than in
others. They simply follow the line of least resistance. They want
something interesting to read and they know from experience where to go
for it. Of course this brings on abuses. Writers use illegitimate methods
to arouse interest--appeals perhaps, to unworthy instincts. We need not
discuss that here, but simply focus our attention on the fact that writers
of fiction always try to be interesting because they must; while writers
of history, travel, biography and philosophy do not usually try, because
they think it unnecessary. This is simply a survival. It used to be true
that readers of these subjects read them because of their great antecedent
interest in them--an interest so great that interesting methods of
presentation became unnecessary. No one cared about the masses, still less
about what they might or might not read. Things are changed now; we are
trying to advertise stored ideas to persons unfamiliar with them and we
are suddenly awakening to the fact that our stock is not all that it
should be. We need history, science and travel fascinatingly presented--at
least as interestingly as the fiction-writer presents his subjects. This
is by no means impossible, because it has been done, in a few instances.
We are by no means in the position of the Irishman who didn't know whether
or not he could play the piano, because he had never tried. Some of our
authors have tried--and succeeded. No one after William James can say that
philosophy cannot be made interesting to the ordinary reader. Tyndall
showed us long ago that physics could interest the unlearned, and there
are similarly interesting writers on history and travel--more perhaps in
these two classes than any other. But it remains true that the vast
majority of non-fiction books do not attract, and were not written with
the aim of attracting, the ordinary reader such as the libraries are now
trying to reach. The result is that the fiction writers are usurping the
functions of these uninteresting scribes and are putting history, science,
economics, biology, medicine--all sorts of subjects, into fictional
form--a sufficient answer to any who may think that the subjects
themselves, as distinguished from the manner in which they are presented,
are calculated to repel the ordinary reader. Fiction is thus becoming, if
it has not already become, the sole form of literary expression, so far as
the ordinary reader is concerned. This is interesting; it justifies the