found it, and so did Miss Austen. She painted her portraits with absolute truthfulness, but she never struggled for insight; above all she never struggled for insight into masculinity. She knew her men as well as any author needs to know them; but her moments of illumination, of absolute intimacy, were for women. It is in such a moment that Emma Woodhouse realizes, "with the speed of an arrow," that Mr. Knightley must marry no one but herself.
There is nothing "subtle" in this; nothing that at all resembles Mr. Hardy's careful explorations into the intricacies of a character like Eustacia Vye, in "The Return of the Native." There is nothing of Mr. James's artfulness, nothing of Mr. Meredith's daring. These two eminent novelists are past masters of their craft. They present their heroines as interesting puzzles to which they alone hold the key. They keep us in a state of suspense from chapter to chapter, and they too often baffle our curiosity in the end. The treatment of Miriam Rooth, in "The Tragic Muse," is a triumph of ingenuity. "What do you think of her?" "What can you make out of her?" "What
