?To my mind Hugo is far more dramatic in spirit than Fielding, though his method involves (as you show exceedingly well) a use of scenery & background wh. would hardly be admissible in drama. I am not able ? I fairly confess ? to define the dramatic element in Hugo or to say why it is absent from Fielding & Richardson. Yet surely Hugo?s own dramas are a sufficient proof that a drama may be romantic as well as a novel.?