Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, page 219 by Various Authors
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the book he must perforce be that renowned prestidigitateur whom Mr. Reade long since presented to an admiring audience as the principal performer in his troupe. It is needless, therefore, to say that he goes through the programme with the highest dexterity and éclat, displaying the marvelous knowledge, encountering the terrific dangers, achieving the prodigies which belong to his part, without the least falling off in vivacity or suppleness. When he finally hurls his treacherous friend from a cottage window and impales him on the garden railings, who can withhold the well-merited applause?
It may seem paradoxical to say of a very successful novel-writer that he has mistaken his vocation, yet such, we think, is Mr. Reade's case. For the novelist, as for the dramatist, an essential combination is that of a strong individuality with an equal endowment of the imitative faculty. This union is found, perhaps, in its perfection only in Shakespeare. Shakespeare's personages bear the double stamp of their own individuality and of their creator's. In their appropriate diversity their origin is still apparent. Their fidelity to Nature is never that of literal copies. When Lear says, "Undo this button," we are thrilled with the reality of the trait, but we do not suspect it of having been borrowed from real life. On the contrary, it glows with the heat of that imaginative power whose office it is to transfuse reality--to seize truth in its essence and idealize it in form. Descending to two writers in whom this combination is also strong, we may notice how, nevertheless, the balance inclines to one side or the other. There are many passages of Jane Austen which read like transcripts of actual conversations: one might suppose them to have been done by a skillful reporter. In George Eliot's books, on the other hand, the spontaneity of the actors is checked by the brooding, analytical spirit of the author: their verisimilitude is perfect, but their dramatic capabilities do not always have the free play necessary t