sentimental preference for what is
pleasing we should praise him for his fidelity.

In all this the author is well within his rights. But if he prefers
unmitigated gloom in his representations of life, we on our part have
the right of not taking him too seriously. Speaking of disillusion, two
can play at that game. We must get over our too romantic attitude toward
literature. We must not exaggerate the significance of what is
presented to us, and treat that which is of necessity partial as if it
were universal. When we are presented with a poor and shabby world,
peopled only with sordid self-seekers, we need not be unduly depressed.
We take the thing for what it is, a fragment. We are not looking
directly at the world, but only at so much of it as has been mirrored in
one particular mind. The mirror is not very large, and there is an
obvious flaw in it which more or less distorts the image. Still let us
be thankful for what is set before us, and make allowance for the
natural human limitations. In this way one can read almost any sincere
book, not only with profit, but with a certain degree of pleasure.

Let us remember that only a very small amount of good literature falls
within Shelley's definition of poetry as "the record of the best and
happiest moments of the happiest and best minds." For these rare
outpourings of joyous, healthy life we are duly thankful. They are to be
received as gifts of the gods, but we must not expect too many of them.
Even the best minds often leave no record of their happiest moments,
while they become garrulous over what displeases them. The cave of
Adullam has always been the most prolific literary centre. Every man who
has a grievance is fiercely impelled to self-expression. He is not
content till his grievance is published to the unheeding world. And it
is well that it is so. We should be in a bad way if it were not for
these inspired Adullamites who prevent us from resting in slothful
indifference to evil.

Most writers of decided individuality are incited by a more or less
iconoclastic impulse. There is an idol they want to smash, a
conventional lie which they want to expose. It is the same impulse which
moves almost every right-minded citizen, once or twice in his life, to
write a letter of protest to the newspaper. Things are going wrong in
his neighborhood, and he is impatient to set them right.

There are enough real grievances, and the full expression of them is a
public ser