Page:Under the shadow of Etna; Sicilian stories from the Italian of Giovanni Verga (IA undershadowofetn00vergrich).pdf/26

2 fact rather than being obliged to read between the lines of the book through the author's spectacles.

The simple truth of human life will always make us thoughtful; will always have the effectiveness of reality, of genuine tears, of the fevers and sensations that have inflicted the flesh. The mysterious processes whereby conflicting passions mingle, develop and mature, will long constitute the chief fascination in the study of that psychological phenomenon called the plot of a story, and which modern analysis tries to follow with scientific care, through the hidden paths of oftentimes apparently contradictory complications.

Of the one that I am going to tell you to-day I shall only narrate the starting point and the ending, and that will suffice for you, as, perchance, some day it will suffice for all.

We replace the artistic method to which we owe so many glorious masterpieces by