more effective, but all without avail. And strange as it may seem, England, the home of good taste, moderation and sobriety, excels in this tendency. Even the most talented writers overwhelm the reader with an abundance of adjectives, in order to compete with the many scribblers who overcrowd the market with so-called moral pictures.

It is, therefore, not without interest to inquire into the muchdiscussed and disputed question: Is the modern novel a work of art?

The whole intellectual life of the nineteenth century, especially that of its second half, is governed by the scientific habits and the new codex of morals which gained ascendency shortly before the French Revolution, reaching the zenith of their power with the final defeat of romanticism. But both the scientific and the moral criterion are not only not in harmony with art, they are entirely incompatible with it; they are art's negation. Artistic fiction has suffered most of all under the influence of these modern principles because its form is especially adaptable to scientific treatment and moral suasion. Of course, there were men long before the Revolution who erred in this direction; even the Greeks had their Pauson and their Pyreikos; but they were exceptions. In these days all our culture and education, being under the law of books, are governed by analytical and moral diction. No doubt, humanity is, in its habits of life, the same as it ever has been ; but its views are changed; life is defined in terms of science and morality.

It is the office of science to inquire into the creative forces at work in the universe and to investigate their causes; science analyzes and destroys the individual life in order to find its laws, i. e., that which is common to individual phenomena. Art, on the other hand, endeavors to know and to explain the world by comprehending and reproducing the esssential outlines or the idea of the individual life. Art eliminates the merely accidental in order to bring the essential into relief, or, as Macaulay has it, "Analysis is not the business of the poet;

his office is to portray, not to dissect." Now, sin that the general is only an abstraction of our min life finds its expression only in the essential, it that art is, in one sense, truer than science. Ho side of the question does not belong to our discus only want to show that the so-called scientific treat subject belonging to the sphere of fiction can only i just as science is slighted when measured from the of art.

M. Zola, for example, in relinquishing the claim t of an artist, implores in vain the men of science special honors for services rendered in behalf of scie works are, after all, merely products of his imagina therefore entirely worthless for science, which only d actualities, and never bases laws upon phantasies. Be scientific labor is collective and progressive, that of is individual and absolute. Every new work of scien sedes its predecessor-at least partly-until it become obsolete. The scientific act is immortal, but the scient must perish. Is M. Zola, really so conceited as "Nana" and "Potbouille" are scientific acts, i. e., ring infinite chain of science? Certainly not; perhaps th tlemen are, after all, not so serious in their interest for What they want is to produce works of art with the inst of science and from material which is the result of simply because they have lost on the one hand the tool sary for works of art, and on the other hand the crite the choice of the material has become an unknown qua them. Is such undertaking not sure of failure in the s

The instrument, if this expression is allowed, by which accomplishes its purposes, is the process of reasoning of art is imagination. Science only recognizes a co knowledge of things, art an unconscious; and as the artis reproduces that which he has received directly and sciously through imagination or intuition, so the artistic tator or reader comprehends his subject only intuitively, no

sciously or purposely; both act, as we all do in our daily walk and conversation, therefore art stands nearer to life than science. We know a man as he is, though often we cannot tell whether he has blue or brown eyes, a high or low forehead, yet we are surer of our knowledge of the man than the most minute and accurate description could make us. Thus language is developed; it is unconsciously learned, often unconsciously used, especially in expressions of affection, and therefore it reproduces our feelings more faithfully than the most careful selection of words could do. Language is for science the same that numbers are for the mathematician; it does not give a picture, but the abstract expression of things. The physician (artista) first receives a general impression of his patient without accounting for it, or even without being able to account for it; only the quack trusts exclusively in the thermometer and definite symptoms, because he has not the "nack." Homer's "Iliad" is full of similar examples, of which every one who knows his Homer is aware. It seems as if in these days our whole cultured society both readers and artists did not possess any longer that "nack;" they are proud of being able to give a minute account of all they have consciously recognized, thoroughly investigated and understood. What is the result of this state of affairs?

How do modern writers describe the world of thought and the world of action? An exact physiological analysis answers the former, a careful description the latter. But such psychological phenomena do not actually exist, they are merely an abstraction of our intellect; therefore, even the most perfect enumeration of them will never produce a vivid picture, though our imagination should be able to unify the multiplicity of details, whilst on the other hand a single characteristic stroke of the pencil would suffice to create the most faithful image. The parts do not make the man, but their inter-relation and harmonious co-operations; as soon as that ceases life ceases (Iliad iv. 105-111). But mathematical reasoning never grasps the essence of totality, that belongs to unconscious imagination; to

reproduce this totality, i. e., to embody the idea whole in its work is the office of art. The same is description of the external world. Pyreikos, who p the ardor of a Dutch painter only the details of ba and dirty stores, was called by the Greeks the " rapher," or mud-painter. To-day this very pract plauded. A whole page of M. Daudet's, on which he all the merchandise of a Southern sausage-dealer w fragrance, and the household utensils in all their de worth the two strophes in which H. Heine shows us t Uraka so vividly that we shudder. Daudet's descrip minute account such as we never make in actual lif therefore, just as little hold on our imagination as a household furniture. Heine's two strophes transport certain mood, awaken in us a sensation which at once our imagination to action; the very description here i and the effect upon the reader is but its reaction.

Art is more economical than science, more economi those authors who record with scientific conscientious the detailed results of an action and its motives. T poor householders who do not understand how to inve money. Art shows us Philine sitting upon the saved rattling her keys, whilst confusion and despair reigns all her. She is thus irresistible, and stands before our eye vivid than a long enumeration of her charms, or even a d tion of the magic remedies would have done which gav such power. A modern writer would certainly have take of the opportunity and given us both, for descriptions and nitions are their chief hobby. We do not deny at all th find in these modern novels a more minute observation of chological and social phenomena, a more accurate study the modes of feeling and thinking, a more conscientious ca their development and a more eager analysis of passions their motives than in the older novels of our age. The w course of a man's life is minutely given, perhaps also the his parents and grand parents-they call it making poetical us

scientific results-until we have forgotten the man himself. True art cares as little for the development of a man's character as life itself; it introduces him as complete and leaves his actions and words explain him. Shakespeare leaves it to the learned doctors to explain how Hamlet became what he is, he is satisfied to show him as he is. And not the drama shows man as he is and not how he came to be so, but also the novel, as long as it is a work of art.

Pourquoi Manon, dès la première scène
Est-elle si vivante et si vraiment humaine
Qu'il semble qu'on l'a vue et que c'est un portrait ?

asks Musset. Is it not because she is not described, analyzed and defined, but because she simply appears and acts? Because the poet, in a few words, reflects his own impression, and thus excites our interest. We never see persons and actions of fiction; we feel the impression which they make; that alone convinces; an enumeration of attributes and circumstances, even if possible to perfection, never arouses our imagination or addresses our feelings; it merely gives us a certain quantity of knowledge.

However the reply is made that former writers confined themselves almost exclusively to sketches and outlines. That is absolutely false. The principal points of the narrative are the dramatic moments of an action, the characteristic features. of a person. The faithfulness and vividness with which each single feature-expressing totality in nuce-is given, creates a true picture of the whole man, with all its antecedents, its consequences and its circumstances, i. e., a picture not of the individual parts, but of their harmonious oneness. His procedure is similar to that of the sculptor, who reproduces only the plastic elements of the painter, and only the picturesque position of his subject, neglecting everything else; he only takes up those features which can be made literary effectual. But it is with actions as with men. A very minute, methodical enumeration of all the movements of the different accurately-named regiments which have taken part in a battle, may have and has