Then, again, there is this difference. The lower animals are
strictly dependent on circumstances, each species feeding and housing
itself in a uniform manner. Man has not such uniformity. In Paris, he
is not the same as in a provincial town; in the provinces, not the
same as in rural surroundings. When studying him, there are many
things to be considered--habitat, furniture, food, clothes, language.
In fine, the subject taken up by a novelist who wishes to treat it
properly, comprises man as an integral portion of a social species,
woman as not peculiarly belonging to any, and _entourage_ from its
widest circumference of country down to the narrowest one of home.
"But," he goes on, "how is it possible to render the drama of life
interesting, with the three or four thousand varying characters
presented by a society? How please at the same time the philosopher,
and the masses who demand poetry and philosophy under striking images?
If I conceived the importance and poetry of this history of the human
heart, I saw no means of execution; for, down to our epoch, the most
celebrated narrators had spent their talent in creating one or two
typical characters, in depicting one phase of life.
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