The Sorrows of Satan

"Pardon me," I interposed somewhat wearily-"but are you sure you judge the public taste correctly?" He smiled a bland smile of indulgent amusement at what he no doubt considered my ignorance in putting such a query. ?Of course I am sure, he replied It is my business to know the public taste as thoroughly as I know my own pocket. Understand me, ?I don't suggest that you should write a book on any positively indecent subject, ?that can be safely left to the ?New? woman, and he laughed, but I assure you high-class fiction doesn't sell. The critics don't like it, to begin with. What goes down with them and with the public is a bit of sensational realism told in terse newspaper English. Literary English, ?Addisonian English, ?is a mistake.? "And I am also a mistake I think," I said with a forced smile-"At any rate if what you say be true, I must lay down the pen and try another trade. I am old-fashioned enough to consider Literature as the highest of all professions, and I would rather not join in with those who voluntarily degrade it." He gave me a quick side-glance of mingled incredulity and depreciation.