CHAPTER XII. 



FICTION IN LITERATURE. 



It is a reading age. Everybody reads, old 

 and young, rich and poor, educated and illiter- 

 ate, in the shop and store and home, on car 

 and boat by the snatches of odd moments and 

 by the hour. The ardent scholar pores over 

 his choice and cosdy volumes and gleans knowl- 

 edge from the storied page ; the street-sweeper 

 picks up a bit of soiled paper and, leaning for 

 a little on his broom, slowly spells his way 

 through a few sentences and calls that read- 

 ing; and so it is, for he has gained something 

 and is stronger. But between these two classes 

 there is a large and growing constituency, dif- 

 fering in taste and habit, purpose and plan, sta- 

 tion and culture, who read papers and maga- 

 zines and books, ever making fresh demands 

 on the clicking press. "Of making many books 

 there is no end," is a truism that grows truer 

 and intenser with every passing year. 



Two-thirds of the books issued by our great 

 libraries are fiction. The novel forms by far 

 the greater bulk of books printed and read. The 

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