Nevertheless, Mr Reade’s novel does not rise above the level of cleverness: we feel throughout the presence of remarkable talent, which makes effective use of materials, but nowhere of the genius which absorbs material, and reproduces it as a living whole, in which you do not admire the ingenuity of the workman, but the vital energy of the producer. Doubtless there is a great deal of nonsense talked about genius and inspiration, as if genius did not and must not labour; but, after all, there remains the difference between the writer who thoroughly possesses you by his creation, and the writer who only awakens your curiosity and makes you recognize his ability; and this difference may as well be called ‘genius’ as anything else. Perhaps a truer statement of the difference is, that the one writer is himself thoroughly possessed by his creation – he lives in his characters; while the other remains outside them, and dresses them up. Here lies the fundamental contrast between Mrs Stowe’s novel and Mr Reade’s. Mrs Stowe seems for the moment to glow with all the passion, to quiver with all the fun, and to be inspired with all the trust that belongs to her different characters; she attains her finest dramatic effects by means of her energetic sympathy, and not by conscious artifice. Mr Reade, on the contrary, seems always self-conscious, always elaborating a character, after a certain type, and carrying his elaboration a little too far – always working up to situations, and over-doing them. The habit of writing for the stage misleads him into seeking after those exaggerated contrasts and effects which are accepted as a sort of rapid symbolism by a theatrical audience, but are utterly out of place in a fiction, where the time and means for attaining a result are less limited, and an impression of character or purpose may be given more nearly as it is in real life – by a sum of less concentrated particulars. In Mr Reade’s dialogue we are constantly imagining that we see a theatrical gentleman, well ‘made up’, delivering a repartee in an emphatic voice, with his eye fixed on the pit. To mention one brief example: – Hawes, the gaoler, tells Fry, the turnkey, after Mr Eden’s morning sermon on theft, that he approves of preaching at people. The same day there is an afternoon sermon on cruelty; whereupon Hawes remarks again to Fry, ‘I’ll teach him to preach at people from the pulpit.’ ‘Well,’ answers Fry, ‘that is what I say, Sir: but you said you liked him to preach at folk?’ ‘So I do,’ replied Hawes, angrily, ‘but not at me, ye fool!’ This would produce a roar on the stage, and would seem a real bit of human nature; but in a novel one has time to be sceptical as to this extreme naïveté which allows a man to make palpable epigrams on himself.