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Updated: May 20, 2025
The former does not insist so much on originality of theme, if the handling be but new and clever; there are certain elementary passions and dramatic situations of which the British public never wearies. The American does not clamour for telling "curtains," if the character-drawing be keen, the conversations fresh, sparkling, and humorous.
I took pleasure both in the cunning designs, the glowing sentiments, the tumultuous events, and the character-drawing of these works. A good man was of the goodness, a bad man of the badness, possible only to the imagination of early youth.
His Chroniques, devoid of any profundity of insight, any true grasp of the movements of the age, have rarely been paralleled in the brilliance and animation of their descriptions, the vigour of their character-drawing, the flowing picturesqueness of their style.
Lang says, "I like adventures," I say, "Oh, do you?" as I might to a man who says "I like sherry," and no doubt when I say I like character-drawing, Mr. Lang says, "Oh, do you?" as he might to a man who says, "I like port." But Mr. James and I are agreed on essentials, we prefer character-drawing to adventures.
But it is in the character-drawing of the principals that the author's strength lies. Exciting incidents develop their inherent strength and weakness, and if virtue wins in the end, it is quite in keeping with its carefully-planned antecedents. The N. Y. Sun says: "We commend it for its workmanship for its smoothness, its sensible fancies, and for its general charm."
The gentle arts of development, of characterisation, of the conduct of a play may not be flouted with impunity. The author more than the auditor is the loser. Wedekind works too often in bold, bright primary colours; only in some of his pieces is the modulation artistic, the character-drawing summary without being harsh. His climaxes usually go off like pistol-shots.
We say that character-drawing in fiction, for instance, is an art. A writer holds a certain picture of a man or woman in his brain, as the story containing this character develops. In drawing a low character, the mind must be altered and deformed for its expression.
The suppression or maintenance of story in a novel is a matter of personal taste; some prefer character-drawing to adventures, some adventures to character-drawing; that you cannot have both at once I take to be a self-evident proposition; so when Mr Lang says, "I like adventures," I say, "Oh, do you?" as I might to a man who says "I like sherry," and no doubt when I say I like character-drawing, Mr Lang says, "Oh, do you?" as he might to a man who says, "I like port."
But one does not know what is more amiss with it than is amiss with most of its author's longer pieces namely, that neither story nor character-drawing was his forte, that the dialogue is too colourless, and that though the description is often charming, it is seldom masterly. As before, there are jarring rhymes "school" and "oracle," "Faun" and "scorn."
In character-drawing he certainly overcharged the traits: but he did so with intention, and by consistently heightening the tones throughout obtained an artistic impression, which had life behind it, however ingeniously travestied. His stories have no unity of action, but through a great diversity of characters and incidents they maintain their unity of treatment.
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