The one essential in the
ingredients is that the hero shall be mainly got out of one hole by
dropping him into a deeper one, until--the proper serial length being
attained--he is miraculously dropped out into daylight, and stands to
receive the plaudits of a tenderhearted world, that is fond of nothing so
much as of fighting.
The extraordinary vogue of certain recent stories is not so much to be
wondered at when we consider the millions that have been added to the
readers of English during the past twenty-five years. The wonder is that
a new book does not sell more largely, or it would be a wonder if the
ability to buy kept pace with the ability to read, and if discrimination
had accompanied the appetite for reading. The critics term these
successes of some recent fictions "crazes," but they are really sustained
by some desirable qualities--they are cleverly written, and they are for
the moment undoubtedly entertaining. Some of them as undoubtedly appeal
to innate vulgarity or to cultivated depravity. I will call no names,
because that would be to indict the public taste. This recent phenomenon
of sales of stories by the hundred thousand is not, however, wholly due
to quality.
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