ABSTRACT
A great many people ask what is the use of writing books of this kind, which only add to the misery of the world? And in one sense there is truth in the objection. So forcible, so appallingly real are these books that they do sensibly add to the sum total of misery, but looked at in another light they have their uses. There is a callousness, a grossness of fat living among the men and women of our day that calls aloud for cure: 'For me,' said a very rich man not long ago in the writer's hearing, 'For me cold and poverty and hunger do not exist; I choose to forget that they are in the world.' He glanced as he spoke over his own richly furnished table, and continued his dinner. The food, strange to say, did not choke him, as it should have done. He was a not uncommon specimen of his class-a class which is increasing in our midst-it toils not, neither does it spin, and 'chooses to forget' that the overwhelming majority of its fellows have to do both these things,
and even with that have to want. The only way in which persons of this callous, mundane type can be influenced is by the gradual pressure of public opinion-and (lest authors despair) public opinion is largely and strongly influenced by books. Since novels of 'purpose' came into being, for instance, it cannot be denied that philanthrophy has become more fashionable; and although this may be a silliness, it is a useful folly which leads to a certain amount of sympathy with the suffering poor.
