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
audiences of 1918. It will be interesting to reread some of the
cheaper and more popular war stories that carried even you, O
judicious reader, off your even balance not five years ago to-day!
We have always known, of course, that a novel can be highly
popular without being truly excellent.
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