Democratic Sentinel, Volume 7, Number 8, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 23 March 1883 — Novels and Their Plots. [ARTICLE]

Novels and Their Plots.

Admitting the general principle that a novel should have a plot, and be properly wound up at the conclusion, we do not see why a few novels in a generation may not approach more closely the actual life, in which all love affairs do not result either in death or marriage. It is pretty obvious that Thackeray was bored with the necessity of constructing a plot; he calmly shows his read-

era how he had meant to hangCoLAltimont, and then let him off; and he is obviously indifferent as to “what became of them all” when his characters have passed off the stage. As t_> the winding up of his stories, Thackeray knotted the threads anyhow, introducing two concealed wills with the greatest assurance (in “Philip” and “The Newcombs”), and throwing in a bigamy when convenient. Moliere used to be accused of the same indifference. These men knew life so well that the rules of their art were sometimes irksome to them. Still, an art has its rules; the public of 3,000 years ago probably blamed Homer for leaving the “Iliad” at a loose end with the bunal of Hector, the tamer of horses. A proper conclusion of a novel is demanded by readers and by the laws of the game. No one would go on reading novels if all the characters were to be left adrift, as Mr. James sometimes leaves them, and as Thackeray obviously would have liked to leave them.—London Saturday Review. _