Although treated in lesser detail than the men (except for Hydie), these women offer the reader the same opportunity for intimate acquaintance with people who can become more real than those one meets on the street or in the office. Their reality and complexity vary with the skill of their creators, but one is able to follow their actions and thoughts more closely than those of individuals in “real life.” chapter seven Some Conclusions In some areas of this study only the main outlines have been sketched in. Good books have probably been omitted, particularly in European literatures. Some mediocre ones, especially American novels, have been included. This was done to give some idea of the development of this form in the United States, but with the fervent hope that a gain in historical continuity would not produce too great a loss through exclusion of more quality. But if a few major points have emerged, this study has fulfilled its purpose. The press has always been acknowledged as a major factor in influencing political opinion. A close look at the phenomenal success of _Uncle Tom’s Cabin_ reveals that the right novel appearing at the critical time can exercise wide and lasting influence. With his freedom to place a quarter of a million words between two covers, the novelist can present more information and achieve more reader involvement than any newspaper using columns of factual accounts, brilliant editorials, and four-color Sunday supplements. The novelist can vie with Gibbon and Macaulay if he chooses, ranging freely from century to century, turning from Caesar to modern man, or from Machiavelli to a politician of the twenty-sixth century. Just as the writer treats the rise and decline of empires, so he portrays the flowering and withering of movement. Evoking the past, the novelist can people it with living beings and bring to life its tensions, its climaxes, its meanings. One can gain some understanding of the factors which make men like one another despite national and cultural factors which differentiate them. Silone’s peasants, like Garland’s farmers, crave enough to keep them sheltered and fed, to give them the feeling that they can work in peace with a feeling of security. One senses differences, however, in political hierarchies. The Prime Ministers of Disraeli and Trollope are masters, but the Presidents of Adams and Ford are badgered servants. There are insights into the small niceties, the little peculiarities that distinguish varying political usages. The American politician’s life is exposed to glaring publicity, but the Englishman is spared unless he is brought to court. In _To Be a Pilgrim_ Tom Wilcher notes that “Gladstone’s missing finger appeared in all caricatures,” but “the newspapers never referred to the continuous drunkenness of Mr. A., a cabinet minister, or to even more scandalous liaisons than Edward’s.”