Somebody once expressed the idea that he did not care for Dickens because so many of his characters are low persons who would not be interesting to associate with in real life; and other readers have expressed the same idea, either sincerely or in thoughtless repetition. If they do not like Dickens, it is probably for some other reason than that Dickens portrays “common” people, for that reason is not broad enough to stand on. These same readers may like another writer whose characters are as low and uncultivated as most of the people whom Dickens loved. If such a writer is not to be found in our libraries, his first book may be still unpublished; he may walk to-morrow into the town where we live, discover the humor and pathos of our commonplace neighbors, and of the low persons whom we do not acknowledge as neighbors. And ever after our village will be a shrine for tourists. The great fiction writer is a magician; he upsets conventional values in a flash and turns lead into gold in spite of all the chemists. The true reader of fiction will be a believer in that miracle, and he will keep his mind receptive to it in every form in which it manifests itself. CHAPTER IV THE READING OF FICTION--(_Continued_) In discussing the question of plots we could not keep out the question of character, which we agreed for the purposes of our discussion is the second element of fiction. In importance it is the first--the indispensable element. What is fiction for except to tell us about human beings? I cannot believe what somebody said, that the three essentials of stories are first plot, second plot and third plot. In the first place, that sounds too clever to be true and in the second place--it is not true. The plot is the means of keeping persons in action so that we can get to know them. In this “naturalists” and “realists” find a good argument, for they put their emphasis on human character. They say: “Here we exhibit you and your friends and your enemies. Plot? We are telling a story. Stories are all about you. But we have not forced events out of probable order or distorted the facts of life beyond recognition for the sake of an exciting situation. We draw our fellow men, so that you recognize them as they are. Even as they are in their homes and shops and churches, so they are in these pages, talking, loving, hating, bargaining, intriguing, dying. We select the significant, we heighten the values of life; but we portray life essentially as it is.” True enough. The realist gives us “folks.” But he has no monopoly of human beings. We are quite as well acquainted with Alice who wandered in Wonderland and went through the Looking Glass as we are with Mr. David Copperfield and Miss Maggie Tulliver. Peter Pan (in Mr. J. M. Barrie’s play), who flew in the face of nature and refused to grow up, is so true a person that all the children recognized him at once and old men chuckled and remembered him.