This difficulty in regard to the end of a play arises partly because
it is everywhere easier to get things into a tangle than to get them
out again; partly also because at the beginning we give the author
_carte blanche_ to do as he likes, but, at the end, make certain
definite demands upon him. Thus we ask for a conclusion that shall be
either quite happy or else quite tragic; whereas human affairs do not
easily take so decided a turn; and then we expect that it shall be
natural, fit and proper, unlabored, and at the same time foreseen by
no one.
These remarks are also applicable to an epic and to a novel; but the
more compact nature of the drama makes the difficulty plainer by
increasing it.
_E nihilo nihil fit_. That nothing can come from nothing is a maxim
true in fine art as elsewhere. In composing an historical picture, a
good artist will use living men as a model, and take the groundwork
of the faces from life; and then proceed to idealize them in point of
beauty or expression. A similar method, I fancy, is adopted by good
novelists. In drawing a character they take a general outline of it
from some real person of their acquaintance, and then idealize and
complete it to suit their purpose.
A novel will be of a high and noble order, the more it represents
of inner, and the less it represents of outer, life; and the ratio
between the two will supply a means of judging any novel, of whatever
kind, from _Tristram Shandy_ down to the crudest and most sensational
tale of knight or robber.
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