influence, which extends not only to the men of his own 
generation, but on from age to age. An old monk said to Wilkie, 
concerning Titian’s “‘ Last Supper:” “I have sat daily in sight of 
that picture for now nearly three-score years; during that time my 
companions have dropped off one after another, all who were my 
seniors, all who were my contemporaries, and many or most of those 
who were younger than myself; more than one generation has 
passed away, and there the figures on the picture have remained 
unchanged ; I look at them until I sometimes think that they are the 
realities, and we but shadows.” It has been made possible for us to 
put what is best in us into such a form that it shall live when we 
are gone, and by its permanence seem a reality beside which we are 
but shadows =‘ Truth only will so live, and our truth will live only 
until the world shall have advanced beyond us into deeper and fuller 
truth. A great mind’s truth about human life may live from 
generation to generation, and from race to race, entertaining, 
instructing, confronting, and blessing, and helping to mould the life 
of all the world. Great are the possibilities of fiction. 
