In Esmond or The
Virginians or The Newcomes, there are tracts and tracts of the story
which are bound to remain outside the reader's direct vision; only a
limited number of scenes and occasions could possibly be set forth in
the form of drama. A large, loose, manifold subject, in short,
extensive in time and space, full of crowds and diversions, is a
pictorial subject and can be nothing else. However intensely it may be
dramatized here and there, on the whole it must be presented as a
conspectus, the angle of vision being assigned to the narrator. It is
simply a question of amount, of quantity, of the reach of the subject.
If it passes a certain point it exceeds the capacity of the straight
and dramatic method.
Madame Bovary and The Ambassadors, again, are undramatic in their
matter, though their reach is comparatively small; for in both of them
the emphasis falls upon changes of mind, heart, character, gradually
drawn out, not upon any clash or opposition resolved in action. They
_might_ be treated scenically, no doubt; their authors might
conceivably have handled them in terms of pure drama, without any
direct display of Emma's secret fancies or Strether's brooding
imagination. But in neither case could that method make the most of
the subject or bring out all that it has to give. The most expressive,
most enlightening part of Strether's story lies in the reverberating
theatre of his mind, and as for Emma, the small exterior facts of her
story are of very slight account.
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