In that passage, besides realistic impressionism or color-writing, we find first rate _style_ in composition—artistic sentential structure and rhythmical periods, along with pure and dignified diction. In all Haliburton’s works we can find passages which show his firm grip on the technique of prose style, and a special power of vivifying his description and color-impressionism with psychological suggestion that enhances the effect on the sensibilities and imagination. In all literature the allurement of sylvan summer in Nova Scotia or Canada is not more winningly or colorfully presented than in Haliburton’s impressionistic idyll ‘A Day on the Lake’ (_Nature and Human Nature_). In psychological suggestion the acme has been attained by Haliburton in his descriptive sketches, ‘A Hot Day’ (_Wise Saws_) and ‘Inky Dell’ (_The Old Judge_). Whoever charges that Haliburton lacks style errs either by irrelevancy or by making the wrong accusation. It is not style that Haliburton lacks; for he has two styles, each of which is right in the right place—a conversational style for conveying unpopular practical ideas in a popular way, and an aesthetic style for conveying ideas which are delightful in themselves as beautiful pictures of Social Life and of Nature. What Haliburton really lacked was architectonic skill—the power of designing artistic structural unity and plot. This is best illustrated by his character-delineation. His major characters have not character-unity but characteristics or character-promiscuity. Sam Slick, for instance, is never _one_ character as Micawber or Swiveller in Dickens’ gallery is one character, unmistakably and always. Sam Slick is a ‘mass of contradictions.’ Neither is the Rev. Joshua Hopewell a unity—speaking and acting, that is, consistently with one character. Yet they have a unity. How do they get it? It is not a moral but the _functional_ unity of _Spokesmen_ of Haliburton’s ideas. The reason that Slick and Hopewell have so much promiscuity of character is that Haliburton, as he pleased and without any regard to consistency, made Slick and Hopewell and any other of his major _dramatis personae_ the Spokesmen of his various thoughts or ideas. He ‘picked on’ Slick for the mouthpiece of this idea, and Hopewell for the mouthpiece of another idea, without ever asking if the speech he put into the mouth of Slick was consistent with Slick’s mental and moral character, or if the speech he put into the mouth of Hopewell was consistent with Hopewell’s intellectual and moral character. The result is that Slick, as we read Haliburton, has ideas, makes speeches, and relates experiences that are impossible in one of his culture and knowledge; and so with Hopewell and others. In short, Haliburton’s major characters are _puppets_, _marionettes_. Back of them is the Showman, Haliburton; and the speeches we hear are not theirs but ‘their master’s voice.’