Chap­ter II con­tin­ues with an explo­ration into how fic­tion dis­tills life rather than repli­cat­ing it. The author insists that while a nov­el might appear com­plex on the sur­face, its strength often lies in its under­ly­ing sim­plic­i­ty. Great nov­els, like great paint­ings, use clear strokes that sharp­en a spe­cif­ic human truth rather than crowd­ing the can­vas with every detail of real­i­ty. Through focused inten­tion, fic­tion can illu­mi­nate the sub­tleties of emo­tion or the weight of cir­cum­stance with greater clar­i­ty than dai­ly life ever allows. This sim­plic­i­ty does not lessen a novel’s worth—it refines its reach. Com­plex­i­ty, when prop­er­ly struc­tured, stems from clar­i­ty rather than clut­ter. What read­ers respond to most is often not how many details are present, but which ones were cho­sen to remain.

The chap­ter then turns its atten­tion toward Mr. W. D. How­ells, pre­sent­ing him not mere­ly as a con­tem­po­rary writer but as an emblem of a par­tic­u­lar lit­er­ary school. He is seen to rep­re­sent the belief that art, like sci­ence, pro­gress­es through rejec­tion of the old and embrace of the new. Yet, the author points out that such purism risks lim­it­ing a writer’s imag­i­na­tive scope. By turn­ing away from what once stirred readers—the unusu­al, the fan­tas­tic, the romantic—Howells nar­rows his field of vision. The writer acknowl­edges that How­ells, despite him­self, pro­duces work rich­er than his the­o­ries. It is in those moments when he inad­ver­tent­ly defies his own doc­trine that his sto­ries seem most alive and endur­ing.

There’s a nuanced cri­tique in the essay that cen­ters on the dan­gers of uni­for­mi­ty in lit­er­a­ture. By focus­ing so heav­i­ly on what is aver­age or broad­ly relat­able, a sto­ry may over­look what makes an indi­vid­ual mem­o­rable. The par­tic­u­lar is what gives a char­ac­ter breath, what lifts a scene into some­thing unfor­get­table. Nor­mal­cy might anchor real­ism, but it is eccen­tric­i­ty that stirs imag­i­na­tion. Lit­er­a­ture thrives not sole­ly on what is com­mon­ly human, but on the rare spark that sets a per­son or sit­u­a­tion apart. With­out that spark, fic­tion may feel accu­rate but lack vital­i­ty.

Read­ers are remind­ed that lit­er­a­ture, at its best, serves both mir­ror and win­dow. It reflects famil­iar emo­tions and sit­u­a­tions while also open­ing path­ways to unfa­mil­iar lives and inner worlds. The writer calls for a broad­er view—one that accepts per­son­al vision and cre­ative flair as essen­tial to art, not indul­gent detours from real­ism. Even roman­tic ideals, long treat­ed as out­dat­ed by cer­tain mod­ern thinkers, are defend­ed here as deeply human. Romance, in this con­text, means more than love stories—it points to imag­i­na­tion, the unex­pect­ed, and the tran­scen­dent. To ignore these is to risk strip­ping lit­er­a­ture of its endur­ing soul.

What emerges is an argu­ment not against real­ism, but against exclu­siv­i­ty in method. The world holds both ordi­nary peo­ple and extra­or­di­nary occur­rences, and fic­tion should be spa­cious enough to hold both. The essay encour­ages writ­ers to remain atten­tive not just to their era’s dog­mas, but to their own insights. It is in the blend of the pre­cise and the pecu­liar that great fic­tion finds its depth. A faith­ful por­trait of soci­ety need not come at the expense of won­der. And it is in keep­ing room for won­der that lit­er­a­ture remains a vital art, rather than a pale reflec­tion of every­day life.

In essence, Chap­ter II stands as both a cri­tique and a defense: a cri­tique of lim­it­ing lit­er­ary ortho­doxy, and a defense of the imag­i­na­tive ele­ments that ele­vate sto­ry­telling. It cau­tions against reduc­ing the role of fic­tion to mere social com­men­tary, and instead reaf­firms the cre­ative writer’s respon­si­bil­i­ty to bring new dimen­sions to the human expe­ri­ence. True engage­ment in lit­er­a­ture comes when the writer is not mere­ly a chron­i­cler of facts but a seer of truths—some real, some dreamed, all mean­ing­ful.