ore in one thing than in anything else, you
may be sure that it is so because the subject is of paramount importance
in the life of the average person. You must try to imagine then, a society
in which every man must choose his wife, and every woman must choose her
husband, independent of all outside help, and not only choose but obtain
if possible. The great principle of Western society is that competition
rules here as it rules in everything else. The best man--that is to say,
the strongest and cleverest--is likely to get the best woman, in the sense
of the most beautiful person. The weak, the feeble, the poor, and the ugly
have little chance of being able to marry at all. Tens of thousands of men
and women can not possibly marry. I am speaking of the upper and middle
classes. The working people, the peasants, the labourers, these marry
young; but the competition there is just the same--just as difficult, and
only a little rougher. So it may be said that every man has a struggle of
some kind in order to marry, and that there is a kind of fight or contest
for the possession of every woman worth having. Taking this view of
Western society not only in England but throughout all Europe, you will
easily be able to see why the Western public have reason to be more
interested in literature which treats of love than in any other kind of
literature.

But although the conditions that I have been describing are about the same
in all Western countries, the tone of the literature which deals with love
is not at all the same. There are very great differences. In prose they
are much more serious than in poetry; because in all countries a man is
allowed, by public opinion, more freedom in verse than in prose. Now these
differences in the way of treating the subject in different countries
really indicate national differences of character. Northern love stories
and Northern poetry about love are very serious; and these authors are
kept within fixed limits. Certain subjects are generally forbidden. For
example, the English public wants novels about love, but the love must be
the love of a girl who is to become somebody's wife. The rule in the
English novel is to describe the pains, fears, and struggles of the period
before marriage--the contest in the world for the right of marriage. A man
must not write a novel about any other point of love. Of course there are
plenty of authors who have broken this rule but the rule still exists. A
man