take one phase alone of this demand for factual finality--how continual
and insistent is the cry for characters that can be worshipped; how
intense and persistent the desire to be told that Charles was a real
hero; and how bitter the regret that Mary was no better than she should
be! Mankind at large wants heroes that are heroes, and heroines that are
heroines--and nothing so inappropriate to them as unhappy endings.

Travelling away, I remember, from that Grand Canyon of Arizona were a
young man and a young woman, evidently in love. He was sitting very
close to her, and reading aloud for her pleasure, from a paper-covered
novel, heroically oblivious of us all:

"'Sir Robert,' she murmured, lifting her beauteous eyes, 'I may not tempt
you, for you are too dear to me!' Sir Robert held her lovely face between
his two strong hands. 'Farewell!' he said, and went out into the night.
But something told them both that, when he had fulfilled his duty, Sir
Robert would return . . . ." He had not returned before we reached
the Junction, but there was finality about that baronet, and we well knew
that he ultimately would. And, long after the sound of that young man's
faithful reading had died out of our ears, we meditated on Sir Robert,
and compared him with the famous characters of fiction, slowly perceiving
that they were none of them so final in their heroism as he. No, none of
them reached that apex. For Hamlet was a most unfinished fellow, and
Lear extremely violent. Pickwick addicted to punch, and Sam Weller to
lying; Bazarof actually a Nihilist, and Irina----! Levin and Anna,
Pierre and Natasha, all of them stormy and unsatisfactory at times. "Un
Coeur Simple" nothing but a servant, and an old maid at that; "Saint
Julien l'Hospitalier" a sheer fanatic. Colonel Newcome too irritable and
too simple altogether. Don Quixote certified insane. Hilda Wangel, Nora,
Hedda--Sir Robert would never even have spoken to such baggages! Mon
sieur Bergeret--an amiable weak thing! D'Artagnan--a true swashbuckler!
Tom Jones, Faust, Don Juan--we might not even think of them: And those
poor Greeks: Prometheus--shocking rebel. OEdipus for a long time
banished by the Censor. Phaedra and Elektra, not even so virtuous as
Mary, who failed of being what she should be! And coming to more
familiar persons Joseph and Moses, David and Elijah, all of them lacked
his finality of true heroism--none could quite pass muster beside Sir
Robe