t
deals with human character in its individual, rather than its
communal, aspects. But in range of representing characters, the drama
is more restricted than the novel; for though the novelist is at
liberty to exhibit a struggle of individual human wills whenever he
may choose to do so, he is not, like the dramatist, prohibited from
representing anything else. In covering this special province, the
drama is undeniably more vivid and emphatic; but many momentous phases
of human experience are not contentious but contemplative; and these
the novel may reveal serenely, without employment of the sound and
fury of the drama.

Since the mind of the multitude is more emotional than intellectual,
the dramatist, for his most effective moments, is obliged to set forth
action with emotion for its motive. But the novelist, in motivating
action, may be more considerate and intellectual, since his appeal is
made to the individual mind. In its psychologic processes, the crowd
is more commonplace and more traditional than is the individual. The
drama, therefore, is less serviceable than the novel as a vehicle for
conveying unaccustomed and advanced ideas of life. The crowd has no
speculation in its eyes: it is impatient of original thought, and of
any but inherited emotion: it evinces little favor for the original,
the questioning, the new. Therefore if an author holds ideas of
religion, or of politics, or of social law that are in advance of his
time, he will do better to embody them in a novel than in a drama;
because the former makes its appeal to the individual mind, which has
more patience for intellectual consideration.

Furthermore, the novelist need not, like the dramatist, subserve the
immediate necessity for popular appeal. The dramatic author, since he
plans his story for a heterogeneous multitude of people, must
incorporate in the same single work of art elements that will interest
all classes of mankind. But the novelistic author, since he is at
liberty to pick his auditors at will, may, if he choose, write only
for the best-developed minds. It is an element of Shakespeare's
greatness that his most momentous plays, like "Hamlet" and "Othello,"
are of interest to people who can neither read nor write, as well as
to people of educated sensibilities. But it is an evidence of
Meredith's greatness that his novels are caviare to the general. Mr.
Kipling's "They" is the greater story because it defends itself from
being unders