It is the fashion to say that the public will have what it wants.
Certainly the Public will have what it wants if what it wants is given to
the Public. If what it now wants were suddenly withdrawn, the Public,
the big Public, would by an obvious natural law take the lowest of what
remained; if that again were withdrawn, it would take the next lowest,
until by degrees it took a relatively good article. The Public, the big
Public, is a mechanical and helpless consumer at the mercy of what is
supplied to it, and this must ever be so. The Public then is not to
blame for the supply of bad, false fiction. The Press is not to blame,
for the Press, like the Public, must take what is set before it; their
Critics, for the most part, like ourselves have been to no school, passed
no test of fitness, received no certificate; they cannot lead us, it is
we who lead them, for without the Critics we could live but without us
the Critics would die. We cannot, therefore, blame the Press. Nor is
the Publisher to blame; for the Publisher will publish what is set before
him. It is true that if he published no books on commission he would
deserve the praise of the State, but it is quite unreasonable for us to
expect him to deserve the praise of the State, since it is we who supply
him with these books and incite him to publish them. We cannot,
therefore, lay the blame on the Publisher.

We must lay the blame where it clearly should be laid, on ourselves. We
ourselves create the demand for bad and false fiction. Very many of us
have private means; for such there is no excuse. Very many of us have
none; for such, once started on this journey of fiction, there is much,
often tragic, excuse--the less reason then for not having trained
ourselves before setting out on our way. There is no getting out of it;
the fault is ours. If we will not put ourselves to school when we are
young; if we must rush into print before we can spell; if we will not