And we are told of their doings in a real way, too.

Exactly how the teller knew it we do not know: but we do not think of this at all.

And on the other hand there is no perpetual reminder of art, like the letter-ending and beginning, to disturb or alloy the once and gladly accepted "suspension of disbelief." A slight digression may not be improper here.

Even in their own days, when the _gros mot_ was much less shocking than it is now, there was a general notion--which has more or less persisted, in spite of all changes of fashion in this respect, and exists even now when licence of subject as distinguished from phrase has to a great extent returned--that Fielding is more "coarse," more "improper," and so forth than Richardson.

As a matter of fact, neither admits positively indecent language--that had gone out, except in the outskirts and fringes of English literature, generations earlier.