in subject or
treatment are, perhaps, already sufficiently apparent. But incomparably
the greatest obstacle to pleasing it lies in the positive fact that it
prefers not to be pleased. It undoubtedly objects to the very sensations
which an artist aims to give. If I have heard once, I have heard fifty
times resentful remarks similar to: "I'm not going to read any more bosh
by _him_! Why, I simply couldn't put the thing down!" It is profoundly
hostile to art, and the empire of art. It will not willingly yield. Its
attitude to the magic spell is its attitude to the dentist's gas-bag. This
is the most singular trait that I have discovered in the backbone.

* * * * *

Why, then, does the backbone put itself to the trouble of reading current
fiction? The answer is that it does so, not with any artistic, spiritual,
moral, or informative purpose, but simply in order to pass time. Lately,
one hears, it has been neglecting fiction in favour of books of memoirs,
often scandalous, and historical compilations, for the most part
scandalous sexually. That it should tire of the fiction offered to it is
not surprising, seeing that it so seldom gets the fiction of its dreams.
The supply of good, workmanlike fiction is much larger to-day than ever it
was in the past. The same is to be said of the supply of genuinely
distinguished fiction. But the supply of fiction which really appeals to
the backbone of the fiction-reading public is far below the demand. The
backbone grumbles, but it continues to hire the offensive stuff, because
it cannot obtain sufficient of the inoffensive--and time hangs so heavy!
The caprice for grape-nut history and memoirs cannot endure, for it is
partially a pose. Besides, the material will run short. After all,
Napoleon only had a hundred and three mistresses, and we are already at
Mademoiselle Georges. The backbone, always loyal to its old beliefs, will
return to fiction with a new gusto, and the cycle of events will
recommence.

* * * * *

But it is well for novelists to remember that, in the present phase of
society and mechanical conditions of the literary market their
professional existence depends on the fact that the dullest class in
England takes to novels merely as a refuge from its own dullness. And
while it is certain that no novelist of real value really pleases that
class, it is equally certain that without its support (willing or
unwi