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 as well as the adventure. Still, the story is to hold the front place. We may come to be attracted to the problems of character presented by the author, but the development of the story must never for a moment be sacrificed to expositions of the sentiments. We must not expect from Stevenson such reflections as Thackeray indulges upon the 'Vanity of Vanities' or a revelation, such as George Eliot gives in The Mill on the Floss, of the inner life of the heroine. Either method may be right for its own purpose; and I mean so far only to define, not to criticise, Stevenson's purpose. Not only is it possible to tell a story in Stevenson's manner, 'cutting off the flesh off the bones' of his stories, as he says, and yet to reveal the characters; but critics who object to all intrusions of the author as commentator hold this to be the most legitimate and effective method of revelation. Here, however, the limitation means something more than a difference of method. I do not think, to speak frankly, that any novelist of power comparable to his has created so few living and attractive characters. Mr. Sidney Colvin confesses to having been for a time blinded to the imaginative force of The Ebb Tide by his dislike to the three wretched heroes.