ABSTRACT
The stuff of empirical realism is narrative prolepsis, wary scepticism and the desire for tested truth. This chapter argues that foreshadowing in the novel is a way or asserting the truth-value of narrative as a form. Empirical science and narrative suspense rely on a comparable formal structure: both call for a lag or interval between initial surmise and later knowledge, between dawning suspicions and decisive conclusions. The chapter shows that the reader of Romola, like its heroine, is also brought to settled, knowing closure through a process of empirical testing. The stuff of empirical realism is narrative prolepsis, wary scepticism and the desire for tested truth. The novel's didactic epilogue also seems to imply that it is indeed possible to choose a moral course rather than an immoral one, and that a proper moral education might come from hearing exemplary narratives and choosing one path rather than another.
