have usually been literature. But the novel has never been a
preserve for the learned, although it came perilously near to that
fate in the days of Shakespeare; has ever been written for cash or
for popular success rather than for scholarly reputation; has
never been studied for grammar, for style, for its "beauties"; has
since its genesis spawned into millions that no man can classify,
and produced a hundred thousand pages of mediocrity for one
masterpiece. All this (and in addition prejudices unexpressed and
a residuum of hereditary bias) lies behind the failure of most
professors of English to give the good modern novel its due. Their
obstinacy is unfortunate; for, if they praised at all, they would
not, like many hurried reviewers, praise the worst best.

I will not say that more harm has been done to the cause of the
novel in America by feeble reviewing than by any other
circumstance, for that would not be true; bad reading has been
more responsible for the light estimation in which our novel is
held. Nevertheless it is certain that the ill effects of a
doubtful literary reputation are more sadly displayed in current
criticism of the novel than elsewhere. An enormous effusion of
writing about novels, especially in the daily papers, most of it
casual and conventional, much of it with neither discrimination
nor constraint, drowns the few manful voices raised to a pitch of
honest concern. The criticism of fiction, taken by and large, is
not so good as the criticism of our acted drama, not so good as
our musical criticism, not so good as current reviewing of poetry
and of published plays.

Are reviewers bewildered by the coveys of novels that wing into
editorial offices by every mail? Is the reviewing of novels left