aits of the leading character. But the
expedient has also several disadvantages. In the first place, being
expository, it is not narrative in mood; it savors of the essay rather
than the story; and if it be used not at the outset but during the
course of a narrative, it halts the progress of the action. In the
second place, it is abstract rather than concrete; it does not bring
the reader into the presence of a character, but merely into the
presence of an explanation; and it leaves the reader in an attitude
exactly like that which he holds toward certain actual people,
concerning whom he has been told a great deal by their friends, but
whom he has never met himself. The whole first chapter of "The Vicar
of Wakefield" is a series of little essays on the various members of
the Primrose family. Nothing happens in the chapter; the characters
never step bodily into view; and we feel at the end that we have heard
a great deal of talk about people whom we should like to meet but whom
as yet we have not seen.

=2. By Description.=--It is therefore in certain ways more
satisfactory to portray character directly through a descriptive,
rather than an expository, statement. Thus, in the second chapter of
"Martin Chuzzlewit," we are told of Mr. Pecksniff:--

"His very throat was moral. You saw a good deal of it. You looked over
a very low fence of white cravat (whereof no man had ever beheld the
tie, for he fastened it behind), and there it lay, a valley between
two jutting heights of collar, serene and whiskerless before you. It
seemed to say, on the part of Mr. Pecksniff, 'There is no deception,
ladies and gentlemen, all is peace, a holy calm pervades me.' So did
his hair, just grizzled with an iron-gray, which was all brushed off
his forehead, and stood bolt upright, or slightly drooped in kindred
action with his heavy eyelids. So did his person, which was sleek
though free from corpulency. So did his manner, which was soft and
oily. In a word, even his plain black suit, and state of widower, and
dangling double eye-glass, all tended to the same purpose, and cried
aloud, 'Behold the moral Pecksniff!'"

This statement, being in the main concretely descriptive rather than
abstractly expository, brings us face to face with the character at
the same time that it tells us what to think of him. And whereas we
feel that we have merely heard about Mrs. Primrose, we feel that we
have really seen Mr. Pecksniff.

=[Gradual Portrayal.]