First, you seem to make the distinction between dramatic and novelistic art coincide with the distinction between romantic and 18th century. This strikes me as doubtful, as at least to require qualification. To my mind Hugo is far more dramatic in spirit than Fielding, though his method involves (as you show exceedingly well) a use of scenery and background which would hardly be admissible in drama. I am not able--I fairly confess--to define the dramatic element in Hugo or to say why I think it absent from Fielding and Richardson. Yet surely Hugo's own dramas are a sufficient proof that a drama may be romantic as well as a novel: though, of course, the pressure of the great moral forces, etc., must be indicated by different means. The question is rather a curious one and too wide to discuss in a letter. I merely suggest what seems to me to be an obvious criticism on your argument. Secondly, you speak very sensibly of the melodramatic and clap-trap element in Hugo. I confess that it seems to me to go deeper into his work than you would apparently allow. I think it, for example, very palpable even in _Notre Dame_, and I doubt the historical fidelity though my ignorance of mediæval history prevents me from putting my finger on many faults. The consequence is that in my opinion you are scarcely just to Scott or Fielding as compared with Hugo. Granting fully his amazing force and fire, he seems to me to be deficient often in that kind of healthy realism which is so admirable in Scott's best work. For example, though my Scotch blood (for I can boast of some) may prejudice me I am profoundly convinced that Balfour of Burley would have knocked M. Lantenac into a cocked hat and stormed la Tourgue if it had been garrisoned by 19 x 19 French spouters of platitude in half the time that Gauvain and Cimourdain took about it. In fact, Balfour seems to me to be flesh and blood and Gauvain & Co. to be too often mere personified bombast: and therefore I fancy that _Old Mortality_ will outlast '93, though _Notre Dame_ is far better than _Quentin Durward_, and _Les Misérables_, perhaps, better than any. This is, of course, fair matter of opinion. Thirdly, I don't think that you quite bring out your meaning in saying that '93 is a decisive symptom. I confess that I don't quite see in what sense it decides precisely what question. A sentence or so would clear this up. Fourthly, as a matter of form, I think (but I am very doubtful) that it might possibly have been better not to go into each novel in succession; but to group the substance of your remarks a little differently. Of course I don't want you to alter the form, I merely notice the point as suggesting a point in regard to any future article.