With this famous building is associated much of English history and legend which have found imaginative expression in historical novels.

for a treasure ought not to end with the treasure unattained, and a stirring bit of romantic fiction ought not to mar its ending with unnecessary gloom. We want Quentin Durward to marry Isabelle of Croye, and Sir Kenneth of The Talisman to be rewarded for his courage and loyalty and long-suffering. The ending of a story should, therefore, be logical and consistent, and not merely happy or unhappy to satisfy the passing mood of the reader. It should also be clear and certain; the reader does not like to be left with something unexplained.

WHAT TO CONSIDER IN STUDYING THE CHARACTERS

The Characters and the Plot

The characters are usually the most interesting as well as the most profitable source of study in any story of permanent worth. In fact, as we have seen, Importance of in the most human stories the plot grows out character of the characters. Many a novelist creates his characters in his imagination and then lets them work out their own story. Even in romantic fiction it is frequently the characters who are the mainsprings of the action as well as the chief source of interest. A great part of the action of The Three Musketeers, for instance, proceeds from the wicked machinations of Milady de Winter; Kidnapped is quite as much a story of character as of incident; in The Cloister and the Hearth one of the most charming things is the character of the hero, Gerard. In Scott's romances the subordinate characters frequently walk away with the interest at the expense of the hero and heroine. Who does not find King Louis and Duke Charles, Hayraddin and Galeotti more interesting than Quentin Durward and Isabelle of Croye? Who does not find Ivanhoe and the Lady Rowena pale before the fascinations of Rebecca and Brian de Bois Guilbert-even before Friar Tuck, Locksley, Wamba, and Isaac?

This brings us to a necessary distinction between the types of characters in their relation to the plot. The principal characters are those with whose destinies the plot is chiefly concerned; the subordinate characters are those which are used to fill

Principal and subordinate characters

out the story.

Subordinate characters to create humor

Uses of Subordinate Characters

The uses of subordinate characters are many. Sometimes they serve to create humor. One has only to read any story by Dickens in order to realize this. The chief source of the humor which is one of the glories of David Copperfield, Oliver Twist, Nicholas Nickleby, and Great Expectations lies in characters who have no great bearing on the plot: Mrs. Gummidge, "a lone lorn creetur, and everythink goes contrary with her";

Mrs. Micawber who, on no provocation whatever, insists upon assuring David that,

"Mr. Micawber has his faults. I do not deny that he is improvident. I do not deny that he has kept me in the dark as to his resources and liabilities both, but I never will desert Mr. Micawber";

Newman Noggs,

"a tall man, of middle age, with two goggle-eyes,-a rubicund nose, a cadaverous face, and a suit of clothes-if the term be allowable when they suited him not at all-much the worse for wear, very much too small, and placed upon such a short allowance of buttons that it was quite marvelous how he contrived to keep them on";

Mrs. Wititterly,

"of a very excitable nature, very delicate, very fragile, a hot-house plant, an exotic";

Mr. Wopsle,

"united to a Roman nose and a large bald forehead";

Mrs. Pocket,

"the object of a queer sort of respectful pity because she had not married a title; while Mr. Pocket was the object of a queer sort of respectful reproach because he had never got one."

Because they are great humorous creations, the subordinate characters in Dickens often eclipse our interest in his heroes and heroines.

Subordinate

characters to

Again, the subordinate characters may contribute philosophy which the author does not care to give himself. They make interpretative comment on the actions of the principal characters, thus helping to point out the moral application of the story. The chief comment on the problem of faith in Silas Marner, for example, is given by Dolly Winthrop. And in The House of the Seven Gables Uncle Venner,

contribute
philosophy

"a miscellaneous old gentleman, partly himself but, in good measure, somebody else," who "had studied the world at street corners, and other posts equally well adapted for just observation, and was as ready to give out his wisdom as a town-pump to give water,"

roams through the story for no other purpose than to contribute philosophy.

Subordinate

Sometimes the subordinate characters help to reveal setting, that is, they contribute local color. The company at the Rainbow Inn does this in Silas Marner. In any historical novel, historical characters characters to are introduced for this purpose, for example, Sir Walter Raleigh in Kenilworth; Edmund Spenser, Sir Richard Grenville, and Sir Francis Drake in Westward Ho!; Judge Jeffreys in Lorna Dorne; William of Orange in The Black Tulip; Dick Steele in Henry Esmond;

contribute local color