It is too late to return, even if we desired to do so, to the sentimental misreading of social conditions against which our modern realism, however grim, tries honestly to protest, and there is a form of discourse in which human frailties can properly be discussed; social science or the science of ethics would neither of them deserve the name of science if we excluded from their consideration any aspect of human character or conduct—just as medicine would fail in its office if we forbade it to study any part or function of the body. But it is not too late to ask ourselves the difference between science and art; between a story which represents our physical actions with that conscience in detail which would aid a medical diagnosis, and a story through which Helen’s body walks, a joy forever; between a record of our neighbors just as they are, or a bit meaner, and a picture of men and women as we would gladly be. Anything printed may be called literature, even last year’s time-tables, but if we preserve in the word an emphasis upon art rather than upon information, we may ask after all whether certain characters, or certain attitudes toward character, are not essential to art; or, putting it another way, we may ask whether the type of character we portray will not determine the kind of art we produce, with or without our will, and whether the kind of character we portray will not finally classify our writing for us as art or as social document. To have our novel appraised as a social document may seem to us a compliment, and we may be glad to escape the equivocal verdict that our picture of life is art. The terms are unimportant and our prejudices in words may be respected. But the fact remains that some books we are to read many times, and permanently, whereas others are for a season only, and may be read but once; and books which must serve us in ways so different would seem to need certain special privileges of method and material—they may even be permitted certain varieties of emphasis not usually found in life. The temporary writing helps us on our way, and we ought to have one honorable name for it all—newspapers, telephone directory, time-tables, all our telegrams and most of our letters. We stop over them only for a moment, in order to go about our business more conveniently. But the other kind of books will detain us forever, or will try to—and this kind of literature is art; we return thither for no information and for no immediate aid in our daily affairs, but rather to taste again an experience we enjoyed before, to meet old friends, to breathe an atmosphere which we crave, and which is hard to find elsewhere.