with much truth, the real hero of The Parisians is "the Parisian Society of Imperial and Democratic France."

82. Association of Characters. - Except in autobiographical fiction, the dramatis personæ are rarely all acquainted with the chief central character; still more rarely are they all mutually acquainted. In any case, the various degrees of intimacy are distinct enough to serve as bases for important groupings. Even prominent characters may be ignorant of their mutual existence. Silas Marner must always remember William Dane and Dunstan Cass as the two individuals who have most grievously injured him, but these two men pass through life, each absolutely unknown to the other.

In Pride and Prejudice there is in general a fine interweaving of characters, but there are several interesting exceptions. Miss Darcy, for example, meets none of the Bennets except Elizabeth; nor in the course of the directly presented action does she meet Wickham, though their relations offer material for a very dramatic interview. In this respect the drama is characteristically more compact than the loose epic-like structure of the novel. Hamlet is on the stage, alive, with all of the individually named characters except Reynaldo, Francisco, and Fortinbras. Rosalind, however, so far as recorded, never hears of the old servant who is so faithful to her lover.

The grouping of the dramatis personæ as to mutual acquaintance may be tabulated in various ways. In the following arrangement for the chief characters of Silas Marner, each person of any group is at least once presented with each other person of that group.

William Dane The Squire Mrs. Winthrop Dunstan Molly (living)

One of the most objective, dramatic, and distinctly struc tural groupings of the novel is the dialogic. Except in duos and trios exact repetition of any group is uncommon. As in real life, the omission or addition of a single character, even in groups of some size, may essentially change the form and substance of the conversation.

Duos and trios predominate in The Last of the Mohicans. The following are four of the most important conversational groups. Heyward is present in all; the Indian element colors three of them. Chingachgook, Hawkeye, Heyward, Alice Munro (Chapter XIII); Chingachgook, Hawkeye, Heyward, Munro, Uncas (Chapter XVIII); David Gamut, Hawkeye, Heyward, Munro (Chapter XXII); Heyward, Magua, Cora Munro, Tamemund, Uncas (Chapter XXX). In Ivanhoe the dialogic groups are in general larger and at the same time more compact in their structure than in Cooper. Good examples are found in Chapter XXVII — Ambrose, Athelstane, Bois-Guilbert, De Bracy, Front-de-Bœuf, Giles, Wamba; and Chapter XXXIII- Friar Tuck, Isaac, The Prior, Robin Hood, his "lieutenant,” “ one of the outlaws," the band (in concerted speech).

Groups of great importance in the study of characterization and of subject-matter are based on personal influence. Many characters are decidedly either active or passive in the general perspective of the plot. According to Goethe's theory, the hero of a drama is primarily active, the hero of a novel primarily passive. In fiction as in life, great depth and great breadth of influence are rarely combined. The more profound character forces of any individual are limited to a comparatively small circle of dramatis personæ, or become more shallow as they reach the outer circles. A character may exist, in fiction, mainly to influence other characters, directly or indirectly, as in the conventional plotfunctions of the deus ex machina and dramatic providence.

William Dane has no life of his own, apart from his relation to Silas Marner, as the novelist presents him. A father or mother may exist,

artistically, for the sake of influencing a child. (See Riemann's treatment of the motif of "Der Tod des Vaters"; and compare the opening of Soll und Haben.)

In Pride and Prejudice, Elizabeth and Darcy are far more influential than the other pair of lovers. In Silas Marner, so far as mutual influence is concerned, Macey, the Squire, Dunstan, and others are quite outside the compact circle composed of Silas, Godfrey, Nancy, Eppie, and Mrs. Winthrop. On the whole, Silas himself exemplifies quite clearly the theory of Goethe given above.

83. Relation to the Author.-Modern realistic theory has frequently insisted that the novelist should be absolutely impartial, objective, in reference to his characters; but this is a doctrine very rarely represented in practise. A mind sufficiently interested in individuals to write a novel does not sincerely value all individuals alike; and the pretence to impartiality often produces the impression of a general hostility rather than artistic objectivity. Brunetière1 distinguishes the realism of French fiction, as represented by Flaubert, with its scorn for the humble lives it portrays, from English realism, as represented by George Eliot, with its profoundly sympathetic attitude toward the same type of character. Even Jane Austen reveals clearly her personal preferences for certain characters of her creation, and personal dislike for others.

1

Smollett and other eighteenth century writers found in the novel an opportunity to display personal spite or personal approval of real contemporaries, slightly disguised in the fiction. Newman personally sympathizes with the early Christian converts, in Callista. Literary, national, or racial prejudice often leaves a clear stamp on characterization, even in novels of a general realistic quality. The novelist may indicate that he opposes certain literary or

1 Roman Naturaliste, 1893, p. 230.

social conventions by presenting characters in a spirit of burlesque or caricature.

Examples of types so treated are some of the pastoral figures of Sidney's Arcadia, the knight of chivalry in Don Quixote, the prude in Joseph Andrews, the Euphuist in The Monastery. In Soll und Haben, the author shows German prejudice against the Pole and the Jew; in Westward Ho!, Kingsley reveals English Protestant dislike for the Spanish Jesuit.

The partial identification of the author with a character has been noticed in Section 58. Sometimes it is the principal character, as in The Vicar of Wakefield, David Copperfield, Pride and Prejudice; sometimes a less central personality, as in Anna Karénina. A single character may embody not merely the general Weltanschauung of the author, but his more specific temporary problems or episodes of experience; as in Oroonoko, Werther, The Pirate, Corinne, Newman's Loss and Gain, War and Peace.

A certain character may intermediate, as expositor or as one of kindred temperament or experience, between the author and the reader. In fictions of specially difficult illusion, particularly in the realm of the supernatural, a character is often found whose chief function is to “rationalize" the improbable. The management of such functions is one of the excellencies in Defoe's technic. Examples are also found

in Peter Wilkins, Gulliver's Travels, Frankenstein, and Utopia. In much the same way, the intensity of tragedy may be mediated through a comparatively commonplace and unemotional character.

Frequently, all the principal characters may be clearly grouped with reference to the main purpose or theme of the novel.

84. Reality and Ideality. As all artistic characterization is an imaginative process, all the characters of a novel are more or less ideal; but the degrees of ideality may often be distinct enough to serve as a basis for important group

ings. "Real" characters, for the present purpose, are those that represent, essentially, specific individuals or groups from actual life, historical or contemporaneous. In the case of contemporary models the reader may not be able to discover the real situation from the internal evidence of the novel. In giving his own method, Scott states a general practise in modeling from real life: "I have always studied to generalize the portraits, so that they should still seem, on the whole, the productions of fancy, though possessing some resemblance to real individuals." 1 Many novelists have vigorously affirmed that characters supposed by captious readers to be "copied" from existing individuals, were either purely imaginary, or composites studied from several models.

In historical fiction, in the narrow sense, the grouping of the dramatis personæ into historical, semi-historical, (typically historical), and non-historical individuals is always possible and usually illuminative. The nature of historical romance, in one way, and the nature of historical realism, in another, determine that the majority of historical individuals elaborately presented should be persons of prominent external activity-soldiers, statesmen, and reformers, rather than men of a predominant inner life. Purely imaginary individuals may be historical in type, or may be given an historical quality in the illusion by intimate association with well-known real characters. Raphael Hythloday, in Utopia, is a follower of Amerigo Vespucci : among the dramatis personæ of Westward Ho! are a companion of Pizarro and a grandson of De Soto.

Indeterminate groups, except in general outline, must always be largely idealized, for history preserves no record of their individual members, or of their actions in minute detail.

1 Introduction of 1827 to Chronicles of the Canongate.