Mrs. Stowe had not Tourgenieff's artistic calmness. Her mind was fused into a white heat with her message. Yet, how did she begin her story? Like an artist, by a highly dramatized scene, in which the actors, by a few strokes of the pen, appear as distinct and unmistakable personalities, marked by individual peculiarities of manner, speech, motive, character, living persons in natural attitudes. The reader becomes interested in a shrewd study of human nature, of a section of life, with its various refinement, coarseness, fastidiousness and vulgarity, its humor and pathos. As he goes on he discovers that every character has been perfectly visualized, accurately limned from the first; that a type has been created which remains consistent, which is never deflected from its integrity by any exigencies of plot. This clear conception of character (not of earmarks and peculiarities adopted as labels), and faithful adhesion to it in all vicissitudes, is one of the rarest and highest attributes of genius. All the chief characters in the book follow this line of absolutely consistent development, from Uncle Tom and Legree down to the most aggravating and contemptible of all, Marie St. Clare. The selfish and hysterical woman has never been so faithfully depicted by any other author. Distinguished as the novel is by its character-drawing and its pathos, I doubt if it would have captivated the world without its humor. This is of the old-fashioned kind, the large humor of Scott, and again of Cervantes, not verbal pleasantry, not the felicities of Lamb, but the humor of character in action, of situations elaborated with great freedom, and with what may be called a hilarious conception. This quality is never wanting in the book, either for the reader's entertainment by the way, or to heighten the pathos of the narrative by contrast. The introduction of Topsy into the New Orleans household saves us in the dangerous approach to melodrama in the religious passages between Tom and St. Clare. Considering the opportunities of the subject, the book has very little melodrama; one is apt to hear low music on the entrance of little Eva, but we are convinced of the wholesome sanity of the sweet child. And it is to be remarked that some of the most exciting episodes, such as that of Eliza crossing the Ohio River on the floating ice (of which Mr. Ruskin did not approve), are based upon authentic occurrences. The want of unity in construction of which the critics complain is partially explained by the necessity of exhibiting the effect of slavery in its entirety. The parallel plots, one running to Louisiana and the other to Canada, are tied together by this consideration, and not by any real necessity to each other.