It is always
memorable, it fills the mind so acceptably that a story-teller might
be ready and eager to aspire to this effect, one would think, whenever
his matter gives him the chance. Again and again I have wished to
silence the voice of the spokesman who is supposed to be helping me to
a right appreciation of the matter in hand--the author (or his
creature) who knows so much, and who pours out his information over
the subject, and who talks and talks about an issue that might be
revealing itself without him. The spokesman has his way too often, it
can hardly be doubted; the instant authority of drama is neglected. It
is the day of the deep-breathed narrator, striding from volume to
volume as tirelessly as the Scuderies and Calprenedes of old; and it
is true, no doubt, that the novel (in all languages, too, it would
seem) is more than ever inclined to the big pictorial subject, which
requires the voluble chronicler; but still it must happen occasionally
that a novelist prefers a dramatic motive, and might cast it into a
round, sound action and leave it in that form if he chose. Here again
there is plenty of room for enterprise and experiment in fiction, even
now.
But at the same time it must be admitted that there is more in the
general unwillingness of story-tellers to entrust the story to the
people in it--there is more than I have said.
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