of ‘Don Quixote’ is its fidelity to a certain nobleness of sentiment, which, however latent or however modified, exists in every genuinely noble nature. And hence, perhaps, of all works of broad humour, ‘Don Quixote’ is that which most approximates the humorous to the side of the sublime. The reflective spirit of our age has strongly tended towards the development of a purpose in fiction, symbolical in a much more literal sense of the word than Goethe intended to convey in the extract I have quoted on the symbolical nature of theatrical composition. Besides the interest of plot and incident, another interest is implied, more or less distinctly or more or less vaguely, which is that of the process and working out of a symbolical purpose interwoven with the popular action. Instead of appending to the fable a formal moral, a moral signification runs throughout the whole fable, but so little obtrusively, that, even at the close, it is to be divined by the reader, not explained by the author. This has been a striking characteristic of the art of our century. In the former century it was but very partially cultivated, and probably grows out of that reaction from materialism which distinguishes our age from the last. Thus—to quote the most familiar illustrations I can think of—in Goethe’s novel of ‘Wilhelm Meister,’ besides the mere interest of the incidents, there is an interest in the inward signification of an artist’s apprenticeship in art, of a man’s apprenticeship in life. In ‘Transformation,’ by Mr Hawthorne, the mere story of outward incident can never be properly understood, unless the reader’s mind goes along with the exquisite mysticism which is symbolised by the characters. In that work, often very faulty in the execution, exceedingly grand in the conception, are typified the classical sensuous life, through Donato; the Jewish dispensation, through Miriam; the Christian dispensation, through Hilda, who looks over the ruins of Rome from her virgin chamber amidst the doves.