ABSTRACT
Criticism has not kept pace with the novel in its more recent manifestations. The impression exists, too, that anybody, without having subjected himself to artistic discipline, can write a novel. The novel deals perforce most prominently with the surface of life, the appearances of things; yet it has rendered no small service if it succeed in rescuing from nothingness these ephemeral appearances, the beautiful or amusing trivialities through which we daily take our way. Boccaccio cared little, or not at all, for that subtle differentiation of human character which constitutes the underlying science of our modern novel-art. It was reserved for Scott to enlarge the mechanical apparatus, and extend the sympathies of the novel, beyond all precedent. The novelist, it is true, must observe a certain economy, holding back the more telling dramatic effects for particular passages. The excess of subjectivity in the average contemporary novel is not distinctly enough recognized.
