Howells opens by confronting the question of a final criterion for art, immediately grounding his argument in John Addington Symonds's analysis of the Bolognese school. Symonds's conclusion—that what is 'simple, natural, and honest' will endure—serves as the book's touchstone. Howells extends this to literature, insisting that the 'unpretentious and true' is always beautiful, while fashionable works often prove ugly or rococo over time. He does not dismiss the appeal of fashion but notes its instability, setting up a contrast between transient taste and lasting merit.

The Instability of Fashion and the Enduring Criterion

Howells examines how fashion in dress, furniture, and art pleases momentarily yet often appears ugly in retrospect. He observes that 'the ugly delights as well as the beautiful,' not merely because it is associated with youth or because most people are tasteless, but for a cause that 'is not perhaps ascertainable.' This skepticism about fashion's reliability leads him to Symonds's hope for a scientific spirit that makes people 'more and more capable of living in the whole.' Howells does not claim to have a perfect criterion but points toward a standard rooted in truth and sincerity, which he believes will outlast any passing vogue.

Fiction's Duty to Reality

Howells sharply criticizes novels that present a 'distorted and misleading likeness' of life, arguing that such works make literary art 'contemptible even to those whom it amuses.' He quotes a correspondent who regarded novel-reading as mere amusement, 'like horse racing and card-playing,' and urges novelists to take this view seriously rather than dismiss it with 'high literary scorn.' The accusation of 'unfaithfulness, triviality, mere stage-play' comes from 'wherever men are at work,' and Howells insists that writers must prove themselves 'worthy of their time' by bringing literature back to life, filling its veins 'with the red tides of reality.'

Carlyle's Prophecy and the Romance of Reality

Howells invokes Carlyle's prediction that novelists must either work for 'children, minors, and semi-fatuous persons' or sweep their 'novel-fabric into the dust-cart' and record what is true. Half a century later, Howells sees hopeful signs that fiction has begun to work for 'grown persons' and has made 'Reality its Romance.' He declares that he cannot judge or care for fiction except as it achieves this transformation. This section crystallizes his central thesis: the only genuine romance for adults is reality itself, and the novelist's task is to understand and record it faithfully.

Howells's argument is not a systematic treatise but a series of pointed reflections, drawing on Symonds, Carlyle, and anonymous correspondents to press his case. Readers should attend to the way he uses contrast—fashion versus truth, amusement versus seriousness, stage-play versus reality—as a structural device. The book rewards those who track how each example reinforces his core conviction that art must be judged by its fidelity to human experience, not by its adherence to any school or fashion.