o emphasize the significance of
his acts. Stevenson's "The Ebb Tide" is an example. The book is
concerned with the unavailing struggle of a weak man to be other than
weak, and the author prefaces the course of events with a thumbnail
biography of the weakling that invests the progress of the story with
something of the inevitability of fate. The method is a favorite one of
Stevenson's, and is employed in most of his longer work. Each brief
sketch is directed to bring out the character's trait or traits of
significance in the story, and the whole fiction gains point thereby.
Turgenieff composed a biography of each of his characters to deepen and
clarify his own realization of them, and incorporation in a story of a
swift and significant sketch of a character's previous life likewise may
serve to deepen and clarify a reader's realization of the person.

Stating directly that any person is good or bad or brave or avaricious
may give a reader a key to his acts, lending them point, but direct
statement is the most infirm mode of characterization. Any mere
statement is less impressive and less compelling than a demonstration.
And direct statement of a character's nature must be reinforced and
proved by his words and deeds. It is difficult enough at best to invest
a fictitious person with reality, and the writer can afford to neglect
no device.

As in fulfilling all other necessities of his story, in characterizing
by direct statement the writer must be easy and natural. The requirement
is somewhat indefinite, as stated, but real. Statement should not be too
bald; a little subtlety will be profitable to employ. To state that a
character is bad, simply, is too childlike, unless the story is told
from the viewpoint of a child. The matter of viewpoint must always be
considered in characterizing by direct statement, for obvious reasons.
If the writer takes the position of an impersonal observer, to whom the
souls of all characters are open, he can write pretty much as he wills.
If he writes from the viewpoint of a single character, whether in the
first or third person, he cannot assume too inclusive knowledge of the
souls of the others. The matter has been discussed elsewhere.[N]

CHARACTERIZATION BY ACTION

The value of action as a means to give a reader realization of the
physical appearance of a character is somewhat slight. To show the
person as performing a feat of strength will suggest that he is a
powerful man, but ph