that it shall naturally fall into the required length. Though his story should be all one, yet it may have many parts. Though the plot itself may require but few characters, it may be so enlarged as to find its full development in many. There may be subsidiary plots, which shall all tend to the elucidation of the main story, and which will take their places as part of one and the same work—as there may be many figures on a canvas which shall not to the spectator seem to form themselves into separate pictures.
Now, if you cultivate the habit of thinking of fiction in the terms of painting, the first question that you are likely to ask of each book that you read is: At what point did the artist set up his easel; from what angle did he see his story? Did he look down upon his little world from some high eminence with the all-seeing eye of Omniscience; or did he deliberately limit the range of vision to a definite angle, a single street or room, or only so much of life as
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