high, with a back so flat and a head so well poised that when he drew himself up to take a more distant survey of his work, he had the air of a soldier standing at ease. The sleeve rolled up above the elbow showed an arm that was likely to win the prize for feats of strength; yet the long supple hand, with its broad finger-tips, looked ready for works of skill. In his tall, stalwartness Adam Bede was a Saxon, and justified the name; but the jet-black hair, made the more noticeable by its contrast with the light paper cap, and the keen glance of the dark eyes that shone from under strongly marked, prominent and mobile eyebrows, indicated a mixture of Celtic blood. The face was large and roughly hewn, and when in repose had no other beauty than such as belongs to an expression of good-humored honest intelligence.1

In the second passage (b) we have no longer the objective picture of the stalwart young workingman; rather we penetrate the veil of Adam's personality, and see him as he is deferential to his superiors in rank, but ever thoroughly self-respecting, and ready, if need be, to abide by his own judgment. We have internal portraiture, the exposition of an individuality.

(b) Adam, I confess, was very susceptible to the influence of rank, and quite ready to give an extra amount of respect to every one who had more advantages than himself, not being a philosopher, or a proletaire with democratic ideas, but simply a stout-limbed carpenter with a large fund of reverence in his nature, which inclined him to admit all established claims unless he saw very clear grounds for questioning them. He had no theories about setting the world to rights, but he saw there was a great deal of damage done by building with ill-seasoned timber by ignorant men in fine clothes making plans for outhouses and workshops and the like, without knowing the bearings of things by slovenly joiners' work, and by hasty contracts that could never be fulfilled without ruining somebody;

1 Chap. I.

and he resolved, for his part, to set his face against such doings. On these points he would have maintained his opinion against the largest landed proprietor in Loamshire or Stonyshire either; but he felt that beyond these it would be better for him to defer to people who were more knowing than himself. He saw as plainly as possible how ill the woods on the estate were managed, and the shameful state of the farm-buildings; and if old Squire Donnithorne had asked him the effect of this mismanagement, he would have spoken his opinion without flinching, but the influence to a respectful demeanor towards a “gentle" would have been strong within him all the while. The word "gentleman" had a spell for Adam, and, as he often said, he "could n't abide a fellow who thought he made himself fine by being coxy to his betters." I must remind you again that Adam had the blood of the peasant in his veins, and that since he was in his prime half a century ago, you must expect some of his characteristics to be obsolete.1

man

It is evident, then, that in the sense of "personage" the word "character" in narrative writing is more superficial and external than when used in the sense of "personality." As mere personages, the actors serve much the same purpose as does setting, in that they are auxiliary to the action, and do not arouse interest in and of themselves. This becomes clear if one examines an extreme case of objective narration like Robinson Crusoe. If from this story of adventure we could subtract everything that elucidates Crusoe's individuality, everything that differentiates him as an emotional, thinking unit from the rest of humankind, the volume of the book would not be essentially diminished. Our main interest lies in his escape from the Moors, in the salvage of necessaries from the wreck, in the construction of the" castle," in the rescue of Friday from the cannibals, etc. We are

1 Chap. XVI.

stirred by what Crusoe does. In contrast with this, however, were one to dissect out from Meredith's The Egoist all those passages that by subtile analysis expound the character of Sir Willoughby Patterne, the residue would be surprisingly small, for the element of actual adventure in this novel is scant indeed. The reader is interested not so much in what Sir Willoughby does as in what he is.

Briefer illustration of the same difference would be found by comparing a short-story like Poe's The Gold Bug with Hawthorne's The Great Stone Face. In the one case, Legrand, Jupiter, and the supposed narrator are of no consequence, save as necessary adjuncts to an action of absorbing interest. But in Hawthorne's narrative, Gathergold, Stony Phiz, and old Blood-and-Thunder serve the sole purpose of contributing to the elaboration of Ernest's personality, the main concern of the narrative.

Between these two extremes lies the great part of narrative writing. While many novels, stories, and narrative sketches are written primarily to present in entertaining manner some occurrence or transaction, yet the human element will creep in, until often it is difficult to say which is more essential, the sequence of details wherein the human element is purely adventitious — or personality for its own sake. What gives The Outcasts of Poker Flat its value? Is it the originality of narrative detail in which Oakhurst, Mother Shipton, and "The Duchess" are mere personages? Or is it the delineation of these very personages as individuals, human in their appeal? The tendency of narrative fiction has been distinctly toward increased elaboration of the character element. The early romances dealt more exclusively with incidents; writing of them Professor Horne says:

...

Writers of romance made their heroes all alike and their old men all alike. As to character development, the change caused in the person by the experiences undergone in the tale, it was still wholly unconsidered.1

The modern novel, on the other hand, concerns itself more and more with psychological problems, with the personality of the actors. Scott and Stevenson will of course always be popular, nevertheless George Eliot and George Meredith are more truly representative of the trend of modern imaginative narrative than are the authors of Kenilworth and Treasure Island.

Outside of fiction, narrative writing will verge toward the one or the other method, as the subject ranges from the chronicle of historic events to the interpretative biography. In the history of a nation or of a period the main concern of the narrator is to present the successive data that distinguish the era under consideration. Yet even in the setting forth of these data it is often inevitable that he present the individuality of the men who have shaped national destiny. The character of a Washington, of a Napoleon, of a Cromwell, is so essentially interwoven with the great events of his time that it is almost impossible to conceive of him as a mere doer of deeds. Of course in biographic writing the very character of the discourse demands the exposition of personality. The writer will not only give his own interpretation of his hero as an individual, but he will know that the events chronicled are subordinate in interest to that personality.

1 Horne's The Technique of the Novel. By permission of Harper and Brothers. Copyright, 1908, by Harper and Brothers.

DIRECT CHARACTERIZATION

Portrayal of character in the sense of personality, in that it deals with the abstract, differs entirely from the presentation of a personage and from setting, which have to do with the concrete. The presentation of that impalpable, abstract thing that we call individuality may be accomplished in either of two ways, the direct or the indirect. In the direct method of characterization the writer uses exposition, and presents the various phases of his subject with all the exactness that would attend the definition of a term. For the time being, he is no longer the narrator; he becomes the teacher. In The Scarlet Letter for example, one frequently finds paragraphs like the following, which sets forth the character of Hester Prynne:

Much of the marble coldness of Hester's impression was to be attributed to the circumstance that her life had turned, in great measure, from passion and feeling to thought. Standing alone in the world-alone, as to any dependence on society, and with little Pearl to be guided and protected alone, and hopeless of retrieving her position, even had she not scorned to consider it desirable she cast away the fragments of a broken chain. The world's law was no law to her mind. It was an age in which the human intellect, newly emancipated, had taken a more active and a wider range than for many centuries before. Men of the world had overthrown nobles and kings. Men bolder than these had overthrown and rearranged — not actually, but within the sphere of theory, which was their most real abode - the whole system of ancient prejudice, wherewith was linked much of ancient principle. Hester Prynne imbibed this spirit. She assumed a freedom of speculation, then common enough on the other side of the Atlantic, but which our forefathers, had they known it, would have held to be a deadlier crime than that stigmatized by the scarlet letter.