3. The gospel of self-expression in emotion, itself a fine ideal inspiring sincerity, is too often so violently proclaimed as to ignore any consideration for others and the "consequences" to oneself:—the inevitable weakening of the will.
4. In particular, the glorification of
burning passion which (as a physical fact) cannot be continuous, is revealed to justify the lie that, as the nature of love changes or grows, it also turns cold and dies. Therefore, they seek to show that the noblest love does not last, that men and women alike need constant change in emotion, that marriage is not a bond but bondage.
Everywhere, they confound the abuses of truth with truth itself; proclaim an ideal false simply because it has been degraded and misunderstood. They condemn because we cannot attain.
Obviously, however, the novelists may still reply, "We are concerned with life not with ideals. If these things be sin, we must write of sin." That we all admit. The novel with any ambition towards truth dare not ignore temptation or the failure to resist. It must reveal human nature, no less at its worst than its best; face the struggle between faith and disloyalty to oneself; picture life's cruel ironies and the tyranny of fate.
But that can never excuse doubt, or confusion between right and wrong, exalting evil, or perversion of the truth.
V
THE "SPADE" IDEAL IN FICTION
This has been summarized once for all in his description of what Mr. W. L. George calls a "sincere" novel: "There would be as many scenes in the bedroom as in the drawing-room, probably more, given that human beings spend more time in the former than the latter apartment."