Page:The Modern Writer.pdf/20

 the limit. Women in books became all virgins or adventuresses. The good man had a hard struggle before him but he always ended by getting rich and marrying the virgin, after almost falling into the clutches of the adventuress. The puritanic mind was satisfied. It was made happy. The man reader of the books could always in the end follow with satisfaction the fancy of the writer and end by becoming a millionaire and the woman reader could in fancy get married, not as so often happens in real life by using methods that would shock the puritan beyond recovery, but simply by virtue of inherent goodness and virginity. It was a kind of patent formula that always worked in books. And in books and in the "movies" it still works pretty well. If any of you want to become writers and want to succeed it is still the best of all formulas to follow.

It all fitted in so neatly, you see.