The _romantic_ novel, that Epopaea of _modern society_, opens a different field altogether. In this we possess, on the one hand, in all its completeness and variety, an epic prodigality of interests, conditions, characters, and living relations, the extensive background in fact of an entire world. We have also the epic exposition of events. What fails us here is the _primitive_ world-condition as poetically conceived, which is the source of the genuine Epos. The romance or novel in the modern sense pre-supposes a basis of reality already organized in its _prosaic form_, upon which it then attempts, in its own sphere, so far as this is possible from such a general point of view, both in its treatment of the vital character of events and the life of individuals and their destiny, to make good once more the banished claims of poetical vision. For this reason one of the most common collisions in the novel, and one most suitable to it, is the conflict between the poetry of the heart and the prose of external conditions antagonistic to it, including with such the contingency such imply. This is a conflict which may be resolved on the lines of tragedy or comedy, or finds its settlement in the twofold conclusion, first, that the characters which in the first instance contend with the ordinary course of life are taught to recognize in it what is the genuine heart of things, becoming thereby reconciled to their conditions and ready to cooperate with them; and, secondly, that they learn how to brush away the purely prosaic aspect of all that they do and accomplish, and thereby replace the prose which they have found there with a reality allied and congenial to beauty and art. In so far as the form of the exposition is concerned, the genuine romance pre-supposes, precisely as the Epos does, the synthesized purvey of the world and life as one whole, the manifold contents of which are manifested within the reach of the individual event which supplies the focal centre of the entire complexus. In his attitude to detail, however, the poet must here permit himself a freer play both of conception and execution, and all the more so because he is here less able to avoid the prose of actual life in his descriptions, though this freedom should not make him any more inclined to dwell exclusively in such an atmosphere of prose and ordinary occurrence. 3. THE HISTORICAL DEVELOPMENT OF EPIC POETRY