The supreme
novel remains to be written. It is doubtful if human literary art may
attain completeness more than once. But as our authors labor to
embody truths of human life in arranged imagined facts, they should
constantly be guided and inspired by the allurement of the ultimate
ideal. The noblest work is evermore accomplished by followers of the
gleam. Let us, in parting company, paraphrase the sense of a remark
made centuries ago by Sir Philip Sidney,--that model of a scholar and
a gentleman:--It is well to shoot our arrows at the moon; for though
they may miss their mark, they will yet fly higher than if we had
flung them into a bush.

INDEX

_Adam Bede_, 18, 31, 113.

Addison, Joseph, xi;
_Sir Roger de Coverley_, xii.

_AEneid, The_, 156, 157, 158.

Alcott, Louisa M., 76;
_Little Women_, 76.

Aldrich, Thomas Bailey, 134;
_Marjorie Daw_, 134.

_Alice in Wonderland_, 16.

_Ambitious Guest, The_, 170.

_American Short Stories_, 170.

Amiel, Henri-Frederic, 7.

Andersen, Hans Christian, 9.

_Angel in the House, The_, 154.

_An Habitation Enforced_, 110.

_Anna Karenina_, xviii.

_Arcadia_, 100.

Archer, William, 6.

Ariosto, Ludovico, 99;
_Orlando Furioso_, 99.

Aristotle, 67, 68.

Arnold, Matthew, 180.

_Assignation, The_, 36.

_As You Like It_, 10.

_At the End of the Passage_, 108.

Aubignac, Abbe d', xiv, xvi;
_Pratique du Theatre_, xiv.

_Aurora Leigh_, 154.

Austen, Jane, 4, 19, 26, 88, 127, 128, 215, 217;
_Emma_, 88, 127, 143;
_Pride and Prejudice_, 128, 143.

Bacon, Francis, 32.

Baldwin, Charles Sears, 170, 171, 176;
_American Short Stories_, 170.

Balfour, Graham, 52.

Balzac, Honore de, x, xii, xiii, 53, 56, 153, 160, 180;
_Eugenie Grandet_, 168;
_Human Comedy_, 160.

Barrie, James Matthew, xx, 10, 26, 132, 133.

_Beach of Falesa, The_, 178.

_Beowulf_, 130.

Bernhardt, Sarah, 162.

Besant, Sir Walter, xxi, 35;
_The Art of Fiction_, 35.

Beyle, Henri, see Stendhal.

Boccaccio, Giovanni, x, 62, 99, 176;
_Decameron_, 62, 99, 176.

Boswell, James, 122.

Bronte, Charlotte, 11;
_Jane Eyre_, 11, 118, 121, 166.

Brougham, Lord, xx.

Browne, Sir Thomas, 207.

Browning, Elizabeth Barrett, 154;
_Aurora Leigh_, 154.

Browning, Robert, 153.

Brunetiere, Ferdinand, x, 164;
_History of Classical