“At any rate the close intercourse is admitted. Where is the house now from which novels are tabooed? Is it not common to allow them almost indiscriminately, so that young and old each chooses his own novel? Shall he, then, to whom this close fellowship is allowed--this inner confidence--shall he not be careful what words he uses, and what thoughts he expresses, when he sits in council with his young friend?... A novelist has two modes of teaching--by good example or bad. It is not to be supposed that because the person treated of be evil, therefore the precept will be evil. If so, some personages with whom we have been acquainted from our youth upward would have been omitted in our early lessons. It may be a question whether the teaching is not more efficacious which comes from an evil example. What story was ever more powerful in showing the beauty of feminine reticence, and the horrors of feminine evildoing, than the fate of Effie Deans [in “The Heart of Midlothian” by Scott]. The ‘Templar’ [in Scott’s “Ivanhoe”] would have betrayed a woman to his lust, but has not encouraged others by the freedom of his life. ‘Varney’ [in Scott’s “Kenilworth”] was utterly bad--but though a gay courtier, he has enticed no others to go the way he went. So has it been with Thackeray. His examples have generally been of that kind--but they have all been efficacious in their teaching on the side of modesty and manliness, truth, and simplicity.” To return to the elements of the novel, plot, character, description, style, if we think of a score of great novels that have had many readers for many years, we shall see that some novelists are blessed with genius for one element more than for another, or that they have chosen to put their energies into one or the other. And we shall see, too, that few novels are perfect, few as nearly perfect as “Esmond,” and that we should not expect them to be. All that we need demand is that a writer give us enough of something to make the reading of his book worth while.