The Arkansaw traveler., 1888-04-14
WHY MOST NcvELs DIE.

HOW ABOUT the scores OF novels TO
be published during the next few
months? asks E. P, Roe in the April
Forum. One after another the major
ity of them will disappear from pub
lie notice, and become a part of the
inert sediment which gathers on the
book-shelves, dead as their sapless
wooden supports. 1t may be that the
least heralded, least praised one of
them all will make its way into thou
ands of homes, and amuse or inspire
tens Of Thousands of readers. Be this
as it may, no amount of advertising or
praise can make dead book live, al
though it may be galvanized into a
semblance of life for time. Unless
it makes its own way by a native Vi
tality, sooner or later it disappears
and is forgotten. With few excep-
tions, the value of novel consists in
its power to interest. The story is
not the accepted means of information
or construction, although the writer
may have aspired to give both abun-
dainty. Neither for the facts nor for
the wisdom conveyed in the narrative
will it be generally read. The author
may seek to further some cause or
smite some evil, yet he may learn that
while the public sympathizes with his
motives, it neglects his book. He may
simply be actuated by the legitimate
wish to amuse, to rest tired brains, to
beguile the sorro wful into forgetful-
ness, and to wing slow hours; but if
he does not amuse, if the weary dis
cover that they must grid up their
mental loins for renewed effort, if the
sad find the spectres of their troubles
intervening between the eye and the
page, and the dull catch themselves
yawning with increasing frequency, a
ukase could not make the book 90.
Ambition of the most consuming
quality may drive the pen, but the
public is supremacy Indifferent to our
desire to be great. Philanthropy,
stepped in the very milk of human
kindness, may inspire the effort, but
out of sixty millions scarcely a cor
poraPs guard will read novel from a
sense of duty. The author may acquire
a style so finished that even the hyper
critical cannot find faulty sentence
from cover to cover, and, after all, he
may learn from the popular verdict
that he has produced mere form. We
can fancy Eve lying in faultless SYM
metry on the green sward of Eden.
What mockery would her beauty
have been to Adam unless the breath
of life had been breathed into her
nostrils! Even the marble statue
must suggest life and represent it.
While gazing we think of virile man.
hood, gracious womanhood, sportive,
innocent childhood. Little would we
care for mere sculptured curves unless
they were inseparably associated with
the highest forms Of life.
A living novel is its own raison
Fetre. 1t lives because something has
been put into it which is life. Critics
cannot kill it any more than they can
Stay the thousands to whom it appeals.
They may sneer at book and reader,
but both survive. They may con-
temptuously dismiss it as appealing
to an inferior class, but the maid reads
1t in the kitchen, the mistress in the
parlor, and the master puts it In his
pocket when starting on journey.
The novel destined to live appeals to
humanity. Nothing is more true of
it than its independence of adverse
opinions and predictions. In manu-
script, publishers may decline it;
printed, it may be criticised to the
point of brutality, politely sneered at,
ignored, or "damned with faint
praise" yet it just simply lives, and
makes its way from one to another,
until, like human being, it has its
circle of friends. 1t is very amusing
to find in some journals the people &C
corded so much intelligence on the
political page, and almost denied it's
possession in the literary column yet
the people and time 60 on settling
values all the same.