Well, if this be an objection to the tale, it is one urged pretty often against life itself--that we scarce see enough of the men and women we like. And here again that which may be a fault in _Catriona_ is no fault at all in _The Memoirs of David Balfour_. Though novelists may profess in everything they write to hold a mirror up to life, the reflection must needs be more artificial in a small book than in a large. In the one, for very clearness, they must isolate a few human beings and cut off the currents (so to speak) bearing upon them from the outside world: in the other, with a larger canvas they are able to deal with life more frankly. Were the Odyssey cut down to one episode--say that of Nausicäa--we must round it off and have everyone on the stage and provided with his just portion of good and evil before we ring the curtain down. As it is, Nausicäa goes her way. And as it is, Barbara Grant must go her way at the end of Chapter XX.; and the pang we feel at parting with her is anything rather than a reproach against the author. (3.) It is very certain, as the book stands, that the reader must experience some shock of disappointment when, after 200 pages of the most heroical endeavoring, David fails in the end to save James Stewart of the Glens. Were the book concerned wholly with James Stewart's fate, the cheat would be intolerable: and as a great deal more than half of _Catriona_ points and trembles towards his fate like a magnetic needle, the cheat is pretty bad if we take _Catriona_ alone. But once more, if we are dealing with _The Memoirs of David Balfour_--if we bear steadily in mind that David Balfour is our concern--not James Stewart--the disappointment is far more easily forgiven. Then, and then only, we get the right perspective of David's attempt, and recognize how inevitable was the issue when this stripling engaged to turn back the great forces of history.