3
Literature .............. 7 3
Periodicals ............. 4 2
Sciences ................ 9 3
Arts .................... 3 1
Philos. & Relig. ........ 2 1
Foreign ................. 5 4
--- --
100 84

In other words, if my estimates are not too much out of the way--and I
have tried to be conservative--only 16 per cent. of our whole circulation,
and 38 per cent. of our non-fiction, is non-narrative, despite the fact
that our total fiction percentage is low.

I attach little importance in this regard to any distinction between true
and fictitious narrative, people who read novels do not enjoy them simply
because the subject matter is untrue. They enjoy the books because they
are interesting. In fact, in most good fiction, little beside the actual
sequence of the events in the plot and the names of the characters is
untrue. The delineation of character, the descriptions of places and
events and the statements of fact are intended to be true, and the further
they depart from truth the less enjoyable they are. Indeed, when one looks
closely into the matter, the dividing line between what we call truth and
fiction in narrative grows more and more hazy.

In pictorial art we do not attempt to make it at all. Our museums do not
classify their pictures into true and imaginary. Our novels contain so
much truth and our other narrative works so much fiction, that it is
almost as difficult to draw the line in the literary as it is in the
pictorial arts. And in any case objections to a work of fiction, as well
as commendations, must be based on considerations apart from this
classification.

To represent a fictitious story as real or an imaginary portrait as a true
one is, of course, a fault, but the story and the portrait may both be of
the highest excellence when the subjects are wholly imaginary. It should
be noted that the crime of false representation, when committed with
success, removes a work from library classification as fiction and places
it in one of the other classes. Indeed, it is probable that much more
lasting harm is done by false non-fiction than by fiction. The reader,
provided he uses literature temperately, has much less need to beware of
the novel, which he reads frankly for entertainm