Read "Novel Notes" by Jerome K. Jerome online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
One day we spoke of crime and criminals. We had discussed the possibility of a novel without a villain, but had decided that it would be uninteresting.
"It is a terribly sad reflection," remarked MacShaughnassy, musingly; "but what a desperately dull place this earth would be if it were not for our friends the bad people. Do you know," he continued, "when I hear of folks going about the world trying to reform everybody and make them good, I get positively nervous. Once do away with sin, and literature will become a thing of the past. Without the criminal classes we authors would starve."