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idea of the novel he would like to attempt. It was to be the story of an individual, not of a type—“the true record of a man’s thoughts, his descriptions of his mischances and adventures, his true opinions of life as he has seen it, and his absolutely honest deductions, comments, and views upon the different phases of life he passes through.” It was not to be autobiography: “most autobiographies are insincere from beginning to end. About the only chance for the truth to be told is in fiction.”

But his novel remains without a title in the list of unwritten books. Whether, if it had been written, it would have proved him as great an artist on the larger canvas as he is on the smaller, is a vain speculation and a matter of no moment. What matters is that in these twelve volumes of his he has done enough to add much and permanently to the world’s sources of pleasure, and enough to give him an assured place among the masters of modern fiction.