In this kind of novel the closed door
of THE AUTHOR OF BELTRAFFIO must be broken open; passion must
appear upon the scene and utter its last word; passion is the be-
all and the end-all, the plot and the solution, the protagonist and
the DEUS EX MACHINA in one. The characters may come anyhow upon
the stage: we do not care; the point is, that, before they leave
it, they shall become transfigured and raised out of themselves by
passion. It may be part of the design to draw them with detail; to
depict a full-length character, and then behold it melt and change
in the furnace of emotion.
But there is no obligation of the sort; nice portraiture is not
required; and we are content to accept mere abstract types, so they
be strongly and sincerely moved. A novel of this class may be even
great, and yet contain no individual figure; it may be great,
because it displays the workings of the perturbed heart and the
impersonal utterance of passion; and with an artist of the second
class it is, indeed, even more likely to be great, when the issue
has thus been narrowed and the whole force of the writer's mind
directed to passion alone. Cleverness again, which has its fair
field in the novel of character, is debarred all entry upon this
more solemn theatre. A far-fetched motive, an ingenious evasion of
the issue, a witty instead of a passionate turn, offend us like an
insincerity.
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