REALISM. Realism, as we are concerned with it, may be defined as the literary effect produced by the marshaling of details in their exactitude for the purpose of bringing out character. The fact that they may be ugly and vulgar the reverse, makes not the slightest difference. The modern realist contemplates the inanimate things which surround us with peculiar complaisance, and it is right that he should as these things exert upon us a constant and secret influence. The workings of the human mind, in complex civilizations, are by no means simple; they are involved and varied: our thoughts, our feelings, our wills, associate themselves with an infinite number of sensations and images which play one upon the other, and which individualize, in some measure, every action we commit, and stamp it. The merit of our modern realists lies in the fact that they have studied the things which surround us and our relations to them, and thus have they been able to make their creations conform to human experience. The ancients gave little attention to this; the man, with them, was the important thing; the environment the unimportant. There are, of course, exceptions; the interview between Ulysses and Nausiskaa is probably the most striking. From the standpoint of environment, Petronius, in the greater portion of his work, is an ancient; but one exception there is, and it is as brilliant as it is important. The entire episode, in which Trimalchio figures, offers an incredible abundance of details. The descriptions are exhaustive and minute, but the author's prime purpose was not description, it was to bring out the characters, it was to pillory the Roman aristocracy, it was to amuse! Cicero, in his prosecution of Verres, had shown up this aristocracy in all its brutality and greed, it remained for the author of the Cena to hold its absurdity up to the light of day, to lash an extravagance which, though utterly unbridled, was yet unable to exhaust the looted accumulations of years of political double dealing and malfeasance in office. Trimalchio's introduction is a masterstroke, the porter at the door is another, the effect of the wine upon the women, their jealousy lest either's husband should seem more liberal, their appraisal of each other's jewelry, Scintilla's remark anent the finesse of Habinnas' servant in the mere matter of pandering, the blear-eyed and black-toothed slave, teasing a little bitch disgustingly fat, offering her pieces of bread and when, from sheer inability, she refuses to eat, cramming it down her throat, the effect of the alcohol upon Trimalchio, the little old lady girded round with a filthy apron, wearing clogs which were not mates, dragging in a huge dog on a chain, the incomparable humor in the passage in which Hesus, desperately seasick, sees that which makes him believe that even worse misfortunes are in store for him: these details are masterpieces of realism. The description of the night-prowling