To Chaucer the interest lies in the study of normal men and women, and in comparing his narratives with their originals nothing is more striking than the air of homeliness and naturalness with which he contrives to invest the most amazing incidents. Dorigen and her husband strike one as simple, natural folk whose nice sense of honour leads them to keep their word though it were to their own hindrance. We hardly notice the absurdity of the situation itself, and are little troubled by the magic arts which enable her persecutor to remove all rocks from the coast of Brittany. Constance is no tragedy-queen, but a true-hearted, simple woman; and the fact that she lives in a world of miracles never obtrudes itself. We accept her adventures without a qualm since our interest lies in her personality, and the odd thing is that her personality, attractive as it is, strikes one as so little out of the common. Writers of the day, as a rule, desired either to point a moral or to thrill their readers by sheer force of adventure. Chaucer took the accepted conventions of his day, and pierced through them to the human nature underneath. CHAPTER IV CHAUCER'S CHARACTER-DRAWING Like every other young poet Chaucer had to learn his trade, and in nothing is the development of his genius more clearly to be traced than in his treatment of character. The _Book of the Duchesse_ gives us a sort of map of the character of the good fair White: in his choice of qualities and method of expression Chaucer shows both observation and originality, but the plan of the poem precludes anything in the nature of dramatic self-revelation, and the whole description of Blanche is from the outside. The _Parlement of Foules_ and the _Hous of Fame_ afford little scope for character-drawing, and though something more might be expected of the _Legend of Good Women_, as we have seen, the moral purpose which inspires it leads to perfunctory and undramatic treatment of the legends. One only of Chaucer's earlier poems shows the true bent of his genius. The rough sketches which he afterwards worked up and used in the _Canterbury Tales_ had given some evidence of his keen interest in human nature, but not until we come to _Troilus and Criseyde_ do we find him giving full rein to his invention. The earlier part of Book I, which describes how Troilus first catches sight of Cressida in the temple and at once falls in love with her, is taken almost literally from Boccaccio, but the entrance of Pandarus strikes a new note. Troilus lies languishing in his chamber in the most approved manner, when Pandarus comes in and hearing him asks what is the matter:-- Han now thus sone Grekes maad yow lene?[71] Or hastow som remors of conscience, And art now falle in som devocioun...?