From “The Art of Fiction”
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. . .