NOVEL

n : A short story padded. A species of composition bearing the same relation to literature that the panorama bears to art. As it is too long to be read at a sitting the impre ions made by its succe ive parts are succe ively effaced, as in the panorama. Unity, totality of effect, is impo ible; for besides the few pages last read all that is carried in mind is the mere plot of what has gone before. To the romance the novel is what photography is to painting. Its distinguishing principle, probability, corresponds to the literal actuality of the photograph and puts it distinctly into the category of reporting; whereas the free wing of the romancer enables him to mount to such altitudes of imagination as he may be fitted to attain; and the first three e entials of the literary art are imagination, imagination and imagination. The art of writing novels, such as it was, is long dead everywhere except in Ru ia, where it is new. Peace to its ashes—some of which have a large sale. 235