and the pursuit of happiness seems to have come of it. The first I
freely admit; the second I gravely doubt for the present and
distrust for the future. Under conditions as we have them and will
increasingly have them here in America, under democratic
conditions, condescension toward fiction, the most democratic of
literary arts, is certainly dangerous. It is dangerous because it
discourages good writing. In this reading society that we have
made for ourselves here and in western Europe, where much
inspiration, more knowledge, and a fair share of the joy of living
come from the printed page, good writing is clearly more valuable
than ever before in the history of the race. I do not agree with
the pessimists who think that a democratic civilization is
necessarily an enemy to fine writing for the public. Such critics
underrate the challenge which these millions of minds to be
reached and souls to be touched must possess for the courageous
author; they forget that writers, like actors, are inspired by a
crowded house. But the thought and the labor and the pain that lie
behind good writing are doubly difficult in an atmosphere of easy
tolerance and good-natured condescension on the part of the
readers of the completed work.

The novel is the test case for democratic literature. We cannot
afford to pay its practitioners with cash merely, for cash
discriminates in quantity and little more. Saul and David were
judged by the numbers of their thousands slain; but the test was a
crude one for them and cruder still for fiction. We cannot afford
to patronize these novelists as our ancestors did before us. Not
prizes or endowments or coterie worship or, certainly, more
advertising is what the American novelist requires, but a greater
respect for his craft. The Elizabethan playwright was frequently