when they propose to interpret life they become machines, and
nothing more, for the discharge of sensation, sentiment, or
romance. And this is true, so far as I can discover, of the
stories which most critics and more editors believe to be
successful, the stories which are most characteristic of magazine
narrative and of the output of American fiction in our times.

I can take my text from any magazine, from the most literary to
the least. In the stories selected by all of them I find the
resemblances greater than the differences, and the latter seldom
amount to more than a greater or a less excellence of workmanship
and style. The "literary" magazines, it is true, more frequently
surprise one by a story told with original and consummate art; but
then the "popular" magazines balance this merit by their more
frequent escape from mere prettiness. In both kinds, the majority
of the stories come from the same mill, even though the minds that
shape them may differ in refinement and in taste. Their range is
narrow, and, what is more damning, their art seems constantly to
verge upon artificiality.

These made-to-order stories (and this is certainly not too strong
a term for the majority of them) are not interesting to a critical
reader. He sticks to the novel, or, more frequently, goes to
France, to Russia, or to England for his fiction, as the sales-
list of any progressive publisher will show. And I do not believe
that they are deeply interesting to an uncritical reader. He reads
them to pass the time; and, to judge from the magazines
themselves, gives his more serious attention to the "write-ups" of
politics, current events, new discoveries, and men in the public
eye,--to reality, in other words, written as if it were fiction,