It is a factor in noble literature as well as in
popular success.
So much for some of the typical and instinctive cravings which cry
for satisfaction and are the causes of popularity. To them may be
added others of course, notably the desire for sudden wealth,
which is a factor in "Treasure Island" as in all treasure stories,
and the prime cause of success in the most popular of all plots,
the tale of Cinderella, which, after passing through feudal
societies with a prince's hand as reward, changed its sloven
sister for a shopgirl and King Cophetua into a millionaire, and
swept the American stage. To this may also be added simpler
stimulants of instinctive emotion, humor stirring to pleasant
laughter, pathos that exercises sympathy, the happy ending that
makes for joy. Stories which succeed because they stir and satisfy
in this fashion are like opera in a foreign tongue, which moves us
even when we do not fully understand the reason for our emotion.
They differ from another kind of popular story, in which a popular
idea rather than an instinctive emotion is crystallized, and which
now must be considered.
Each generation has its fixed ideas.
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