It follows that the novelist should imitate life, yet at the same time raise its pitch. The realists imitate life deliberately, and we measure their worth by their truth, but they select the intense moments. The romancers and weavers of fairy tales, on the other hand, instead of choosing the vivid moments of real life, in order to stimulate the emotions, accomplish the same end by exciting wonder and amazement at the exaggerations and unheard-of novelties which they create. Yet even they give us truth, not truth in the sense of fact, but in the sense of a world which arouses the same elementary emotions, intensified though they be through amazement, as are aroused by fact. It matters not how outlandish their tales so long as they do this. Love stories are so widely interesting because love is the one very vivid emotion in most people's lives, although there are other experiences--warfare, the pursuit of great aims, the clash of purposes and beliefs, the growth of souls--equally intense. Dante's three themes, Venus, Salus, Virtus,[Footnote: See his _De Vulgari Eloquentia._] broadly interpreted, cover the range of literary subjects. Of course, since we secure no personal triumphs in reading, and every one wishes to play his own part successfully in real life, literature cannot become a substitute for life, except with the artist who triumphs in making his story. Nevertheless, as Henry James says, fiction may and should compete with life, and this it can do by giving us the feelings aroused by action without imposing upon us the responsibilities and the fateful results of action itself; there we can learn new things about life without incurring the risks of participation in it. We can play the part of the adventurer without being involved in any blame; we can fall in love with the heroine without any subsequential entanglements; we can be a hero without suffering the penalties of heroism; we can travel into foreign lands without deserting our business or emptying our purses. Hence, although no one would exchange life for literature, one is better content, having literature, to forego much of life.