It has to be
remembered that drama is the novelist's highest light, like the white
paper or white paint of a draughtsman; to use it prodigally where it
is not needed is to lessen its force where it is essential. And so the
economical procedure would be to hoard it rather, reserving it for
important occasions--as in Bovary, sure enough.
But before I deal with the question of the novelist's drama I would
follow out the whole argument that is suggested by his reflected
picture of life. This, after all, is the method which is his very own,
which he commands as a story-teller pure and simple. And for a
beginning I have tried to indicate its prime disadvantage, consisting
of the fact that in its plain form it drags in the omniscient author
and may make him exceedingly conspicuous. Why is this a disadvantage,
is it asked? It is none, of course, if the author has the power to
make us admire and welcome the apparition, or if his picture is so
dazzling that a theoretic defect in it is forgotten. But a novel in
which either of these feats is accomplished proves only the charm or
genius of the author; charm and genius do what they will, there is
nothing new in that. And I believe that the defect, even though at
first sight it may seem a trifle, is apt to become more and more
troublesome in a book as the book is re-read. It makes for a kind of
thinness in the general impression, wherever the personal force of the
writer is not remarkable.
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