It is significant
that the novels most highly respected in America are studies of
social conditions, reflexes of politics, or tales where the
criticism of morals overshadows the narrative. Here the novel is
an admirable agent. Its use as a purveyor of miscellaneous ideas
upon things in general is no more objectionable than the cutting
of young spruces to serve as Christmas-trees. For such a function
they were not created, but they make a good end, nevertheless. The
important inference is rather that American readers who do pretend
to take the novel seriously are moved not so much by the fiction
in their narratives as by the sociology, philosophy, or politics
imaginatively portrayed. They respect a story with such a content
because it comes as near as the novel can to not being fiction at
all. And this, I imagine, is an unconscious throw-back to the old
days when serious-minded readers chose Hannah More for the place
of honor, because her stories taught the moralist how to live and
die.
The historically minded will probably remark upon these general
conclusions that a certain condescension toward some form of
literature has ever been predictable of the general reader; the
practically minded may add that no lasting harm to the mind of man
and the pursuit of happiness seems to have come of it.
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