Unless he follows his own instinct in the plan, or narrates
because of his own excited thinking he will produce a thinly clad
formula rather than a successful story. There is no moral for the
writer, only some rays of light thrown upon the nature of his
achievement. The way to accomplish popularity, if that is what you
want, is to write for the people, and let formula, once it is
understood, take care of itself. As an editor, wise in popularity,
once said to me, "Oppenheim and the rest are popular because they
think like the people not for them."

What is the moral of this discussion for the critical reader? A
great one, for if he does not wish to be tricked constantly by his
own emotions into supposing that what is timely is therefore fine,
and what moves him is therefore great, he must distinguish between
the elements of popularity and the essence of greatness. It is
evident, I think, from the argument that every element of
popularity described above may be made effective upon our weak
human nature with only an approximation to truth. The craving for
escape may be, and usually is, answered by sentimental romance,
where every emotion, from patriotism to amorousness, is mawkish
and unreal. Every craving may be played upon in the same fashion
just because it is a craving, and the result be often more popular
for the exaggeration. Also it is notorious that a prejudice--or a
popular idea, if you prefer the term--which is seized upon for
fiction, almost inevitably is strained beyond logic and beyond
truth, so much so that in rapid years, like those of 1916 to 1920
which swept us into propaganda and out again, the emphatic falsity
of a book's central thesis may be recognized before the first
editions are exhausted. It would be interesting to run off, in the
midst of a 1922 performance, some of the war films that stirred