THE AUTHOR'S PURPOSE
And similarly Marion Crawford in his little monograph on The Novel: What It Is, writes as follows:
In art of all kinds the moral lesson is a mistake. It is one thing to exhibit an ideal worthy to be imitated, though inimitable in all its perfection, but so clearly noble as to appeal directly to the sympathetic string that hangs untuned in the dullest heart; to make man brave without arrogance, woman pure without prudishness, love enduring yet earthly, not angelic, friendship sincere but not ridiculous. It is quite another matter to write a "guide to morality," or a "handbook for practical sinners" and call either one a novel, no matter how much fiction it may contain. Wordsworth tried the moral lesson and spoiled some of his best work with botany and the Bible.
It is the disregard of this important axiom of literature that has produced that hybrid monstrosity, the so-called Novel-with-a-Purpose. Of all the purposes which
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