the whole was truer to life, not only to its complexion, but also to its
texture. No one will pretend that there is not vicious love beneath the
surface of our society; if he did, the fetid explosions of the divorce
trials would refute him; but if he pretended that it was in any just
sense characteristic of our society, he could be still more easily
refuted. Yet it exists, and it is unquestionably the material of
tragedy, the stuff from which intense effects are wrought. The question,
after owning this fact, is whether these intense effects are not rather
cheap effects. I incline to think they are, and I will try to say why I
think so, if I may do so without offence. The material itself, the mere
mention of it, has an instant fascination; it arrests, it detains, till
the last word is said, and while there is anything to be hinted. This is
what makes a love intrigue of some sort all but essential to the
popularity of any fiction. Without such an intrigue the intellectual
equipment of the author must be of the highest, and then he will succeed
only with the highest class of readers. But any author who will deal
with a guilty love intrigue holds all readers in his hand, the highest
with the lowest, as long as he hints the slightest hope of the smallest
potential naughtiness. He need not at all be a great author; he may be a
very shabby wretch, if he has but the courage or the trick of that sort
of thing. The critics will call him "virile" and "passionate"; decent
people will be ashamed to have been limed by him; but the low average
will only ask another chance of flocking into his net. If he happens to
be an able writer, his really fine and costly work will be unheeded, and
the lure to the appetite will be chiefly remembered. There may be other
qualities which make reputations for other men, but in his case they will
count for nothing. He pays this penalty for his success in that kind;
and every one pays some such penalty who deals with some such material.

But I do not mean to imply that his case covers the whole ground. So far