"
Dick was not a whit staggered by my argument, which he contended was
founded on misrepresentation. "Description," he said, "was to the author
of a romance exactly what drawing and tinting were to a painter: words
were his colours, and, if properly employed, they could not fail to
place the scene which he wished to conjure up as effectually before the
mind's eye as the tablet or canvas presents it to the bodily organ.
The same rules," he contended, "applied to both, and an exuberance
of dialogue, in the former case, was a verbose and laborious mode
of composition which went to confound the proper art of fictitious
narrative with that of the drama, a widely different species of
composition, of which dialogue was the very essence, because all,
excepting the language to be made use of, was presented to the eye by
the dresses, and persons, and actions of the performers upon the stage.
But as nothing," said Dick, "can be more dull than a long narrative
written upon the plan of a drama, so where you have approached most near
to that species of composition, by indulging in prolonged scenes of mere
conversation, the course of your story has become chill and constrained,
and you have lost the power of arresting the attention and exciting
the imagination, in which upon other occasions you may be considered as
having succeeded tolerably well.
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