once suggests the question of the type and the individual. The typical character will be distinguished by traits that belong to the class; that is, by general traits: the individual character will be differentiated from others of its class by those peculiarities that make it essentially itself. It is a common fault with young writers to describe their heroes and heroines by class characteristics only, with the result that these creations possess as little real distinction as do the conventional broad-shouldered, lantern-jawed, and smallheaded gentry that figure in the advertisements for ready-made clothing and "gents"" underwear. One inexperienced author thus begins a story:

George Kasson, junior member of the firm of J. T. Kasson, Son, and Co., bond brokers, of Chicago, college graduate, athlete, president of his class, and already, in his twenty-fifth year, rising to prominence among the younger business fraternity of the seething western metropolis, a leader by will, if not by birth, was busily dressing in his room at the Grand Hotel at Sacramento.

And a little later on we are introduced to the heroine thus:

A piquant visage with big, round blue eyes, unobtrusive nose and gently fluctuating nostrils, lips enchantingly pink and forming a perfect Cupid's bow, cheeks suffused with a healthy, warm flush, and all set off by a luxurious mound of silken, fluffy hair.

It is needless to say that each of these pictures, as far as effectiveness is concerned, is a dismal failure. No two readers will see the same figures. In each case the writer has selected only the type characteristics of the young man and the young woman of the period: in the one case, college education, athletic prowess, popularity, ambi

tion; in the other, blue eyes, small nose, pink lips, fluffy hair. There is no trace of individuality.

For distinctness of impression contrast with either of the preceding the following picture of Judge Pyncheon as he ascends Hepzibah's steps in The House of the Seven Gables:

As the child went down the steps, a gentleman ascended them, and made his entrance into the shop. It was the portly, and, had it possessed the advantage of a little more height, would have been the stately figure of a man considerably in the decline of life, dressed in a black suit of some thin stuff, resembling broadcloth as closely as possible. A gold-headed cane of rare Oriental wood, added materially to the high respectability of his aspect, as did also a neckcloth of the utmost snowy purity, and the conscientious polish of his boots. His dark, square countenance, with its almost shaggy depth of eyebrows, was naturally impressive, and would, perhaps, have been rather stern, had not the gentleman considerately taken upon himself to mitigate the harsh effect by a look of exceeding good-humor and benevolence. Owing, however, to a somewhat massive accumulation of animal substance about the lower region of his face, the look was, perhaps, unctuous, rather than spiritual, and had, so to speak, a kind of fleshly effulgence, not altogether so satisfactory as he doubtless intended it to be. A susceptible observer, at any rate, might have regarded it as affording very little evidence of the general benignity of soul whereof it purported to be the outward reflection. And if the observer chanced to be ill-natured, as well as acute and susceptible, he would probably suspect that the smile on the gentleman's face was a good deal akin to the shine on his boots, and that each must have cost him and his boot-black, respectively, a good deal of hard labor to bring out and preserve them.

In this picture, Hawthorne has presented not so much the characteristics that might be selected as typical of every conventional country squire as those that

distinguished Judge Pyncheon from all other country squires. The judge has, indeed, what we may call the hall-marks of his class: the gold-headed cane, the white neck-cloth, the black broadcloth suit, the square countenance and shaggy eyebrows,-all combining in one general effect of stateliness and respectability. But with all this there is something that makes Judge Pyncheon essentially an individual; something that leaves upon the reader's mind a perfectly definite impression.

The same general rule holds as to clearness in presenting personality. A writer seeing in his subject only conventional and class characteristics fails to discover to the reader those little touches that differentiate man from man. The objective picture perhaps may be clear enough. The reader may see the hero, the heroine, the country squire, the village doctor, with absolute distinctness and may yet fail to know him. So it is when one looks over a number of strange faces in some public gathering. The various individuals are distinct enough objectively as one looks at them, and yet each remains a stranger; no single personality is revealed. So in the characterization that attends narration: there must, for subjective directness, be something deeper than mere firmness of external outline. Further, too, we must have more than a mere type of personality. It is not enough to know that a man is hypocritical or sincere, close-fisted or generous. Not all hypocrites are Pecksniffs, nor are all misers Isaacs of York.

The portrayal of the type and of the individual suggests the subject of caricature, to which reference has already been made. Caricature, or hyperbole in characterization, may easily result from the attempt to avoid vagueness in portrayal. To objectify a personage beyond all possibility of error, the writer goes to the extreme of

elaborating some one characteristic unduly and disproportionately. The result is a picture that is so unnatural as to be realistically inconceivable. An illustration occurs in the fourth chapter of Martin Chuzzlewit, wherein the various members of the Chuzzlewit family are portrayed as they gather vulture-like at the Blue Dragon in anticipation of the death of old Martin. Of course the humor of the exaggeration is unmistakable, but in spite of the distinctness of the portrayal evidenced in such details as Mr. Spottletoe's luxuriant whiskers, old Anthony's sharpness of feature, the acerbity of the spinster daughters, the vagueness of the young nephew's features, and the "spottiness" of Mr. George's general appearance, it may be questioned whether all the figures thus indicated are, after all, models of clear presentation.

Unity

In the presentation of character, unity, as well as clearness, is an important consideration. In depicting the dramatis persona unity is secured by the dominance of one character or of one set of characters. Personages of equal importance crowding the narrative are like the chorus on the stage: they serve the purpose of background; they may supply substance and increased effect; but they are not all-sufficient. They are like setting, in that they do not exist for their own sake. The confusion that attends the want of dominance on the part of one character or of one set of characters often appears in the work of Dickens, where personages that are, in fact, subordinate are so fully elaborated as to usurp the place properly belonging to the principals, and dramatic unity is lost. To cite Martin Chuzzlewit once more as an example, while there may be no doubt as to who holds the

title-rôle, yet so elaborate is the presentation of the three Pecksniffs, of old Martin, of Anthony and his undutiful son, of Mark Tapley, of Tom Pinch, of Mrs. Gamp, of the various Americans, that in reality young Martin Chuzzlewit himself fails to dominate the novel. Middlemarch has already been mentioned as a narrative lacking in unity (p. 5); the reader's interest is so divided between Lydgate and Rosamond, Dorothea and Ladislaw, Mary and Fred, that confusion results. In contrast to these one may consider Vanity Fair or The Mill on the Floss. That Vanity Fair is crowded with actors is apparent enough; yet, although Thackeray gave to the novel the sub-title "A novel without a hero," the reader does not fail to realize that Becky Sharp dominates all. Dobbin, Amelia, Jos Sedley, Rawdon Crawley, and others, it is true, play important parts; yet, as compared with Martin Chuzzlewit, Vanity Fair furnishes an amount of concentration that is lacking in the story of Martin's fortunes. Similarly in The Mill on the Floss, there is no question as to the dominance of Maggie Tulliver, and the novel presents a one-ness of effect that Middlemarch does not possess.

From another point of view this same matter of relative values, of dominance, may be said to illustrate the principles of force, of emphasis. If of a dozen characters, eleven are subordinate to the twelfth, the twelfth will proportionately dominate the narrative and give to it unity of tone; but, at the same time, the mere fact of the subordination will heighten the effective presentation of that twelfth character, the hero; he will stand out more distinctly against the background of the subordinated eleven. A Tale of Two Cities at times offers a problem as to who is the real hero, and the unity of the story is for the moment open to question. Certainly Doctor