it was all
problem-solving, chiefly religious; yesterday it was all
adventure-seeking, called historical because it seems highly
improbable; and to-day it is a mixture of automobile-journeys and
slum-life. It looks to me as if there must be somebody always ready to
read some kind of fiction, but his affections are weather-cocky."

"I don't object to a few characters in a novel," said the Man of
Business, "provided they do something interesting."

"Right," said the Publisher; "the public always knows what is
interesting, provided it is properly pointed out. Now here is a little
list of our most profitable new books: a story of a beautiful Cow-boy,
a Kentucky love-tale, a narrative of the Second Crusade, a romance
about an imaginary princess and two motor-cars, a modern society story
with vivid descriptions of the principal New York restaurants and Monte
Carlo--all of these have passed the forty-thousand line. We send out
the list with a statement to that effect, and advise people not to lose
the chance of reading books that have aroused so much interest."

"It seems to me," put in the Doctor of Divinity, "that some of the
modern books do not give me as much insight into life as I should like.
I perused 'The Prisoner on a Bender' the other day without getting a
single illustration for a sermon. But I continue to read novels from a
sense of duty, to keep in touch with my young people."

"I think," began my Uncle Peter (and this solemn announcement made
everyone attentive), "I think you have failed to discern a certain law
of periodicity which governs the formal variations of fiction. This
periodicity is natural to the human mind, and it also has relations to
profound social movements. The popularity of the novels of Fielding,
Richardson, and Smollett, whose characters were mainly drawn from
humble life, was due to the rise of the same spirit of democracy that
produced the American and French Revolutions. The reaction to the
romantic and historical novel, under Scott and his followers, was a
revival of the aristocratic spirit. It took a historical form because
the past had been made vivid to the popular imagination by the great
historians of the eighteenth century. The purpose novels, which took
the lead in the middle of the nineteenth century, were another
reaction, and came out of the social ferment of the times. The general
pictures of society and manners which followed were written for a
public that was fairly well