life we meet with persons in relations so casual and fugitive as to afford us only one side of their character, which traits are permanently associated with their particular names, we may well be permitted to cultivate this fugitive kind of acquaintance in the world of fiction.

Indeed, it may be said that fiction has in this, as in all other matters, a certain degree of freedom in departing from the strict probabilities of life. Further, we are much more disposed to concede this licence to the poet or novelist when the whole impression of the piece is light and amusing. When we are charmed by the representation of a perfectly bright and gay disposition, we are much less sceptical as to the existence of the reality than when the ideal object is of a dark and more terrible character. This is only one example of a general law of emotional life, traceable in all strong and healthy minds.* Accordingly, one takes delight in the sketchy and often one-sided creations of Comedy, though they appear to lack every mental force which customarily counterbalances and modifies the predominant disposition. It is on these grounds that Charles Lamb seeks, half playfully, to defend the immoral comedy of the seventeenth century.

"Translated into real life," he says, "the characters of his (Congreve's) and his friend Wycherley's dramas are profligates and strumpets,-the business of their brief existence, the undivided pursuit of lawless gallantry. No other spring of action, or possible motive of conduct is recognized; principles which, universally acted upon, must reduce this frame of things to a chaos. But we do them wrong in so translating them. No such effects are produced in their world. When we are among them, we are amongst a chaotic people." ↑

However extravagant this may seem, nobody can well fail to detect the substratum of truth which underlies it. With similar arguments Gervinus meets the objection brought against Shakspeare's Beatrice (in Much Ado about Nothing), namely, that her love of fun and banter is unnatural, that is, unwomanly.

Another aspect of moral qualities in artistic construction closely connected with their isolation, is their Universality. In one sense, of course, all the products of art must be concrete. A dramatist no less than a novelist, clothes his characters with a measure of individuality by giving them "a local habitation and a name." They

*Its operation may be seen in the first directions of childish credulity. Young children, if healthy and robust, are apt to be tenacious in their acceptance of a pleasing story, whereas their earliest scepticism customarily shows itself with respect to gloomy and terrifying histories.

The Essays of Elia; essay, On the Artificial Comedy of the Last Century.

are supposed to exist at a certain time and in a certain place, as well as to take part in a definite series of events. Hence they differ from the pseudo-individual sketches of Theophrastus, which are really descriptions, put into the form of a typical instance, of an indefinite number of individuals. Yet while all the characters of art are thus, in the first instance, concrete, they differ very much in the mode of their representative function. In contemplating, for example, the creations of the higher dramatists, ancient and modern, we recognize that they stand, so to speak, on a wide basis of humanity. Our attention is gently drawn aside from the single individuals immediately represented to large sections of mankind mediately represented. In contradistinction to these typical, representative characters, there are others which present themselves to our minds as solitary and individual phenomena. In observing these, our thought is not transported to the general and universal, but lingers amid the many ingredients, intellectual, emotional, and volitional, which make up the individual whole.

The grounds of this difference in our perceptions of imaginary character appear to be as follows. The individuality of a real character consists, apart from the determining features of time and place, in the number and proportions of its intellectual and moral ingredients and in their particular mode of combination. It is only when long and intimate acquaintance renders us familiar with these peculiarities of a character, that our idea of it grows distinctly concrete and individual. Any one of the single qualities discernible in a particular mind is something common to it and a vast number of other minds. Even the particular degree in which a certain impulse presents itself in an individual character, may be familiar through other instances. But the subtle and intricate combination of innumerable qualities, in which consists the whole moral personality, is never precisely the same in any two individuals. Hence, it is in the mode of grouping and adjusting the several ingredients of human nature that the artist must seek his first and principal basis of individuality. The other distinguishing element in individuality of character consists in the possession of some very rare quality, or rare degree of a familiar quality. It is obvious that any such trait serves to stamp a character, even on a slight observation of it, with a measure of individuality.

Each of these sources of individuality has an influence on our estimation of artistic character. In the first place, such a creation becomes highly concrete and individual when it exhibits a large

number of distinct aspects, expressing themselves in definite modes of speech, action, etc. Hence, in order to secure this concreteness the artist needs to present his ideal person in a large number of strongly-marked scenes. Where this process of individualization can be very fully carried out, as in the novel, the observer may receive a lasting impression of a distinct personality, scarcely less clear than that supplied by the real men and women of his acquaintance. A reader often eulogizes the verisimilitude of a good novel by saying, that he is certain of having met with the prototypes of the verbal creations which appear so natural and complete. In opposition to these full and individualized sketches, most of the characters of the modern novel seem to resemble old and faded portraits, in which the many individualizing touches have become obscure, leaving only a distant and incomplete semblance of a certain type of face. The dramatist, it is obvious, has not the same scope as the novelist for filling in the minute and distinguishing features of concrete character; and to this circumstance one may principally attribute the fact that dramatic characters, even when directly based on historical reality, appear more or less typical and representative. In the single and limited series of actions of a tragedy the persons represented betray only a few conspicuous traits; and hence, when we think of Edipus or of Antigone, of Hamlet or of Lear, our conception is that of a few leading impulses or of a certain type of temperament. This is still more obvious in our conceptions of the characters pourtrayed in comedy. Whereas a tragic character commonly involves opposing impulses, a comic character is very frequently simply the embodi-ment of a single laughable quality. This is true, for example, of such constructions as the Parmeno and Thraso of Terence, and the Avare of Molière. Indeed the fact that in Roman comedy the names of the dramatis persone indicated the quality of character represented, sufficiently illustrates the universal significance which belongs to the characters of comedy.*

A character, then, becomes concrete and individual, cæteris paribus, in proportion to its fulness of delineation. Yet even a fairly complete outline sometimes appears lacking in individuality. This happens when the qualities selected, as well as the degrees in which

Lessing discusses the question, raised by Diderot and Hurd, respecting the universality of comic as opposed to tragic characters. See the following essay on his Dramaturgy.

they manifest themselves, are common or average phenomena of human nature. On the other hand, a very sketchy delineation of character may seem to have a strongly-marked individuality when the qualities emphasized are rare and, consequently, impressive. In this manner, for example, the ideal dimensions of a tragic passion stamp the subject of it with a certain lofty singularity, causing him to appear an isolated individual instance of large and general human qualities. Similarly, the novel developments through which a comical character is made to pass in the hands of a Molière sufficiently mark off the particular embodiment of the ludicrous quality from all other instances.

Both in the construction of complex and individual forms of character, and in the embodiment of a few universal human attributes in an ideal representative, the artist has ample range for his selective and creative function. Also each of these products of art yields its own specific pleasure. In the first case, the observer's mind dwells on the subtle intermingling of many organic elements, and derives an intellectual enjoyment from a nice distinction and estimation of these. In the second instance, the mind draws its gratification from an appreciation of the universal worth of the few attributes thus singled out and accented.

To the latter class of artistic creations belong what are commonly styled ideal characters. These consist of artistic creations in which the attributes or groups of attributes rendered prominent are either universal, as opposed to the variable and exceptional, or conformable to some moral or aesthetic standard of excellence. Enough has perhaps been said in the previous essay respecting the contrast between universal and accidental qualities of the human mind. Now the former, by reason of their greater value, lend themselves much more easily to an abstract and exaggerated mode of representation.* Thus, for example, such a permanent and constant emotion as a love of home is far more susceptible of ideal treatment than a variable and individual feeling like a love of solitude. Similarly, the qualities which appear most constantly in a particular class, forming its leading characteristics, are more susceptible than the less constant ones, of the artist's imaginative and ideal treatment. Further, as I have already remarked, an ideal of character may be determined, not by universality, but by aesthetic or moral

* M. Taine has illustrated this point very fully in his essay, De l'Idéal dans l'Art.

worth. Accordingly, the exaggeration of a noble or beneficent quality, whether by representing it in unwonted intensity, or by suppressing other qualities which usually limit and circumscribe its action, is much more willingly assented to by the reader than a similar elevation of any indifferent or displeasing feature of character. One is far more ready to pronounce a very bad character unnatural and abnormal than a very excellent one. According to a psychological principle already referred to, the mind is far less disposed to be sceptical when receiving a pleasurable, than when receiving a painful impression. Not only so, but the influence of culture serves to alter our conception of actual human nature, since the idea of what it ought to be, and tends to become, partially obscures the idea of what it actually is.

Such, then, seem to be the principal modifications which the exhibition of human character undergoes in the hands of the artist, who in part copies his ethereal figures from the men and women of actual life, and in part transmutes them according to an ideal standard of the most impressive, the most beautiful, and the most worthy. We may now consider the question how far the several æsthetic features of character are employable in the arts of poetry and romance. In order to answer this, it will be needful to look a little at the other ends which these varieties of art seek to compass. Character is but one, though a principal, source of interest among several that are employed by the drama and the novel. A drama which simply presented a group of striking characters would scarcely fulfil the highest design of the art. Now it is possible that these other requirements may serve to limit very considerably the capabilities of these arts in respect of the pourtrayal of character; and if so, a proper understanding of our subject will involve a consideration of the limits thus imposed.

The other great aesthetic aim of the drama and the novel, besides the ideal pourtraiture of human character, is the construction of an interesting and absorbing Story or Plot. The pleasure derivable from this source involves, however, different species of gratification, which it may be well to distinguish somewhat carefully.

The attraction of a plot, in its narrowest sense, is due, largely, to the play of intellect and of will in curiosity and imaginative anticipation. Any spectacle which involves great uncertainty of issue, however little value this issue may have in itself, may stimulate in a pleasurable manner the activities of attention and expectation. The highest degree of this gratification is obtained when the event