with much psychology so superficial as to seem childish, and much interpretation that makes us feel that the higher possibilities of men and women are not as yet even dreamed of.  In this novel, Fielding makes fuller use than he had before of the essay link:  the chapters introductory to the successive books,—­and in them, a born essayist, as your master of style is pretty sure to be, he discourses in the wisest and wittiest way on topics literary, philosophical or social, having naught to do with the story in hand, it may be, but highly welcome for its own sake.  This manner of pausing by the way for general talk about the world in terms of Me has been used since by Thackeray, with delightful results:  but has now become old-fashioned, because we conceive it to be the novelist’s business to stick close to his story and not obtrude his personality at all.  Thackeray displeases a critic like Mr. James by his postscript harangues about himself as Showman, putting his puppets into the box and shutting up his booth:  fiction is too serious a matter to be treated so lightly by its makers—­to say nothing of the audience:  it is more, much more than mere fooling and show-business.  But to go back to the eighteenth century is to realize that the novel is being newly shaped, that neither novelist nor novel-reader is yet awake to the higher conception of the genre.  So we wax lenient and are glad enough to get these resting-places of chat and charm from Fielding:  it may not be war, but it is nevertheless magnificent.

Fielding in this fiction is remarkable for his keen observation of every-day life and character, the average existence in town and country of mankind high and low:  he is a truthful reporter, the verisimilitude of the picture is part of its attraction.  It is not too much to say that, pictorially, he is the first great English realist of the Novel.  For broad comedy presentation he is unsurpassed:  as well as for satiric gravity of comment and illustration.  It may be questioned, however, whether when he strives to depict the deeper phases of human relations he is so much at home or anything like so happy.  There is no more critical test of a novelist than his handling of the love passion.  Fielding essays in “Tom Jones” to show the love between two very likable flesh-and-blood young folk:  the many mishaps of the twain being but an embroidery upon the accepted fact that the course of true love never did run smooth.  There is a certain scene which gives us an interview between Jones and Sophia, following on a stormy one between father and daughter, during which the Squire has struck his child to the ground and left her there with blood and tears streaming down her face.  Her disobedience in not accepting the addresses of the unspeakable Blifil is the cause of the somewhat drastic parental treatment.  Jones has assured the Squire that he can make Sophia see the error of her ways and has thus secured a moment with her.  He finds her just risen from the ground, in the sorry plight already described.  Then follows this dialogue: