The Freak-Show of Real Life

If a literary critic were to write of God as an author, I think he may find His characters a bit improbable. In his biography of Charles Dickens G. K. Chesterton writes:

"There is, of course, no paradox at all in saying that if we find in a good book a wildly impossible character it is very probable indeed that it was copied from a real person. This is one of the commonplaces of good art criticism. For although people talk of the restraints of fact and the freedom of fiction, the case for most artistic purposes is quite the other way. Nature is as free as air: art is forced to look probable. There may be a million things that do happen, and yet only one thing that convinces us is likely to happen. Out of a million possible things there may be only one appropriate thing. I fancy, therefore, that many stiff, unconvincing characters are copied from the wild freak-show of real life."

From Charles Dickens, by G. K. Chesterton. Chapter 5.