man story, the desert island romance, "The Sheik" and its
companions are examples, represent the second; the ever-surging
undercurrent of pornography springs to satisfy the third.

Many sex stories are popular simply because they satisfy
curiosity, but curiosity in a broader sense is a human craving
which deserves a separate category. Popular novels seldom depend
upon it entirely, but they profit by it, sometimes hugely. A novel
like Dos Passos's "Three Soldiers," or Mrs. Wharton's "Age of
Innocence," or Mrs. Atherton's "Sleeping Fires," makes its first,
though not usually its strongest, appeal to our curiosity as to
how others live or were living. This was the strength of the
innumerable New England, Creole, mountaineer, Pennsylvania Dutch
stories in the flourishing days of local color. It is a prop of
the historical novel and a strong right arm for the picture
melodrama of the underworld or the West. Indeed, the pictures, by
supplying a photographic background of real scenes inaccessible to
the audience have gained a point upon the written story.

Curiosity is a changeable factor, a sure play for immediate
popularity, but not to be depended upon for long life. It waxes
and wanes and changes its object. Just now we are curious about
Russia, the South Sea Islanders, and night life on Broadway; to-
morrow it may be New Zealand and Australia, the Argentine
millionaire, and quite certainly the Chinese and China. Books
appealing to the craving for escape have a longer life, for a
story that takes a generation out of itself into fairyland keeps
some of its power for the next. Nevertheless, the writer who
guesses where curious minds are reaching and gives them what they
want, puts money in his purse.