whose action developed under the rule of the Caesars or
the Merovingians being treated as more than a literary
hors d'oeuvre. We purchasers of "vital" novels know
nothing about the period, beyond a hazy association
of it with the restrictions of the schoolroom; our
sluggish imaginations instinctively rebel against the
exertion of forming any notion of such a period; and
all the human nature that exists even in serious-minded
persons is stirred up to resentment against the book's
author for presuming to know more than a potential
patron. The book, in fine, simply irritates the
serious-minded person; and she--for it is only women
who willingly brave the terrors of department-stores,
where most of our new books are bought nowadays--quite
naturally puts it aside in favor of some keen and
daring study of American life that is warranted to grip
the reader. So, modernity of scene is everywhere
necessitated as an essential qualification for a book's
discussion at the literary evenings of the local
woman's club; and modernity of scene, of course, is
almost always fatal to the permanent worth of
fictitious narrative.
It may seem banal here to recall the truism that
first-class art never reproduces its surroundings; but
such banality is often justified by our human proneness
to shuffle over the fact that many truisms are true.
And this one is pre-eminently indisputable: that what
mankind has generally agreed to accept as first-class
art in any of the varied forms of fictitious narrative
has never been a truthful reproduction of the artist's