Fashions in novels change at least every fifty
years. Exciting plots and situations, strong
emotional scenes, sharp contrasts, are not de-
manded by present readers, who also turn away
with disgust from the saintly heroine and the irre-
claimable villain. Of the many volumes of fiction
written in the eighteenth century only two are
in general circulation to-day, Robinson Criisoe
and The Vicar of Wakefield. But all those once
popular novels, even if their very names are
now forgotten, have done their work in shaping
the thought and morals of their own and suc-
ceeding generations.
