The best books cost more to read because they
contain more, and to get much out the reader must always put much
in. Nevertheless, the good novel will always contain one or more
of the elements of popularity in great intensity. I make but one
exception, and that for those creations of the sheer intellect,
like the delicate analyses of Henry James, where the appeal is to
the subtle mind, and the emotion aroused an intellectual emotion.
Such novels are on the heights, but they are never at the summit
of literary art. They are limited by the partiality of their
appeal, just as they are exalted by the perfection of their
accomplishment. They cannot be popular, and are not.
The "best seller" therefore may be great but does not need to be.
It is usually a weak book, no matter how readable, because
ordinarily it has only the elements of popularity to go on, and
succeeds by their number and timeliness instead of by fineness and
truth. A second-rate man can compound a best seller if his sense
for the popular is first-rate. In his books the instinctive
emotions are excited over a broad area, and arise rapidly to sink
again. No better examples can be found than in the sword-and-
buckler romance of our 'nineties which set us all for a while
thinking feudal thoughts and talking shallow gallantry.
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