ay,
"univocally," and its synonyms or quasi-synonyms, in the different
usages, are themselves things "kittle" to deal with. "Action" is
sometimes taken as one of these synonyms--certainly in some senses of
action no novelist has ever had more; very few have had so much. But of
concerted, planned, or strictly co-ordinated action, of more than
episode character, he can hardly be said to have been anything like a
master. His best novels are chronicle-plays undramatised--large numbers
of his scenes could be cut out with as little real loss as foolish
"classical" critics used to think to be the case with Shakespeare; and
his connections, when he takes the trouble to make any, are often his
very weakest points. Take, for instance, the things that bring about
D'Artagnan's great quest for the diamonds--one of the most excellent
episodes in this department of fiction, and something more than an
episode in itself. The author actually cannot think of any better way
than to make Constance Bonacieux--who is represented as a rather
unusually intelligent woman, well acquainted with her husband's
character, and certainly not likely to overestimate him through any
superabundance of wifely affection or admiration--propose that he, a
middle-aged mercer of sedentary and _bourgeois_ habits, shall undertake
an expedition which, on the face of it, requires youth, strength,
audacity, presence of mind, and other exceptional qualities in no
ordinary measure, and which, if betrayed to an ever vigilant, extremely
powerful, and quite unscrupulous enemy, is almost certain to be
frustrated.

Still the "chronicle"-action dispenses a man, to a large extent, in the
eyes of some readers at any rate, from even attempting exact and tight
_liaisons_ of scene in this fashion, though of course if he does attempt
them he submits himself to the perils of his attempt just as his heroes
submit themselves to theirs. But other readers--and perhaps all those
predestined to be Alexandrians--do not care to exact the penalties for
such a failure. They are quite content to find themselves launched on
the next reach of the stream, without asking too narrowly whether they
have been ushered decorously through a lock or have tumbled somehow over
a lasher. Such troubles never drown or damage _them_. And indeed there
are some of them sufficiently depraved by nature, and hardened by
indulgence in sin, to disregard _general_ action altogether, and to look
mainly if not wholly