But it may be,
and it may even legitimately be, that since all these monsters have faded
from the popular mythology, it is necessary to have in our fiction
the image of the horrible and hairy East-ender, merely to keep alive
in us a fearful and childlike wonder at external peculiarities.
But the Middle Ages (with a great deal more common sense than it
would now be fashionable to admit) regarded natural history at bottom
rather as a kind of joke; they regarded the soul as very important.
Hence, while they had a natural history of dog-headed men,
they did not profess to have a psychology of dog-headed men.
They did not profess to mirror the mind of a dog-headed man, to share
his tenderest secrets, or mount with his most celestial musings.
They did not write novels about the semi-canine creature,
attributing to him all the oldest morbidities and all the newest fads.
It is permissible to present men as monsters if we wish to make
the reader jump; and to make anybody jump is always a Christian act.
But it is not permissible to present men as regarding themselves
as monsters, or as making themselves jump. To summarize,
our slum fiction is quite defensible as aesthetic fiction;
it is not defensible as spiritual fact.
One enormous obstacle stands in the way of its actuality.
Pages:
249
250
251
252
253
254
255
256
257
258
259
260
261
262
263
264
265
266
267
268
269
270
271
272
273