It must be admitted to the art critic that the book is defective according to the rules of the modern French romance; that Mrs. Stowe was possessed by her subject, and let her fervid interest in it be felt; that she had a definite purpose. That purpose was to quicken the sense of responsibility of the North by showing the real character of slavery, and to touch the South by showing that the inevitable wrong of it lay in the system rather than in those involved in it. Abundant material was in her hands, and the author burned to make it serviceable. What should she do? She might have done what she did afterwards in The Key, presented to the public a mass of statistics, of legal documents. The evidence would have been unanswerable, but the jury might not have been moved by it; they would have balanced it by considerations of political and commercial expediency. I presume that Mrs. Stowe made no calculation of this kind. She felt her course, and went on in it. What would an artist have done, animated by her purpose and with her material? He would have done what Cervantes did, what Tourgenieff did, what Mrs. Stowe did. He would have dramatized his facts in living personalities, in effective scenes, in vivid pictures of life. Mrs. Stowe exhibited the system of slavery by a succession of dramatized pictures, not always artistically welded together, but always effective as an exhibition of the system. Cervantes also showed a fading feudal romantic condition by a series of amusing and pathetic adventures, grouped rather loosely about a singularly fascinating figure. Tourgenieff, a more consummate artist, in his hunting scenes exhibited the effect of serfdom upon society, in a series of scenes with no necessary central figure, without comment, and with absolute concealment of any motive. I believe the three writers followed their instincts, without an analytic argument as to the method, as the great painter follows his when he puts an idea upon canvas. He may invent a theory about it afterwards; if he does not, some one else will invent it for him. There are degrees of art. One painter will put in unnecessary accessories, another will exhibit his sympathy too openly, the technique or the composition of another can be criticised. But the question is, is the picture great and effective?