possible in human multifariousness to consider their
enormity, not merely in this book, but in fictional
reading-matter at large, as viewed by an average-novel-
reader--by a representative of that potent class whose
preferences dictate the nature and main trend of modern
American literature. And to do this, it may be, throws
no unsalutary sidelight upon the still-existent
problem: at what cost, now, may one attempt to write
perfectly of beautiful happenings?


III

Indisputably the most striking defect of this
modern American literature is the fact that the
production of anything at all resembling literature is
scarcely anywhere apparent. Innumerable printing-
presses, instead, are turning out a vast quantity of
reading-matter, the candidly recognized purpose of
which is to kill time, and which--it has been asserted,
though perhaps too sweepingly--ought not to be vended
over book-counters, but rather in drugstores along with
the other narcotics.
It is begging the question to protest that the
class of people who a generation ago read nothing now
at least read novels, and to regard this as a change
for the better. By similar logic it would be more
wholesome to breakfast off laudanum than to omit the
meal entirely. The nineteenth century, in fact, by
making education popular, has produced in America the