Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 39, Number 98, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 16 August 1907 — The Reader Who Skips. [ARTICLE]

The Reader Who Skips.

A good work of fiction, whether in prose or in verse—we are here speak-ing-only ofgood works- —is a- work of art and can be rightly enjoyed only by entering into sympathy with the artist’s mind and accepting his work according to his Intention. In a perfect -pewrrtiicTilace of every word, in a perfect novel the place, if not of every word, of every episode and of every paragraph, is important, and the reader who skips throws away the pleasure, he has meant Jo derive from the harmony of composition, in which very possibly the beauty of the whole may chiefly consist, and despises the best part of the artist’s Iftbor, He might as well go to see a gopd play and then Willfully miss every alternate scene.