►We must grant the artist his subject, his idea, what the French call his donnée; our criticism is applied only to what he makes of it.
►There is an old-fashioned distinction between the novel of character and the novel of incident . . . . It appears to me as little to the point as the equally celebrated distinction between the novel and the romance- to answer as little to any reality. There are bad novels and good novels, as there are bad pictures and good pictures; but that is the only distinction in which I see any meaning. . .