Within the limits of this short section of our story we shall cram two
months of history, taking but a furtive peep or two at our personages
as they plod through it.

This is well within our power, since the position of the novelist in
regard to his characters may be compared with that of the destiny
which in the largest comedy moves to and fro mankind its actors. As
destiny moves its puppets, so the novelist moves his--upraising,
debasing; favouring, tormenting; creating, wiping from the page.

And of the pair the novelist is the more just. Has villainy in a novel
ever gone unpunished? Has virtue ever failed of its reward? Your
novelist is of all autocrats the most zealous of right and wrong.
Villain may through two-thirds of his career enjoy his wicked
pleasures, exceedingly prosper despite his baseness; but ever above
him the cold eye of his judge keeps watch, and in the end he is
apportioned the most horrible deserts that any could wish. Virtue may
by the gods be hounded and harried till the reader's heart is wrung.
But spare your tears; before Finis is written, down swoops the judge;
the dogs are whipped off; Virtue is led to fair pastures and there
left smiling.

Contrasted with this autocrat of the printed page, the destiny whose
comedy began with the world and is indefinitely continued makes sorry
show. Here the wicked exceedingly flourish and keep at it to the end
of their chapter; here virtue, battling with tremendous waves of
adversity, is at last engulfed and miserably drowned. Truly, their fit
rewards are apportioned, we are instructed, after death. But there is
something of a doubt; the novelist, in regard to his characters, takes
no risks.