history of their martyrdom in prison, where they were incarcerated for similar reasons. The book of the former, entitled Recollections of the House of Death, is more original than that of the latter, its sentiment perhaps more profound, its power of observation indisputably more delicate, but on the other side, the author is visibly deficient in the power of composition, and in spite of its brilliant qualities, the book cannot be read without fatigue. On the contrary, the work of the Italian writer, called My Prison, albeit less powerful, is so much clearer, fresher, and better equilibriated, and so admirably composed, that it has become a classic, read in every country with real delight.

The length of the novel is also intimately connected with its composition, because it is next to impossible to write a good one of exaggerated dimensions. It seems at first sight stupid to indicate material limits to a poetic work, and to clip the wings of the artist. But it is more stupid to write works out of proportion, which lead to the author being accused of presumption or, what is worse, of fatuity. The immoderate desire to write a great deal is often significant of a puerile wish to make a show of strength and power, without understanding that the true way to exhibit strength is to take a firm hold of the plot and rule it, whilst keeping oneself completely in hand and under control. In like manner the exaltation, which gives rise sometimes to acts of valour and heroism, and to inspired work in the spiritual line, is not, according to doctors, an indication of a vigorous nervous system, but of a feeble and weak one. The author who writes voluminously should understand that all that his work gains in extension loses in intensity, and that there is no plot which cannot, and should not be developed in moderation. The Ramayana, the Iliad, and the Odyssey, epics that reflect entire civilisations, and which convey a world of ideas and customs, of events, of scientific and historic remarks, do not contain as many pages as certain modern novels. Moreover, an author who wishes to be read not only in his life, but after his death (and the author who does not wish this, should lay aside his pen), cannot shut his eyes, when unblinded by vanity, to the fact that not only is it neces

sary to produce a fine work to save himself from oblivion, but it must not be a very long one. The world contains so many great and beautiful works that it requires a long life to read them all. To ask the public, always anxious for novelty, to read a production of inordinate length, when so many others are demanding his attention, seems to me useless and ridiculous. I do not lay this down as an absolute principle, because there may be a work of such superior merit that, long or short, it will be read from century to century; I am only speaking of ordinary compositions. The most noteworthy instance of what I say is seen in the celebrated English novelist Richardson, the author of Clarissa Harlowe and Pamela, who, in spite of his admirable genius and exquisite sensibility and perspicacity, added to the fact of his being the father of the modern novel, is scarcely read nowadays, at least in Latin countries. Given the indisputable beauty of his works, this can only be due to their extreme length. And the proof of this is, that in France and Spain, to encourage the taste for them, the most interesting parts have been extracted and published in epitomes and compendiums. Such a proceeding seems utter profanation to me, but this is what writers are exposed to who are incapable of concentrating the great faculties with which nature has endowed them. And now I have said sufficient about the structure, or skeleton, of the novel.

IV

It is truly said that everything is a legitimate subject for a novel; every part of reality, every fraction of life, reproduced by an inspired writer, can engender a novel. This statement, which I consider true to a certain extent, when taken beyond its just limitations, and proclaimed as an absolute principle, has given rise to the trivial and prosaic literature which floods us at the present day. It is true that the human mind can be embellished by contact with every reality when it observes it contemplatively. But it is not less true, that added to this element, purely subjective, there is also in the production of beauty the objective

element which determines its value and force. The pleasure of Velasquez painting his "Drunkards," or that of Rembrandt, when writing his celebrated lecture on anatomy, must have been great; it is always a pleasure to contemplate nature in a disinterested fashion, and more so still to have the faculty of reproducing it with the marvellous cxactness of these masters. But the joy of Titian, Correggio, and Raphael must have been infinitely greater, because these fine artists not only became engrossed in nature like the others, not only did they reproduce it with admirable truth, but they lived in intimate relation with its purest and most elevated forms, forms in which nature has been freest to express itself. And when this nature was checked in its development by some obstacle which disfigured it, these painters, guided by their instinct, interpreted it, revealed its secret aim, and helped it to express clearly what it had only stammered confusedly.

The subject, or theme, on which a writer exercises his pen, is not then immaterial. Everything has its value, like the different departments in which man fulfills the law of labour, but some are low and some are high. Perhaps this statement sounds oldfashioned to modern æsthetes, but I find it true. After all, with regard to most of these subjects, the old truth is enough for me. He who paints still life well, will never be such a great artist as he who paints real life well; he who only reproduces the grosser forms of life and the rudimentary movements of the mind, will not rise to the glory of knowing how to evoke, and place in pathetic conflict, the great passions of the human soul. I consider the stress laid nowadays on the good arrangement of accessories, both in the plastic and poetic arts, absurd. To paint the background of a picture well, the furniture and details, is not to be a painter in the highest acceptance, given by our imagination, to the word. To make a rough rustic speak appropriately, to describe accurately the customs of a country, is not sufficient to merit the title of a great novelist. The Greeks laughed at painters of eating-houses.

I believe so much in the value of the theme chosen for the work, that a worthy and beautiful subject is the best thing that

an artist can possess in his life, it is a real gift from the gods. How many great writers have passed into oblivion through not having had this good fortune!

Where would Cervantes be now if his tiresome sojourn in Argamasilla, which brought him in contact with some original types, had not suggested the characters of Don Quixote and Sancho Panza? On the other hand, there have existed writers who, without possessing a great talent, or rising to the exalted stage of poetic inspiration, called genius, have been immortalised, thanks to a fortunate discovery of subject. The most notable instance I know of this, in modern times, is that of the Abbé Prévost, whose creative faculties, judging from the numerous works that he wrote, and which fell to the ground, did not surpass mediocrity, when an interesting episode, perhaps of his own life, perhaps that of a friend, raised him to the height of the finest stars of art. Manon Lescaut is one of the most beautiful and best conceived works that the human mind has ever produced. Another writer, who affords an equally or more striking instance of this fact, has just died. The plays of Alexandre Dumas fils are considered by men of taste as false, full of mannerisms, abstract, certain to die when the public taste goes in other directions. Nevertheless, in his celebrated Dame aux Camélias, he surpassed himself and rose to the extreme heights of poetry. This drama is so beautiful, so original, so pathetic, exhales such a perfume of poetry mingled with such a profound Christian sentiment, that I much doubt that any other dramatic production of this century can compete with it for the admiration of posterity. Such a gulf between the works of the same author can only be explained by the felicity of the subject.

I do not deny, however, that there have existed writers, like Shakespeare and Molière, capable of attaining not only in one, but in many, of their works, to a high degree of perfection; but let us remember that Shakespeare and Molière did not invent their plots, they took them from whence they chose. Their powerful instinct made them understand what they ended in stating, that beautiful themes are rare in poetry, and that sometimes a mediocre writer,

and even a fool, may light upon them, and then, for the good of humanity, it is legitimate to take them.

The method of contemporaneous writers is quite different. Equipped with the theory that all life is a worthy subject for a novel, we accept the most insignificant and insipid acts of ordinary existence, and on that we write a story.

Consequently the majority of novels and dramatic works are wanting in power and interest, however vigorously drawn the characters may be. I have often been sorry to see writers exercising their great talent on worthless subjects, and I have deplored their want of Shakespeare and Molière's method of taking the good where they could find it. This wretched fear of using subjects already used was unknown to the ancients; Eschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides had no hesitation in writing on the same subject as we see in the "Philoctetes." But our sensitive amour propre, the overweening desire for originality, to which we are a prey, makes us feel we are dishonoured if we take a plot from another writer, although we know we should do better by doing so. To hide this dearth of imagination, which is patent, and yet to produce a deep impression, the best known authors actually have recourse to devices which, when I have depicted, will give a succinct idea of the vices to which I feel the modern novel has fallen a prey -vices, nearly all of which could easily disappear if, instead of making it a business to show the public the brightness of our intellect and the force of our imagination, we undertook to write solid and good works. Like the English writer, Thomas Carlyle, I think sincerity is the casence of a superior man (or hero, as he calls him), and that the absence of sincerity, not that of intellect, is what has caused a decadence of modern Art.

Orc of the most common resources of contemporaneous novelists ic what I will term accumulation. As ordinary life seldom offers interesting themes for imaginative works, and its simple representation frequently borders on triviality (as we see in a great number of English and German novelists), instead of waiting patiently for life to offer a suitable subject, they prefer to take a long period, and condensing it into a representation of a short space of time,