Page:In the dozy hours, and other papers.djvu/230

 216 and blood; a fashion with which Mr. Story has made us all familiar in his earlier volumes of conversations. He is a veteran master of his field; yet, nevertheless, the Squire and Foster are pleasant companions for a winter night. I like to feel how thoroughly I disagree with both, and how I long to make a discordant element in their friendly talk; and this is precisely the charm of dialogues as a medium for opinions and ideas. Whether the same form can be successfully applied to fiction is at least a matter of doubt. Laurence Alma Tadema has essayed to use it in "An Undivined Tragedy," and the result is hardly encouraging. The mother tells the tale in a simple and touching manner; and the daughter's ejaculations and comments are of no use save to disturb the narrative. It is hard enough to put a story into letters where the relator suffers no ill-timed interruptions; but to embody it in a dialogue—which is at the same time no play—is to provide a needless element of confusion, and to derange the boundary line which separates fiction from the drama.