The present writer can only say that, though he has dared some tough adventures in literary history, he would altogether decline this.

Without the help of the ants that succoured Psyche against Venus that heap would indeed be ill to sort.
But there is a third argument, less practical in appearance but bolder and deeper, which is really decisive of the matter, though few seem to have seen it or at least taken it up.

The separation of romance and novel--of the story of incident and the story of character and motive--is a mistake logically and psychologically.

It is a very old mistake, and it has deceived some of the elect: but a mistake it is.

It made even Dr.Johnson think Fielding shallower than Richardson; and it has made people very different from Dr.Johnson think that Count Tolstoi is a greater analyst and master of a more developed humanity than Fielding.