thus with one eye upon the
actual, the dramatist is extremely likely to be betrayed into
untruthfulness. In the last scene of "Hamlet," the Queen says of
the Prince, "He's fat and scant of breath." This line was of course
occasioned by the fact that Richard Burbage was corpulent during the
season of 1602. But the eternal truth is that Prince Hamlet is a
slender man; and Shakespeare has here been forced to belie the
truth in order to subserve the fact. On the other hand, the
dramatist is undoubtedly aided in his great aim of creating
characters by holding in mind certain actual people who have been
selected to represent them; and what the novelist gains in range and
freedom of characterization, he is likely to lose in concreteness
of delineation.

=2. Influence of the Theatre.=--Secondly, the form and structure of
the drama in any age is imposed upon the dramatist by the size and
shape and physical appointments of the theatre he is writing for.
Plays must be built in one way to fit the theatre of Dionysus, in
another way to fit the Globe upon the Bankside, in still another way
to fit the modern electric-lighted stage behind a picture-frame
proscenium. The dramatist in constructing his story is hedged in by a
multitude of physical restrictions, of which he must make a special
study in order to force them to contribute to the presentation of his
truth instead of detracting from it. In this regard, again, the
novelist works with greater freedom. Seldom is his labor subjected to
merely physical restrictions from without. Sometimes, to be sure,
certain arbitrary conditions of the trade of publishing have exercised
an influence over the structure of the novel. In England, early in the
nineteenth century, it was easier to sell a three-volume novel than a
tale of lesser compass; and many a story of the time had to be pieced
out beyond its natural and truthful length in order to meet the
demands of the public and the publishers. But such a case, in the
history of the novel, is exceptional. In general, the novelist may
build as he chooses. He may tell a tale, long or short, happening in
few places or in many; and is not, like the modern dramatist, confined
in place to no more than four or five different settings, and in time
to the two hours' traffic of the stage. The novel, therefore, is far
more serviceable than the drama as a medium for exhibiting the gradual
growth of character,--the development of personality under influence