occupied, and bound to be occupied not so much in making stories true
as in making them typical."[6]

[Footnote 6: From a Humble Remonstrance, in _Memories and Portraits_,
by R.L. Stevenson.]

The ethical method of handling fiction falls between two stools; it
not only fails in portraying that which is true for the individual,
but it incurs the graver error of ceasing to be true to the race,
i.e., typical.

It would be interesting, had we space, to follow Shakespeare in his
borrowings, noticing what he adopts and incorporates in his work
as artistically true, and what he rejects. Like a water-color
landscape-painter, he pauses above the box of crude materials which
others have made, takes a dab here and a dab there with his brush,
rarely takes all of one color, blends them, eyes the result
judicially, and flashes in the combination with swiftness and
certainty of touch.

For instance, from the lengthy story which appears as the hundred and
first tale in Mr. Douce's edition of the _Gesta_, he selects but one
scene of action, yet it is the making of _Macbeth_--one would almost
suppose that this was the germ-thought which kindled his furious
fancy, preceding his discovery of the Macbeth tradition as related in
Holinshed's _Chronicle_.[7]

[Footnote 7: _The Chronicle of England and Scotland_, first published
in 1577.]