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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/724-h.zip b/724-h.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..0540322 --- /dev/null +++ b/724-h.zip diff --git a/724-h/724-h.htm b/724-h/724-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..0e0f1b5 --- /dev/null +++ b/724-h/724-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,1728 @@ +<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN"> +<HTML> +<HEAD> + +<META HTTP-EQUIV="Content-Type" CONTENT="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1"> + +<TITLE> +The Project Gutenberg E-text of "The Man of Letters as a Man of Business,' +by William Dean Howells +</TITLE> + +<STYLE TYPE="text/css"> +BODY { color: Black; + background: White; + margin-right: 10%; + margin-left: 10%; + font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; + text-align: justify } + +P {text-indent: 4% } + +P.noindent {text-indent: 0% } + +P.poem {text-indent: 0%; + margin-left: 10%; + font-size: small } + +P.finis { text-align: center ; + text-indent: 0% ; + margin-left: 0% ; + margin-right: 0% } + +</STYLE> + +</HEAD> + +<BODY> + + +<pre> + +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Man of Letters as a Man of Business, by +William Dean Howells + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Man of Letters as a Man of Business + +Author: William Dean Howells + +Posting Date: July 23, 2008 [EBook #724] +Release Date: November, 1996 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MAN OF LETTERS, MAN OF BUSINESS *** + + + + +Produced by Anthony J. Adam. HTML version by Al Haines. + + + + + +</pre> + + +<BR><BR> + +<H1 ALIGN="center"> +"THE MAN OF LETTERS<BR>AS A MAN OF BUSINESS" +</H1> + +<BR> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +by +</H3> + +<H2 ALIGN="center"> +William Dean Howells +</H2> + +<BR><BR> + +<P> +I think that every man ought to work for his living, without exception, +and that when he has once avouched his willingness to work, society +should provide him with work and warrant him a living. I do not think +any man ought to live by an art. A man's art should be his privilege, +when he has proven his fitness to exercise it, and has otherwise earned +his daily bread; and its results should be free to all. There is an +instinctive sense of this, even in the midst of the grotesque confusion +of our economic being; people feel that there is something profane, +something impious, in taking money for a picture, or a poem, or a +statue. Most of all, the artist himself feels this. He puts on a bold +front with the world, to be sure, and brazens it out as Business; but +he knows very well that there is something false and vulgar in it; and +that the work which cannot be truly priced in money cannot be truly +paid in money. He can, of course, say that the priest takes money for +reading the marriage service, for christening the new-born babe, and +for saying the last office for the dead; that the physician sells +healing; that justice itself is paid for; and that he is merely a party +to the thing that is and must be. He can say that, as the thing is, +unless he sells his art he cannot live, that society will leave him to +starve if he does not hit its fancy in a picture, or a poem, or a +statue; and all this is bitterly true. He is, and he must be, only too +glad if there is a market for his wares. Without a market for his +wares he must perish, or turn to making something that will sell better +than pictures, or poems, or statues. All the same, the sin and the +shame remain, and the averted eye sees them still, with its inward +vision. Many will make believe otherwise, but I would rather not make +believe otherwise; and in trying to write of Literature as Business I +am tempted to begin by saying that Business is the opprobrium of +Literature. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +II. +</H3> + +<P> +Literature is at once the most intimate and the most articulate of the +arts. It cannot impart its effect through the senses or the nerves as +the other arts can; it is beautiful only through the intelligence; it +is the mind speaking to the mind; until it has been put into absolute +terms, of an invariable significance, it does not exist at all. It +cannot awaken this emotion in one, and that in another; if it fails to +express precisely the meaning of the author, if it does not say HIM, it +says nothing, and is nothing. So that when a poet has put his heart, +much or little, into a poem, and sold it to a magazine, the scandal is +greater than when a painter has sold a picture to a patron, or a +sculptor has modelled a statue to order. These are artists less +articulate and less intimate than the poet; they are more exterior to +their work; they are less personally in it; they part with less of +themselves in the dicker. It does not change the nature of the case to +say that Tennyson and Longfellow and Emerson sold the poems in which +they couched the most mystical messages their genius was charged to +bear mankind. They submitted to the conditions which none can escape; +but that does not justify the conditions, which are none the less the +conditions of hucksters because they are imposed upon poets. If it +will serve to make my meaning a little clearer we will suppose that a +poet has been crossed in love, or has suffered some real sorrow, like +the loss of a wife or child. He pours out his broken heart in verse +that shall bring tears of sacred sympathy from his readers, and an +editor pays him a hundred dollars for the right of bringing his verse +to their notice. It is perfectly true that the poem was not written +for these dollars, but it is perfectly true that it was sold for them. +The poet must use his emotions to pay his provision bills; he has no +other means; society does not propose to pay his bills for him. Yet, +and at the end of the ends, the unsophisticated witness finds the +transaction ridiculous, finds it repulsive, finds it shabby. Somehow +he knows that if our huckstering civilization did not at every moment +violate the eternal fitness of things, the poet's song would have been +given to the world, and the poet would have been cared for by the whole +human brotherhood, as any man should be who does the duty that every +man owes it. +</P> + +<P> +The instinctive sense of the dishonor which money-purchase does to art +is so strong that sometimes a man of letters who can pay his way +otherwise refuses pay for his work, as Lord Byron did, for a while, +from a noble pride, and as Count Tolstoy has tried to do, from a noble +conscience. But Byron's publisher profited by a generosity which did +not reach his readers; and the Countess Tolstoy collects the copyright +which her husband foregoes; so that these two eminent instances of +protest against business in literature may be said not to have shaken +its money basis. I know of no others; but there may be many that I am +culpably ignorant of. Still, I doubt if there are enough to affect the +fact that Literature is Business as well as Art, and almost as soon. +At present business is the only human solidarity; we are all bound +together with that chain, whatever interests and tastes and principles +separate us, and I feel quite sure that in writing of the Man of +Letters as a Man of Business, I shall attract far more readers than I +should in writing of him as an Artist. Besides, as an artist he has +been done a great deal already; and a commercial state like ours has +really more concern in him as a business man. Perhaps it may sometimes +be different; I do not believe it will till the conditions are +different, and that is a long way off. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +III. +</H3> + +<P> +In the meantime I confidently appeal to the reader's imagination with +the fact that there are several men of letters among us who are such +good men of business that they can command a hundred dollars a thousand +words for all they write; and at least one woman of letters who gets a +hundred and fifty dollars a thousand words. It is easy to write a +thousand words a day, and supposing one of these authors to work +steadily, it can be seen that his net earnings during the year would +come to some such sum as the President of the United States gets for +doing far less work of a much more perishable sort. If the man of +letters were wholly a business man this is what would happen; he would +make his forty or fifty thousand dollars a year, and be able to consort +with bank presidents, and railroad officials, and rich tradesmen, and +other flowers of our plutocracy on equal terms. But, unfortunately, +from a business point of view, he is also an artist, and the very +qualities that enable him to delight the public disable him from +delighting it uninterruptedly. "No rose blooms right along," as the +English boys at Oxford made an American collegian say in a theme which +they imagined for him in his national parlance; and the man of letters, +as an artist, is apt to have times and seasons when he cannot blossom. +Very often it shall happen that his mind will lie fallow between novels +or stories for weeks and months at a stretch; when the suggestions of +the friendly editor shall fail to fruit in the essays or articles +desired; when the muse shall altogether withhold herself, or shall +respond only in a feeble dribble of verse which he might sell indeed, +but which it would not be good business for him to put on the market. +But supposing him to be a very diligent and continuous worker, and so +happy as to have fallen on a theme that delights him and bears him +along, he may please himself so ill with the result of his labors that +he can do nothing less in artistic conscience than destroy a day's +work, a week's work, a month's work. I know one man of letters who +wrote to-day, and tore up tomorrow for nearly a whole summer. But even +if part of the mistaken work may be saved, because it is good work out +of place, and not intrinsically bad, the task of reconstruction wants +almost as much time as the production; and then, when all seems done, +comes the anxious and endless process of revision. These drawbacks +reduce the earning capacity of what I may call the high-cost man of +letters in such measure that an author whose name is known everywhere, +and whose reputation is commensurate with the boundaries of his +country, if it does not transcend them, shall have the income, say, of +a rising young physician, known to a few people in a subordinate city. +</P> + +<P> +In view of this fact, so humiliating to an author in the presence of a +nation of business men like ours, I do not know that I can establish +the man of letters in the popular esteem as very much of a business man +after all. He must still have a low rank among practical people; and +he will be regarded by the great mass of Americans as perhaps a little +off, a little funny, a little soft! +</P> + +<P> +Perhaps not; and yet I would rather not have a consensus of public +opinion on the question; I think I am more comfortable without it. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +IV. +</H3> + +<P> +There is this to be said in defence of men of letters on the business +side, that literature is still an infant industry with us, and so far +from having been protected by our laws it was exposed for ninety years +after the foundation of the republic to the vicious competition of +stolen goods. It is true that we now have the international copyright +law at last, and we can at least begin to forget our shame; but +literary property has only forty-two years of life under our unjust +statutes, and if it is attacked by robbers the law does not seek out +the aggressors and punish them, as it would seek out and punish the +trespassers upon any other kind of property; but it leaves the +aggrieved owner to bring suit against them, and recover damages, if he +can. This may be right enough in itself; but I think, then, that all +property should be defended by civil suit, and should become public +after forty-two years of private tenure. The Constitution guarantees +us all equality before the law, but the law-makers seem to have +forgotten this in the case of our infant literary industry. So long as +this remains the case, we cannot expect the best business talent to go +into literature, and the man of letters must keep his present low grade +among business men. +</P> + +<P> +As I have hinted, it is but a little while that he has had any standing +at all. I may say that it is only since the was that literature has +become a business with us. Before that time we had authors, and very +good ones; it is astonishing how good they were; but I do not remember +any of them who lived by literature except Edgar A. Poe, perhaps; and +we all know how he lived; it was largely upon loans. They were either +men of fortune, or they were editors, or professors, with salaries or +incomes apart from the small gains of their pens; or they were helped +out with public offices; one need not go over their names, or classify +them. Some of them must have made money by their books, but I question +whether any one could have lived, even very simply, upon the money his +books brought him. No one could do that now, unless he wrote a book +that we could not recognize as a work of literature. But many authors +live now, and live prettily enough, by the sale of the serial +publication of their writings to the magazines. They do not live so +nicely as successful tradespeople, of course, or as men in the other +professions when they begin to make themselves names; the high state of +brokers, bankers, railroad operators, and the like is, in the nature of +the case, beyond their fondest dreams of pecuniary affluence and social +splendor. Perhaps they do not want the chief seats in the synagogue; +it is certain they do not get them. Still, they do very fairly well, +as things go; and several have incomes that would seem riches to the +great mass of worthy Americans who work with their hands for a +living—when they can get the work. Their incomes are mainly from +serial publication in the different magazines; and the prosperity of +the magazines has given a whole class existence which, as a class, was +wholly unknown among us before the war. It is not only the famous or +fully recognized authors who live in this way, but the much larger +number of clever people who are as yet known chiefly to the editors, +and who may never make themselves a public, but who do well a kind of +acceptable work. These are the sort who do not get reprinted from the +periodicals; but the better recognized authors do get reprinted, and +then their serial work in its completed form appeals to the readers who +say they do not read serials. The multitude of these is not great, and +if an author rested his hopes upon their favor he would be a much more +embittered man than he now generally is. But he understands perfectly +well that his reward is in the serial and not in the book; the return +from that he may count as so much money found in the road—a few +hundreds, a very few thousands, at the most. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +V. +</H3> + +<P> +I doubt, indeed, whether the earnings of literary men are absolutely as +great as they were earlier in the century, in any of the +English-speaking countries; relatively they are nothing like as great. +Scott had forty thousand dollars for "Woodstock," which was not a very +large novel, and was by no means one of his best; and forty thousand +dollars had at least the purchasing powers of sixty thousand then. +Moore had three thousand guineas for "Lalla Rookh," but what publisher +would be rash enough to pay twenty-five thousand dollars for the +masterpiece of a minor poet now? The book, except in very rare +instances, makes nothing like the return to the author that the +magazine makes, and there are but two or three authors who find their +account in that form of publication. Those who do, those who sell the +most widely in book form, are often not at all desired by editors; with +difficulty they get a serial accepted by any principal magazine. On +the other hand, there are authors whose books, compared with those of +the popular favorites, do not sell, and yet they are eagerly sought for +by editors; they are paid the highest prices, and nothing that they +offer is refused. These are literary artists; and it ought to be plain +from what I am saying that in belles-lettres, at least, most of the +best literature now first sees the light in the magazines, and most of +the second best appears first in book form. The old-fashioned people +who flatter themselves upon their distinction in not reading magazine +fiction, or magazine poetry, make a great mistake, and simply class +themselves with the public whose taste is so crude that they cannot +enjoy the best. Of course this is true mainly, if not merely, of +belles-lettres; history, science, politics, metaphysics, in spite of +the many excellent articles and papers in these sorts upon what used to +be called various emergent occasions, are still to be found at their +best in books. The most monumental example of literature, at once +light and good, which has first reached the public in book form is in +the different publications of Mark Twain; but Mr. Clemens has of late +turned to the magazines too, and now takes their mint mark before he +passes into general circulation. All this may change again, but at +present the magazines—we have no longer any reviews—form the most +direct approach to that part of our reading public which likes the +highest things in literary art. Their readers, if we may judge from +the quality of the literature they get, are more refined than the book +readers in our community; and their taste has no doubt been cultivated +by that of the disciplined and experienced editors. So far as I have +known these they are men of aesthetic conscience, and of generous +sympathy. They have their preferences in the different kinds, and they +have their theory of what kind will be most acceptable to their +readers; but they exercise their selective function with the wish to +give them the best things they can. I do not know one of them—and it +has been my good fortune to know them nearly all—who would print a +wholly inferior thing for the sake of an inferior class of readers, +though they may sometimes decline a good thing because for one reason +or another they believe it would not be liked. Still, even this does +not often happen; they would rather chance the good thing they doubted +of than underrate their readers' judgment. +</P> + +<P> +New writers often suppose themselves rejected because they are unknown; +but the unknown man of force and quality is of all others the man whom +the editor welcomes to his page. He knows that there is always a danger +that the reigning favorite may fail to please; that at any rate, in the +order of things, he is passing away, and that if the magazine is not to +pass away with the men who have made it, there must be a constant +infusion of fresh life. Few editors are such fools and knaves as to +let their personal feeling disable their judgment; and the young writer +who gets his manuscript back may be sure that it is not because the +editor dislikes him, for some reason or no reason. Above all, he can +trust me that his contribution has not been passed unread, or has +failed of the examination it merits. Editors are not men of infallible +judgment, but they do use their judgment, and it is usually good. +</P> + +<P> +The young author who wins recognition in a first-class magazine has +achieved a double success, first, with the editor, and then with the +best reading public. Many factitious and fallacious literary +reputations have been made through books, but very few have been made +through the magazines, which are not only the best means of living, but +of outliving, with the author; they are both bread and fame to him. If +I insist a little upon the high office which this modern form of +publication fulfils in the literary world, it is because I am impatient +of the antiquated and ignorant prejudice which classes the magazines as +ephemeral. They are ephemeral in form, but in substance they are not +ephemeral, and what is best in them awaits its resurrection in the +book, which, as the first form, is so often a lasting death. An +interesting proof of the value of the magazine to literature is the +fact that a good novel will have wider acceptance as a book from having +been a magazine serial. +</P> + +<P> +I am not sure that the decay of the book is not owing somewhat to the +decay of reviewing. This does not now seem to me so thorough, or even +so general as it was some years ago, and I think the book oftener +comes to the buyer without the warrant of a critical estimate than it +once did. That is never the case with material printed in a magazine +of high class. A well-trained critic, who is bound by the strongest +ties of honor and interest not to betray either his employer or his +public, has judged it, and his practical approval is a warrant of +quality. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +VI. +</H3> + +<P> +Under the regime of the great literary periodicals the prosperity of +literary men would be much greater than it actually is, if the +magazines were altogether literary. But they are not, and this is one +reason why literature is still the hungriest of the professions. +Two-thirds of the magazines are made up of material which, however +excellent, is without literary quality. Very probably this is because +even the highest class of readers, who are the magazine readers, have +small love of pure literature, which seems to have been growing less +and less in all classes. I say seems, because there are really no +means of ascertaining the fact, and it may be that the editors are +mistaken in making their periodicals two-thirds popular science, +politics, economics, and the timely topics which I will call +contemporaries; I have sometimes thought they were. But however that +may be, their efforts in this direction have narrowed the field of +literary industry, and darkened the hope of literary prosperity kindled +by the unexampled prosperity of their periodicals. They pay very well +indeed for literature; they pay from five or six dollars a thousand +words for the work of the unknown writer, to a hundred and fifty +dollars a thousand words for that of the most famous, or the most +popular, if there is a difference between fame and popularity; but they +do not, altogether, want enough literature to justify the best business +talent in devoting itself to belles-lettres, to fiction, or poetry, or +humorous sketches of travel, or light essays; business talent can do +far better in drygoods, groceries, drugs, stocks, real estate, +railroads, and the like. I do not think there is any danger of a +ruinous competition from it in the field which, though narrow, seems so +rich to us poor fellows, whose business talent is small, at the best. +</P> + +<P> +The most of the material contributed to the magazines is the subject of +agreement between the editor and the author; it is either suggested by +the author, or is the fruit of some suggestion from the editor; in any +case the price is stipulated beforehand, and it is no longer the custom +for a well-known contributor to leave the payment to the justice or the +generosity of the publisher; that was never a fair thing to either, nor +ever a wise thing. Usually, the price is so much a thousand words, a +truly odious method of computing literary value, and one well +calculated to make the author feel keenly the hatefulness of selling +his art at all. It is as if a painter sold his picture at so much a +square inch, or a sculptor bargained away a group of statuary by the +pound. But it is a custom that you cannot always successfully quarrel +with, and most writers gladly consent to it, if only the price a +thousand words is large enough. The sale to the editor means the sale +of the serial rights only, but if the publisher of the magazine is also +a publisher of books, the republication of the material is supposed to +be his right, unless there is an understanding to the contrary; the +terms for this are another affair. Formerly something more could be +got for the author by the simultaneous appearance of his work in an +English magazine, but now the great American magazines, which pay far +higher prices than any others in the world, have a circulation in +England so much exceeding that of any English periodical, that the +simultaneous publication can no longer be arranged for from this side, +though I believe it is still done here from the other side. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +VII. +</H3> + +<P> +I think this is the case of authorship as it now stands with regard to +the magazines. I am not sure that the case is in every way improved +for young authors. The magazines all maintain a staff for the careful +examination of manuscripts, but as most of the material they print has +been engaged, the number of volunteer contributions that they can use +is very small; one of the greatest of them, I know, does not use fifty +in the course of a year. The new writer, then, must be very good to be +accepted, and when accepted he may wait long before he is printed. The +pressure is so great in these avenues to the public favor that one, +two, three years, are no uncommon periods of delay. If the writer has +not the patience for this, or has a soul above cooling his heels in the +courts of fame, or must do his best to earn something at once, the book +is his immediate hope. How slight a hope the book is I have tried to +hint already, but if a book is vulgar enough in sentiment, and crude +enough in taste, and flashy enough in incident, or, better or worse +still, if it is a bit hot in the mouth, and promises impropriety if not +indecency, there is a very fair chance of its success; I do not mean +success with a self-respecting publisher, but with the public, which +does not personally put its name to it, and is not openly smirched by +it. I will not talk of that kind of book, however, but of the book +which the young author has written out of an unspoiled heart and an +untainted mind, such as most young men and women write; and I will +suppose that it has found a publisher. It is human nature, as +competition has deformed human nature, for the publisher to wish the +author to take all the risks, and he possibly proposes that the author +shall publish it at his own expense, and let him have a percentage of +the retail price for managing it. If not that, he proposes that the +author shall pay for the stereotype plates, and take fifteen per cent. +of the price of the book; or if this will not go, if the author cannot, +rather than will not do it (he is commonly only too glad to do anything +he can), then the publisher offers him ten per cent. of the retail +price after the first thousand copies have been sold. But if he fully +believes in the book, he will give ten per cent. from the first copy +sold, and pay all the costs of publication himself. The book is to be +retailed for a dollar and a half, and the publisher is very well +pleased with a new book that sells fifteen hundred copies. Whether the +author has as much reason to be so is a question, but if the book does +not sell more he has only himself to blame, and had better pocket in +silence the two hundred and twenty-five dollars he gets for it, and +bless his publisher, and try to find work somewhere at five dollars a +week. The publisher has not made any more, if quite as much as the +author, and until a book has sold two thousand copies the division is +fair enough. After that, the heavier expenses of manufacturing have +been defrayed, and the book goes on advertising itself; there is merely +the cost of paper, printing, binding, and marketing to be met, and the +arrangement becomes fairer and fairer for the publisher. The author +has no right to complain of this, in the case of his first book, which +he is only too grateful to get accepted at all. If it succeeds, he has +himself to blame for making the same arrangement for his second or +third; it is his fault, or else it is his necessity, which is +practically the same thing. It will be business for the publisher to +take advantage of his necessity quite the same as if it were his fault; +but I do not say that he will always do so; I believe he will very +often not do so. +</P> + +<P> +At one time there seemed a probability of the enlargement of the +author's gains by subscription publication, and one very well-known +American author prospered fabulously in that way. The percentage +offered by the subscription houses was only about half as much as that +paid by the trade, but the sales were so much greater that the author +could very well afford to take it. Where the book-dealer sold ten, the +book-agent sold a hundred; or at least he did so in the case of Mark +Twain's books; and we all thought it reasonable he could do so with +ours. Such of us as made experiment of him, however, found the facts +illogical. No book of literary quality was made to go by subscription +except Mr. Clemens's books, and I think these went because the +subscription public never knew what good literature they were. This +sort of readers, or buyers, were so used to getting something worthless +for their money, that they would not spend it for artistic fiction, or +indeed for any fiction all, except Mr. Clemens's, which they probably +supposed bad. Some good books of travel had a measurable success +through the book agents, but not at all the success that had been hoped +for; and I believe now the subscription trade again publishes only +compilations, or such works as owe more to the skill of the editor than +the art of the writer. Mr. Clemens himself no longer offers his books +to the public in that way. +</P> + +<P> +It is not common, I think, in this country, to publish on the +half-profits system, but it is very common in England, where, owing +probably to the moisture in the air, which lends a fairy outline to +every prospect, it seems to be peculiarly alluring. One of my own +early books was published there on these terms, which I accepted with +the insensate joy of the young author in getting any terms from a +publisher. The book sold, sold every copy of the small first edition, +and in due time the publisher's statement came. I did not think my +half of the profits was very great, but it seemed a fair division after +every imaginable cost had been charged up against my poor book, and +that frail venture had been made to pay the expenses of composition, +corrections, paper, printing, binding, advertising, and editorial +copies. The wonder ought to have been that there was anything at all +coming to me, but I was young and greedy then, and I really thought +there ought to have been more. I was disappointed, but I made the best +of it, of course, and took the account to the junior partner of the +house which employed me, and said that I should like to draw on him for +the sum due me from the London publishers. He said, Certainly; but +after a glance at the account he smiled and said he supposed I knew how +much the sum was? I answered, Yes; it was eleven pounds nine +shillings, was not it? But I owned at the same time that I never was +good at figures, and that I found English money peculiarly baffling. +He laughed now, and said, It was eleven shillings and nine pence. In +fact, after all those charges for composition, corrections, paper, +printing, binding, advertising, and editorial copies, there was a most +ingenious and wholly surprising charge of ten per cent. commission on +sales, which reduced my half from pounds to shillings, and handsomely +increased the publisher's half in proportion. I do not now dispute the +justice of the charge. It was not the fault of the half-profits +system, it was the fault of the glad young author who did not +distinctly inform himself of its mysterious nature in agreeing to it, +and had only to reproach himself if he was finally disappointed. +</P> + +<P> +But there is always something disappointing in the accounts of +publishers, which I fancy is because authors are strangely constituted, +rather than because publishers are so. I will confess that I have such +inordinate expectations of the sale of my books which I hope I think +modestly of, that the sales reported to me never seem great enough. +The copyright due me, no matter how handsome it is, appears deplorably +mean, and I feel impoverished for several days after I get it. But +then, I ought to add that my balance in the bank is always much less +than I have supposed it to be, and my own checks, when they come back +to me, have the air of having been in a conspiracy to betray me. +</P> + +<P> +No, we literary men must learn, no matter how we boast ourselves in +business, that the distress we feel from our publisher's accounts is +simply idiopathic; and I for one wish to bear my witness to the +constant good faith and uprightness of publishers. +</P> + +<P> +It is supposed that because they have the affair altogether in their +hands they are apt to take advantage in it; but this does not follow, +and as a matter of fact they have the affair no more in their own hands +than any other business man you have an open account with. There is +nothing to prevent you from looking at their books, except your own +innermost belief and fear that their books are correct, and that your +literature has brought you so little because it has sold so little. +</P> + +<P> +The author is not to blame for his superficial delusion to the +contrary, especially if he has written a book that has set everyone +talking, because it is of a vital interest. It may be of a vital +interest, without being at all the kind of book people want to buy; it +may be the kind of book that they are content to know at second hand; +there are such fatal books; but hearing so much, and reading so much +about it, the author cannot help hoping that it has sold much more than +the publisher says. The publisher is undoubtedly honest, however, and +the author had better put away the comforting question of his integrity. +</P> + +<P> +The English writers seem largely to suspect their publishers (I cannot +say with how much reason, for my English publisher is Scotch, and I +should be glad to be so true a man as I think him); but I believe that +American authors, when not flown with flattering reviews, as largely +trust theirs. Of course there are rogues in every walk of life. I +will not say that I ever personally met them in the flowery paths of +literature, but I have heard of other people meeting them there, just +as I have heard of people seeing ghosts, and I have to believe in both +the rogues and the ghosts, without the witness of my own senses. I +suppose, upon such grounds mainly, that there are wicked publishers, +but in the case of our books that do not sell, I am afraid that it is +the graceless and inappreciative public which is far more to blame than +the wickedest of the publishers. It is true that publishers will drive +a hard bargain when they can, or when they must; but there is nothing +to hinder an author from driving a hard bargain, too, when he can, or +when he must; and it is to be said of the publisher that he is always +more willing to abide by the bargain when it is made than the author +is; perhaps because he has the best of it. But he has not always the +best of it; I have known publishers too generous to take advantage of +the innocence of authors; and I fancy that if publishers had to do with +any race less diffident than authors, they would have won a repute for +unselfishness that they do not now enjoy. It is certain that in the +long period when we flew the black flag of piracy there were many among +our corsairs on the high seas of literature who paid a fair price for +the stranger craft they seized; still oftener they removed the cargo, +and released their capture with several weeks' provision; and although +there was undoubtedly a good deal of actual throat-cutting and +scuttling, still I feel sure that there was less of it than there would +have been in any other line of business released to the unrestricted +plunder of the neighbor. There was for a long time even a comity among +these amiable buccaneers, who agreed not to interfere with each other, +and so were enabled to pay over to their victims some portion of the +profit from their stolen goods. Of all business men publishers are +probably the most faithful and honorable, and are only surpassed in +virtue when men of letters turn business men. +</P> + +<P> +Publishers have their little theories, their little superstitions, and +their blind faith in the great god Chance, which we all worship. These +things lead them into temptation and adversity, but they seem to do +fairly well as business men, even in their own behalf. They do not +make above the usual ninety-five per cent. of failures, and more +publishers than authors get rich. I have known several publishers who +kept their carriages, but I have never known even one author to keep +his carriage on the profits of his literature, unless it was in some +modest country place where one could take care of one's own horse. But +this is simply because the authors are so many, and the publishers are +so few. If we wish to reverse their positions, we must study how to +reduce the number of authors and increase the number of publishers; +then prosperity will smile our way. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +VIII. +</H3> + +<P> +Some theories or superstitions publishers and authors share together. +One of these is that it is best to keep your books all in the hands of +one publisher if you can, because then he can give them more attention +ad sell more of them. But my own experience is that when my books were +in the hands of three publishers they sold quite as well as when one +had them; and a fellow author whom I approached in question of this +venerable belief, laughed at it. This bold heretic held that it was +best to give each new book to a new publisher, for then the fresh man +put all his energies into pushing it; but if you had them all together, +the publisher rested in a vain security that one book would sell +another, and that the fresh venture would revive the public interest in +the stale ones. I never knew this to happen, and I must class it with +the superstitions of the trade. It may be so in other and more +constant countries, but in our fickle republic, each last book has to +fight its own way to public favor, much as if it had no sort of +literary lineage. Of course this is stating it rather largely, and the +truth will be found inside rather than outside of my statement; but +there is at least truth enough in it to give the young author pause. +While one is preparing to sell his basket of glass, he may as well ask +himself whether it is better to part with all to one dealer or not; and +if he kicks it over, in spurning the imaginary customer who asks the +favor of taking entire stock, that will be his fault, and not the fault +of the question. +</P> + +<P> +However, the most important question of all with the man of letters as +a man of business, is what kind of book will sell the best of itself, +because, at the end of the ends, a book sells itself or does not sell +at all; kissing, after long ages of reasoning and a great deal of +culture, still goes by favor, and though innumerable generations of +horses have been led to water, not one horse has yet been made to +drink. With the best, or the worst, will in the world, no publisher +can force a book into acceptance. Advertising will not avail, and +reviewing is notoriously futile. If the book does not strike the +popular fancy, or deal with some universal interest, which need by no +means be a profound or important one, the drums and the cymbals shall +be beaten in vain. The book may be one of the best and wisest books in +the world, but if it has not this sort of appeal in it, the readers of +it, and worse yet, the purchasers, will remain few, though fit. The +secret of this, like most other secrets of a rather ridiculous world, +is in the awful keeping of fate, and we can only hope to surprise it by +some lucky chance. To plan a surprise of it, to aim a book at the +public favor, is the most hopeless of all endeavors, as it is one of +the unworthiest; and I can, neither as a man of letters nor as a man of +business, counsel the young author to do it. The best that you can do +is to write the book that it gives you the most pleasure to write, to +put as much heart and soul as you have about you into it, and then hope +as hard as you can to reach the heart and soul of the great multitude +of your fellow-men. That, and that alone, is good business for a man +of letters. +</P> + +<P> +The failures in literature are no less mystifying than the successes, +though they are upon the whole not so mortifying. I have seen a good +many of these failures, and I know of one case so signal that I must +speak of it, even to the discredit of the public. It is the case of a +novelist whose work seems to me of the best that we have done in that +sort, whose books represent our life with singular force and singular +insight, and whose equipment for his art, through study, travel, and +the world, is of the rarest. He has a strong, robust, manly style; his +stories are well knit, and his characters are of the flesh and blood +complexion which we know in our daily experience; and yet he has failed +to achieve one of the first places in our literature; if I named his +name here, I am afraid that it would be quite unknown to the greatest +part of my readers. I have never been able to account for his want of +success, except through the fact that his stories did not please women, +though why they did not, I cannot guess. They did not like them for +the same reason that they did not like Dr. Fell; and that reason was +quite enough for them. It must be enough for him, I am afraid; but I +believe that if this author had been writing in a country where men +decided the fate of books, the fate of his books would have been +different. +</P> + +<P> +The man of letters must make up his mind that in the United States the +fate of a book is in the hands of the women. It is the women with us +who have the most leisure, and they read the most books. They are far +better educated, for the most part, than our men, and their tastes, if +not their minds, are more cultivated. Our men read the newspapers, but +our women read the books; the more refined among them read the +magazines. If they do not always know what is good, they do know what +pleases them, and it is useless to quarrel with their decisions, for +there is no appeal from them. To go from them to the men would be +going from a higher to a lower court, which would be honestly surprised +and bewildered, if the thing were possible. As I say, the author of +light literature, and often the author of solid literature, must resign +himself to obscurity unless the ladies choose to recognize him. Yet it +would be impossible to forecast their favor for this kind or that. Who +could prophesy it for another, who guess it for himself? We must +strive blindly for it, and hope somehow that our best will also be our +prettiest; but we must remember at the same time that it is not the +ladies' man who is the favorite of the ladies. +</P> + +<P> +There are of course a few, a very few, of our greatest authors, who +have striven forward to the first place in our Valhalla without the +help of the largest reading-class among us; but I should say that these +were chiefly the humorists, for whom women are said nowhere to have any +warm liking, and who have generally with us come up through the +newspapers, and have never lost the favor of the newspaper readers. +They have become literary men, as it were, without the newspapers' +readers knowing it; but those who have approached literature from +another direction, have won fame in it chiefly by grace of the women, +who first read them, and then made their husbands and fathers read +them. Perhaps, then, and as a matter of business, it would be well for +a serious author, when he finds that he is not pleasing the women, and +probably never will please them, to turn humorous author, and aim at +the countenance of the men. Except as a humorist he certainly never +will get it, for your American, when he is not making money, or trying +to do it, is making a joke, or trying to do it. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +IX. +</H3> + +<P> +I hope that I have not been hinting that the author who approaches +literature through journalism is not as fine and high a literary man as +the author who comes directly to it, or through some other avenue; I +have not the least notion of condemning myself by any such judgment. +But I think it is pretty certain that fewer and fewer authors are +turning from journalism to literature, though the entente cordiale +between the two professions seems as great as ever. I fancy, though I +may be as mistaken in this as I am in a good many other things, that +most journalists would have been literary men if they could, at the +beginning, and that the kindness they almost always show to young +authors is an effect of the self-pity they feel for their own thwarted +wish to be authors. When an author is once warm in the saddle, and is +riding his winged horse to glory, the case is different: they have then +often no sentiment about him; he is no longer the image of their own +young aspiration, and they would willingly see Pegasus buck under him, +or have him otherwise brought to grief and shame. They are apt to gird +at him for his unhallowed gains, and they would be quite right in this +if they proposed any way for him to live without them; as I have +allowed at the outset, the gains ARE unhallowed. Apparently it is +unseemly for an author or two to be making half as much by their pens +as popular ministers often receive in salary; the public is used to the +pecuniary prosperity of some of the clergy, and at least sees nothing +droll in it; but the paragrapher can always get a smile out of his +readers at the gross disparity between the ten thousand dollars Jones +gets for his novel, and the five pounds Milton got for his epic. I +have always thought Milton was paid too little, but I will own that he +ought not to have been paid at all, if it comes to that. Again, I say +that no man ought to live by any art; it is a shame to the art if not +to the artist; but as yet there is no means of the artist's living +otherwise, and continuing an artist. +</P> + +<P> +The literary man has certainly no complaint to make of the newspaper +man, generally speaking. I have often thought with amazement of the +kindness shown by the press to our whole unworthy craft, and of the +help so lavishly and freely given to rising and even risen authors. To +put it coarsely, brutally, I do not suppose that any other business +receives so much gratuitous advertising, except the theatre. It is +enormous, the space given in the newspapers to literary notes, literary +announcements, reviews, interviews, personal paragraphs, biographies, +and all the rest, not to mention the vigorous and incisive attacks made +from time to time upon different authors for their opinions of +romanticism, realism, capitalism, socialism, Catholicism, and +Sandemanianism. I have sometimes doubted whether the public cared for +so much of it all as the editors gave them, but I have always said this +under my breath, and I have thankfully taken my share of the common +bounty. A curious fact, however, is that this vast newspaper publicity +seems to have very little to do with an author's popularity, though +ever so much with his notoriety. Those strange subterranean fellows +who never come to the surface in the newspapers, except for a +contemptuous paragraph at long intervals, outsell the famousest of the +celebrities, and secretly have their horses and yachts and country +seats, while immodest merit is left to get about on foot and look up +summer board at the cheaper hotels. That is probably right, or it +would not happen; it seems to be in the general scheme, like +millionairism and pauperism; but it becomes a question, then, whether +the newspapers, with all their friendship for literature, and their +actual generosity to literary men, can really help one much to fortune, +however much they help one to fame. Such a question is almost too +dreadful, and though I have asked it, I will not attempt to answer it. +I would much rather consider the question whether if the newspapers can +make an author they can also unmake him, and I feel pretty safe in +saying that I do not think they can. The Afreet once out of the bottle +can never be coaxed back or cudgelled back; and the author whom the +newspapers have made cannot be unmade by the newspapers. They consign +him to oblivion with a rumor that fills the land, and they keep +visiting him there with an uproar which attracts more and more notice +to him. An author who has long enjoyed their favor, suddenly and +rather mysteriously loses it, through his opinions on certain matters +of literary taste, say. For the space of five or six years he is +denounced with a unanimity and an incisive vigor that ought to convince +him there is something wrong. If he thinks it is his censors, he +clings to his opinions with an abiding constance, while ridicule, +obloquy, caricature, burlesque, critical refutation and personal +detraction follow unsparingly upon every expression, for instance, of +his belief that romantic fiction is the highest form of fiction, and +that the base, sordid, photographic, commonplace school of Tolstoy, +Tourguenief, Zola, Hardy, and James, are unworthy a moment's comparison +with the school of Rider Haggard. All this ought certainly to unmake +the author in question, and strew his disjecta membra wide over the +realm of oblivion. But this is not really the effect. Slowly but +surely the clamor dies away, and the author, without relinquishing one +of his wicked opinions, or in anywise showing himself repentant, +remains apparently whole; and he even returns in a measure to the old +kindness: not indeed to the earlier day of perfectly smooth things, but +certainly to as much of it as he merits. +</P> + +<P> +I would not have the young author, from this imaginary case, believe +that it is well either to court or to defy the good opinion of the +press. In fact, it will not only be better taste, but it will be +better business for him to keep it altogether out of his mind. There +is only one whom he can safely try to please, and that is himself. If +he does this he will very probably please other people; but if he does +not please himself he may be sure that he will not please them; the +book which he has not enjoyed writing, no one will enjoy reading. +Still, I would not have him attach too little consequence to the +influence of the press. I should say, let him take the celebrity it +gives him gratefully but not too seriously; let him reflect that he is +often the necessity rather than the ideal of the paragrapher, and that +the notoriety the journalists bestow upon him is not the measure of +their acquaintance with his work, far less his meaning. They are good +fellows, those poor, hard-pushed fellows of the press, but the very +conditions of their censure, friendly or unfriendly, forbid it +thoroughness, and it must often have more zeal than knowledge in it. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +X. +</H3> + +<P> +Whether the newspapers will become the rivals of the magazines as the +vehicle of literature is a matter that still remains in doubt with the +careful observer, after a decade of the newspaper syndicate. Our daily +papers never had the habit of the feuilleton as those of the European +continent have it; they followed the English tradition in this, though +they departed from it in so many other things; and it was not till the +Sunday editions of the great dailies arose that there was any real hope +for the serial in the papers. I suspect that it was the vast demand +for material in their pages—twelve, eighteen, twenty-four, +thirty-six—that created the syndicate, for it was the necessity of the +Sunday edition not only to have material in abundance, but, with all +possible regard for quality, to have it cheap; and the syndicate, when +it came into being, imagined a means of meeting this want. It sold the +same material to as many newspapers as it could for simultaneous +publication in their Sunday editions, which had each its special field, +and did not compete with another. +</P> + +<P> +I do not think the syndicate began with serials, and I do not think it +is likely to end with them. It has rather worked the vein of +interviews, personal adventure, popular science, useful information, +travel, sketches, and short stories. Still it has placed a good many +serial stories, and at pretty good prices, but not generally so good as +those the magazines pay the better sort of writers; for the worse sort +it has offered perhaps the best market they have had out of book form. +By the newspapers, the syndicate conceives, and perhaps justly, that +something sensational is desired; yet all the serial stories it has +placed cannot be called sensational. It has enlarged the field of +belles-lettres, certainly, but not permanently, I think, in the case of +the artistic novel. As yet the women, who form the largest, if not the +only cultivated class among us, have not taken very cordially to the +Sunday edition, except for its social gossip; they certainly do not go +to it for their fiction, and its fiction is mainly of the inferior sort +with which boys and men beguile their leisure. +</P> + +<P> +In fact the newspapers prefer to remain newspapers, at least in quality +if not in form; and I heard a story the other day from a charming young +writer of his experience with them, which may have some instruction for +the magazines that less wisely aim to become newspapers. He said that +when he carried his work to the editors they struck out what he thought +the best of it, because it was what they called magaziny; not +contemptuously, but with an instinctive sense of what their readers +wanted of them, and did not want. It was apparent that they did not +want literary art, or even the appearance of it; they wanted their +effects primary; they wanted their emotions raw, or at least saignantes +from the joint of fact, and not prepared by the fancy or the taste. +</P> + +<P> +The syndicate has no doubt advanced the prosperity of the short story +by increasing the demand for it. We Americans had already done pretty +well in that kind, for there was already a great demand for the short +story in the magazines; but the syndicate of Sunday editions +particularly cultivated it, and made it very paying. I have heard that +some short-story writers made the syndicate pay more for their wares +than they got from the magazines for them, considering that the +magazine publication could enhance their reputation, but the Sunday +edition could do nothing for it. They may have been right or not in +this; I will not undertake to say, but that was the business view of +the case with them. +</P> + +<P> +In spite of the fact that short stories when gathered into a volume and +republished would not sell so well as a novel, the short story +flourished, and its success in the periodicals began to be felt in the +book trade: volumes of short stories suddenly began to sell. But now +again, it is said the bottom has dropped out, and they do not sell, and +their adversity in book form threatens to affect them in the magazines; +an editor told me the other day that he had more short stories than he +knew what to do with; and I was not offering him a short story of my +own, either. +</P> + +<P> +A permanent decline in the market for a kind of literary art which we +have excelled in, or if we have not excelled, have done some of our +most exquisite work, would be a pity. +</P> + +<P> +There are other sorts of light literature once greatly in demand, but +now apparently no longer desired by editors, who ought to know what +their readers desire. Among these is the travel sketch, to me a very +agreeable kind, and really to be regretted in its decline. There are +some reasons for its decline besides a change of taste in readers, and +a possible surfeit. Travel itself has become so universal that +everybody, in a manner, has been everywhere, and the foreign scene has +no longer the charm of strangeness. We do not think the Old World +either so romantic or so ridiculous as we used; and perhaps from an +instinctive perception of this altered mood writers no longer appeal to +our sentiment or our humor with sketches of outlandish people and +places. Of course this can hold true only in a general way; the thing +is still done, but not nearly so much done as formerly. When one +thinks of the long line of American writers who have greatly pleased in +this sort, and who even got their first fame in it, one must grieve to +see it obsolescent. Irving, Curtis, Bayard Taylor, Herman Melville, +Ross Browne, Ik Marvell, Longfellow, Lowell, Story, Mr. James, Mr. +Aldrich, Colonel Hay, Mr. Warner, Mrs. Hunt, Mr. C.W. Stoddard, Mark +Twain, and many others whose names will not come to me at the moment, +have in their several ways richly contributed to our pleasure in it; +but I cannot now fancy a young author finding favor with an editor in a +sketch of travel, or a study of foreign manners and customs; his work +would have to be of the most signal importance and brilliancy to +overcome the editor's feeling that the thing had been done already; and +I believe that a publisher if offered a book of such things, would look +at it askance, and plead the well-known quiet of the trade. Still, I +may be mistaken. +</P> + +<P> +I am rather more confident about the decline of another literary +species, namely, the light essay. We have essays enough and to spare, +of certain soberer and severer sorts, such as grapple with problems and +deal with conditions; but the kind I mean, the slightly humorous, +gentle, refined, and humane kind, seems no longer to abound as it once +did. I do not know whether the editor discourages them, knowing his +readers' frame, or whether they do not offer themselves, but I seldom +find them in the magazines. I certainly do not believe that if anyone +were now to write essays such as Mr. Warner's "Backlog Studies," an +editor would refuse them; and perhaps nobody really writes them. +Nobody seems to write the sort that Colonel Higginson formerly +contributed to the periodicals, or such as Emerson wrote. Without a +great name behind it, I am afraid that a volume of essays would find +few buyers, even after the essays had made a public in the magazines. +There are, of course, instances to the contrary, but they are not so +many or so striking as to make me think that the essay could not be +offered as a good opening for business talent. +</P> + +<P> +I suspect that good poetry by well-known hands was never better paid in +the magazines than it is now. I must say, too, that I think the +quality of the minor poetry of our day is better than that of +twenty-five or thirty years ago. I could name half a score of young +poets whose work from time to time gives me great pleasure, by the +reality of its feeling, and the delicate perfection of its art, but I +will not name them, for fear of passing over half a score of others +equally meritorious. We have certainly no reason to be discouraged, +whatever reason the poets themselves have to be so, and I do not think +that even in the short story our younger writers are doing better work +than they are doing in the slighter forms of verse. Yet the notion of +inviting business talent into this field would be as preposterous as +that of asking it to devote itself to the essay. What book of verse by +a recent poet, if we except some such peculiarly gifted poet as Mr. +Whitcomb Riley, has paid its expenses, not to speak of any profit to +the author? Of course, it would be rather more offensive and +ridiculous that it should do so than that any other form of literary +art should do so; and yet there is no more provision in our economic +system for the support of the poet apart from his poems, than there is +for the support of the novelist apart from his novel. One could not +make any more money by writing poetry than by writing history, but it +is a curious fact that while the historians have usually been rich men, +and able to afford the luxury of writing history, the poets have +usually been poor men, with no pecuniary justification in their +devotion to a calling which is so seldom an election. +</P> + +<P> +To be sure, it can be said for them that it costs far less to set up +poet than to set up historian. There is no outlay for copying +documents, or visiting libraries, or buying books. In fact, except as +historian, the man of letters, in whatever walk, has not only none of +the expenses of other men of business, but none of the expenses of +other artists. He has no such outlay to make for materials, or models, +or studio rent as the painter or the sculptor has, and his income, such +as it is, is immediate. If he strikes the fancy of the editor with the +first thing he offers, as he very well may, it is as well with him as +with other men after long years of apprenticeship. Although he will +always be the better for an apprenticeship, and the longer +apprenticeship the better, he may practically need none at all. Such +are the strange conditions of his acceptance with the public, that he +may please better without it than with it. An author's first book is +too often not only his luckiest, but really his best; it has a +brightness that dies out under the school he puts himself to, but a +painter or sculptor is only the gainer by all the school he can give +himself. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +XI. +</H3> + +<P> +In view of this fact it become again very hard to establish the +author's status in the business world, and at moments I have grave +question whether he belongs there at all, except as a novelist. There +is, of course, no outlay for him in this sort, any more than in any +other sort of literature, but it at least supposes and exacts some +measure of preparation. A young writer may produce a brilliant and +very perfect romance, just as he may produce a brilliant and very +perfect poem, but in the field of realistic fiction, or in what we used +to call the novel of manners, a writer can only produce an inferior +book at the outset. For this work he needs experience and observation, +not so much of others as of himself, for ultimately his characters will +all come out of himself, and he will need to know motive and character +with such thoroughness and accuracy as he can acquire only through his +own heart. A man remains in a measure strange to himself as long as he +lives, and the very sources of novelty in his work will be within +himself; he can continue to give it freshness in no other way than by +knowing himself better and better. But a young writer and an untrained +writer has not yet begun to be acquainted even with the lives of other +men. The world around him remains a secret as well as the world within +him, and both unfold themselves simultaneously to that experience of +joy and sorrow that can come only with the lapse of time. Until he is +well on toward forty, he will hardly have assimilated the materials of +a great novel, although he may have accumulated them. The novelist, +then, is a man of letters who is like a man of business in the +necessity of preparation for his calling, though he does not pay +store-rent, and may carry all his affairs under his hat, as the phrase +is. He alone among men of letters may look forward to that sort of +continuous prosperity which follows from capacity and diligence in +other vocations; for story-telling is now a fairly recognized trade, +and the story-teller has a money-standing in the economic world. It is +not a very high standing, I think, and I have expressed the belief that +it does not bring him the respect felt for men in other lines of +business. Still our people cannot deny some consideration to a man who +gets a hundred dollars a thousand words. That is a fact appreciable to +business, and the man of letters in the line of fiction may reasonably +feel that his place in our civilization, though he may owe it to the +women who form the great mass of his readers, has something of the +character of a vested interest in the eyes of men. There is, indeed, +as yet no conspiracy law which will avenge the attempt to injure him in +his business. A critic, or a dark conjuration of critics, may damage +him at will and to the extent of their power, and he has no recourse +but to write better books, or worse. The law will do nothing for him, +and a boycott of his books might be preached with immunity by any class +of men not liking his opinions on the question of industrial slavery or +antipaedobaptism. Still the market for his wares is steadier than the +market for any other kind of literary wares, and the prices are better. +The historian, who is a kind of inferior realist, has something like +the same steadiness in the market, but the prices he can command are +much lower, and the two branches of the novelist's trade are not to be +compared in a business way. As for the essayist, the poet, the +traveller, the popular scientist, they are nowhere in the competition +for the favor of readers. The reviewer, indeed, has a pretty steady +call for his work, but I fancy the reviewers who get a hundred dollars +a thousand words could all stand upon the point of a needle without +crowding one another; I should rather like to see them doing it. +Another gratifying fact of the situation is that the best writers of +fiction who are most in demand with the magazines, probably get nearly +as much money for their work as the inferior novelists who outsell them +by tens of thousands, and who make their appeal to the innumerable +multitude of the less educated and less cultivated buyers of fiction in +book-form. I think they earn their money, but if I did not think all +of the higher class of novelists earned so much money as they get, I +should not be so invidious as to single out for reproach those who did +not. +</P> + +<P> +The difficulty about payment, as I have hinted, is that literature has +no objective value really, but only a subjective value, if I may so +express it. A poem, an essay, a novel, even a paper on political +economy, may be worth gold untold to one reader, and worth nothing +whatever to another. It may be precious to one mood of the reader, and +worthless to another mood of the same reader. How, then, is it to be +priced, and how is it to be fairly marketed? All people must be fed, +and all people must be clothed, and all people must be housed; and so +meat, raiment, and shelter are things of positive and obvious +necessity, which may fitly have a market price put upon them. But +there is no such positive and obvious necessity, I am sorry to say, for +fiction, or not for the higher sort of fiction. The sort of fiction +which corresponds to the circus and the variety theatre in the +show-business seems essential to the spiritual health of the masses, +but the most cultivated of the classes can get on, from time to time, +without an artistic novel. This is a great pity, and I should be very +willing that readers might feel something like the pangs of hunger and +cold, when deprived of their finer fiction; but apparently they never +do. Their dumb and passive need is apt only to manifest itself +negatively, or in the form of weariness of this author or that. The +publisher of books can ascertain the fact through the declining sales +of a writer; but the editor of a magazine, who is the best customer of +the best writers, must feel the market with a much more delicate touch. +Sometimes it may be years before he can satisfy himself that his +readers are sick of Smith, and are pining for Jones; even then he +cannot know how long their mood will last, and he is by no means safe +in cutting down Smith's price and putting up Jones's. With the best +will in the world to pay justly, he cannot. Smith, who has been boring +his readers to death for a year, may write to-morrow a thing that will +please them so much that he will at once be a prime favorite again; and +Jones, whom they have been asking for, may do something so +uncharacteristic and alien that it will be a flat failure in the +magazine. The only thing that gives either writer positive value is +his acceptance with the reader; but the acceptance is from month to +month wholly uncertain. Authors are largely matters of fashion, like +this style of bonnet, or that shape of gown. Last spring the dresses +were all made with lace berthas, and Smith was read; this year the +butterfly capes are worn, and Jones is the favorite author. Who shall +forecast the fall and winter modes? +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +XII. +</H3> + +<P> +In this inquiry it is always the author rather than the publisher, +always the contributor rather than the editor, whom I am concerned for. +I study the difficulties of the publisher and editor only because they +involve the author and the contributor; if they did not, I will not say +with how hard a heart I should turn from them; my only pang now in +scrutinizing the business conditions of literature is for the makers of +literature, not the purveyors of it. +</P> + +<P> +After all, and in spite of my vaunting title, is the man of letters +ever a business man? I suppose that, strictly speaking, he never is, +except in those rare instances where, through need or choice, he is the +publisher as well as the author of his books. Then he puts something +on the market and tries to sell it there, and is a man of business. +But otherwise he is an artist merely, and is allied to the great mass +of wage-workers who are paid for the labor they have put into the thing +done or the thing made; who live by doing or making a thing, and not by +marketing a thing after some other man has done it or made it. The +quality of the thing has nothing to do with the economic nature of the +case; the author is, in the last analysis, merely a workingman, and is +under the rule that governs the workingman's life. If he is sick or +sad, and cannot work, if he is lazy or tipsy and will not, then he +earns nothing. He cannot delegate his business to a clerk or a +manager; it will not go on while he is sleeping. The wage he can +command depends strictly upon his skill and diligence. +</P> + +<P> +I myself am neither sorry nor ashamed for this; I am glad and proud to +be of those who eat their bread in the sweat of their own brows, and +not the sweat of other men's brows; I think my bread is the sweeter for +it. In the meantime I have no blame for business men; they are no more +of the condition of things than we workingmen are; they did no more to +cause it or create it; but I would rather be in my place than in +theirs, and I wish that I could make all my fellow-artists realize that +economically they are the same as mechanics, farmers, day-laborers. It +ought to be our glory that we produce something, that we bring into the +world something that was not choately there before; that at least we +fashion or shape something anew; and we ought to feel the tie that +binds us to all the toilers of the shop and field, not as a galling +chain, but as a mystic bond also uniting us to Him who works hitherto +and evermore. +</P> + +<P> +I know very well that to the vast multitude of our fellow-workingmen we +artists are the shadows of names, or not even the shadows. I like to +look the facts in the face, for though their lineaments are often +terrible, yet there is light nowhere else; and I will not pretend, in +this light, that the masses care any more for us than we care for the +masses, or so much. Nevertheless, and most distinctly, we are not of +the classes. Except in our work, they have no use for us; if now and +then they fancy qualifying their material splendor or their spiritual +dulness with some artistic presence, the attempt is always a failure +that bruises and abashes. In so far as the artist is a man of the +world, he is the less an artist, and if he fashions himself upon +fashion, he deforms his art. We all know that ghastly type; it is more +absurd even than the figure which is really of the world, which was +born and bred in it, and conceives of nothing outside of it, or above +it. In the social world, as well as in the business world, the artist +is anomalous, in the actual conditions, and he is perhaps a little +ridiculous. +</P> + +<P> +Yet he has to be somewhere, poor fellow, and I think that he will do +well to regard himself as in a transition state. He is really of the +masses, but they do not know it, and what is worse, they do not know +him; as yet the common people do not hear him gladly or hear him at +all. He is apparently of the classes; they know him, and they listen +to him; he often amuses them very much; but he is not quite at ease +among them; whether they know it or not, he knows that he is not of +their kind. Perhaps he will never be at home anywhere in the world as +long as there are masses whom he ought to consort with, and classes +whom he cannot consort with. The prospect is not brilliant for any +artist now living, but perhaps the artist of the future will see in the +flesh the accomplishment of that human equality of which the instinct +has been divinely planted in the human soul. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR><BR> + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Man of Letters as a Man of Business, by +William Dean Howells + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MAN OF LETTERS, MAN OF BUSINESS *** + +***** This file should be named 724-h.htm or 724-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/7/2/724/ + +Produced by Anthony J. Adam. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Man of Letters as a Man of Business + +Author: William Dean Howells + +Posting Date: July 23, 2008 [EBook #724] +Release Date: November, 1996 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MAN OF LETTERS, MAN OF BUSINESS *** + + + + +Produced by Anthony J. Adam. HTML version by Al Haines. + + + + + + + + + +"THE MAN OF LETTERS AS A MAN OF BUSINESS" + +by + +William Dean Howells + + +I think that every man ought to work for his living, without exception, +and that when he has once avouched his willingness to work, society +should provide him with work and warrant him a living. I do not think +any man ought to live by an art. A man's art should be his privilege, +when he has proven his fitness to exercise it, and has otherwise earned +his daily bread; and its results should be free to all. There is an +instinctive sense of this, even in the midst of the grotesque confusion +of our economic being; people feel that there is something profane, +something impious, in taking money for a picture, or a poem, or a +statue. Most of all, the artist himself feels this. He puts on a bold +front with the world, to be sure, and brazens it out as Business; but +he knows very well that there is something false and vulgar in it; and +that the work which cannot be truly priced in money cannot be truly +paid in money. He can, of course, say that the priest takes money for +reading the marriage service, for christening the new-born babe, and +for saying the last office for the dead; that the physician sells +healing; that justice itself is paid for; and that he is merely a party +to the thing that is and must be. He can say that, as the thing is, +unless he sells his art he cannot live, that society will leave him to +starve if he does not hit its fancy in a picture, or a poem, or a +statue; and all this is bitterly true. He is, and he must be, only too +glad if there is a market for his wares. Without a market for his +wares he must perish, or turn to making something that will sell better +than pictures, or poems, or statues. All the same, the sin and the +shame remain, and the averted eye sees them still, with its inward +vision. Many will make believe otherwise, but I would rather not make +believe otherwise; and in trying to write of Literature as Business I +am tempted to begin by saying that Business is the opprobrium of +Literature. + + + +II. + +Literature is at once the most intimate and the most articulate of the +arts. It cannot impart its effect through the senses or the nerves as +the other arts can; it is beautiful only through the intelligence; it +is the mind speaking to the mind; until it has been put into absolute +terms, of an invariable significance, it does not exist at all. It +cannot awaken this emotion in one, and that in another; if it fails to +express precisely the meaning of the author, if it does not say HIM, it +says nothing, and is nothing. So that when a poet has put his heart, +much or little, into a poem, and sold it to a magazine, the scandal is +greater than when a painter has sold a picture to a patron, or a +sculptor has modelled a statue to order. These are artists less +articulate and less intimate than the poet; they are more exterior to +their work; they are less personally in it; they part with less of +themselves in the dicker. It does not change the nature of the case to +say that Tennyson and Longfellow and Emerson sold the poems in which +they couched the most mystical messages their genius was charged to +bear mankind. They submitted to the conditions which none can escape; +but that does not justify the conditions, which are none the less the +conditions of hucksters because they are imposed upon poets. If it +will serve to make my meaning a little clearer we will suppose that a +poet has been crossed in love, or has suffered some real sorrow, like +the loss of a wife or child. He pours out his broken heart in verse +that shall bring tears of sacred sympathy from his readers, and an +editor pays him a hundred dollars for the right of bringing his verse +to their notice. It is perfectly true that the poem was not written +for these dollars, but it is perfectly true that it was sold for them. +The poet must use his emotions to pay his provision bills; he has no +other means; society does not propose to pay his bills for him. Yet, +and at the end of the ends, the unsophisticated witness finds the +transaction ridiculous, finds it repulsive, finds it shabby. Somehow +he knows that if our huckstering civilization did not at every moment +violate the eternal fitness of things, the poet's song would have been +given to the world, and the poet would have been cared for by the whole +human brotherhood, as any man should be who does the duty that every +man owes it. + +The instinctive sense of the dishonor which money-purchase does to art +is so strong that sometimes a man of letters who can pay his way +otherwise refuses pay for his work, as Lord Byron did, for a while, +from a noble pride, and as Count Tolstoy has tried to do, from a noble +conscience. But Byron's publisher profited by a generosity which did +not reach his readers; and the Countess Tolstoy collects the copyright +which her husband foregoes; so that these two eminent instances of +protest against business in literature may be said not to have shaken +its money basis. I know of no others; but there may be many that I am +culpably ignorant of. Still, I doubt if there are enough to affect the +fact that Literature is Business as well as Art, and almost as soon. +At present business is the only human solidarity; we are all bound +together with that chain, whatever interests and tastes and principles +separate us, and I feel quite sure that in writing of the Man of +Letters as a Man of Business, I shall attract far more readers than I +should in writing of him as an Artist. Besides, as an artist he has +been done a great deal already; and a commercial state like ours has +really more concern in him as a business man. Perhaps it may sometimes +be different; I do not believe it will till the conditions are +different, and that is a long way off. + + + +III. + +In the meantime I confidently appeal to the reader's imagination with +the fact that there are several men of letters among us who are such +good men of business that they can command a hundred dollars a thousand +words for all they write; and at least one woman of letters who gets a +hundred and fifty dollars a thousand words. It is easy to write a +thousand words a day, and supposing one of these authors to work +steadily, it can be seen that his net earnings during the year would +come to some such sum as the President of the United States gets for +doing far less work of a much more perishable sort. If the man of +letters were wholly a business man this is what would happen; he would +make his forty or fifty thousand dollars a year, and be able to consort +with bank presidents, and railroad officials, and rich tradesmen, and +other flowers of our plutocracy on equal terms. But, unfortunately, +from a business point of view, he is also an artist, and the very +qualities that enable him to delight the public disable him from +delighting it uninterruptedly. "No rose blooms right along," as the +English boys at Oxford made an American collegian say in a theme which +they imagined for him in his national parlance; and the man of letters, +as an artist, is apt to have times and seasons when he cannot blossom. +Very often it shall happen that his mind will lie fallow between novels +or stories for weeks and months at a stretch; when the suggestions of +the friendly editor shall fail to fruit in the essays or articles +desired; when the muse shall altogether withhold herself, or shall +respond only in a feeble dribble of verse which he might sell indeed, +but which it would not be good business for him to put on the market. +But supposing him to be a very diligent and continuous worker, and so +happy as to have fallen on a theme that delights him and bears him +along, he may please himself so ill with the result of his labors that +he can do nothing less in artistic conscience than destroy a day's +work, a week's work, a month's work. I know one man of letters who +wrote to-day, and tore up tomorrow for nearly a whole summer. But even +if part of the mistaken work may be saved, because it is good work out +of place, and not intrinsically bad, the task of reconstruction wants +almost as much time as the production; and then, when all seems done, +comes the anxious and endless process of revision. These drawbacks +reduce the earning capacity of what I may call the high-cost man of +letters in such measure that an author whose name is known everywhere, +and whose reputation is commensurate with the boundaries of his +country, if it does not transcend them, shall have the income, say, of +a rising young physician, known to a few people in a subordinate city. + +In view of this fact, so humiliating to an author in the presence of a +nation of business men like ours, I do not know that I can establish +the man of letters in the popular esteem as very much of a business man +after all. He must still have a low rank among practical people; and +he will be regarded by the great mass of Americans as perhaps a little +off, a little funny, a little soft! + +Perhaps not; and yet I would rather not have a consensus of public +opinion on the question; I think I am more comfortable without it. + + + +IV. + +There is this to be said in defence of men of letters on the business +side, that literature is still an infant industry with us, and so far +from having been protected by our laws it was exposed for ninety years +after the foundation of the republic to the vicious competition of +stolen goods. It is true that we now have the international copyright +law at last, and we can at least begin to forget our shame; but +literary property has only forty-two years of life under our unjust +statutes, and if it is attacked by robbers the law does not seek out +the aggressors and punish them, as it would seek out and punish the +trespassers upon any other kind of property; but it leaves the +aggrieved owner to bring suit against them, and recover damages, if he +can. This may be right enough in itself; but I think, then, that all +property should be defended by civil suit, and should become public +after forty-two years of private tenure. The Constitution guarantees +us all equality before the law, but the law-makers seem to have +forgotten this in the case of our infant literary industry. So long as +this remains the case, we cannot expect the best business talent to go +into literature, and the man of letters must keep his present low grade +among business men. + +As I have hinted, it is but a little while that he has had any standing +at all. I may say that it is only since the was that literature has +become a business with us. Before that time we had authors, and very +good ones; it is astonishing how good they were; but I do not remember +any of them who lived by literature except Edgar A. Poe, perhaps; and +we all know how he lived; it was largely upon loans. They were either +men of fortune, or they were editors, or professors, with salaries or +incomes apart from the small gains of their pens; or they were helped +out with public offices; one need not go over their names, or classify +them. Some of them must have made money by their books, but I question +whether any one could have lived, even very simply, upon the money his +books brought him. No one could do that now, unless he wrote a book +that we could not recognize as a work of literature. But many authors +live now, and live prettily enough, by the sale of the serial +publication of their writings to the magazines. They do not live so +nicely as successful tradespeople, of course, or as men in the other +professions when they begin to make themselves names; the high state of +brokers, bankers, railroad operators, and the like is, in the nature of +the case, beyond their fondest dreams of pecuniary affluence and social +splendor. Perhaps they do not want the chief seats in the synagogue; +it is certain they do not get them. Still, they do very fairly well, +as things go; and several have incomes that would seem riches to the +great mass of worthy Americans who work with their hands for a +living--when they can get the work. Their incomes are mainly from +serial publication in the different magazines; and the prosperity of +the magazines has given a whole class existence which, as a class, was +wholly unknown among us before the war. It is not only the famous or +fully recognized authors who live in this way, but the much larger +number of clever people who are as yet known chiefly to the editors, +and who may never make themselves a public, but who do well a kind of +acceptable work. These are the sort who do not get reprinted from the +periodicals; but the better recognized authors do get reprinted, and +then their serial work in its completed form appeals to the readers who +say they do not read serials. The multitude of these is not great, and +if an author rested his hopes upon their favor he would be a much more +embittered man than he now generally is. But he understands perfectly +well that his reward is in the serial and not in the book; the return +from that he may count as so much money found in the road--a few +hundreds, a very few thousands, at the most. + + + +V. + +I doubt, indeed, whether the earnings of literary men are absolutely as +great as they were earlier in the century, in any of the +English-speaking countries; relatively they are nothing like as great. +Scott had forty thousand dollars for "Woodstock," which was not a very +large novel, and was by no means one of his best; and forty thousand +dollars had at least the purchasing powers of sixty thousand then. +Moore had three thousand guineas for "Lalla Rookh," but what publisher +would be rash enough to pay twenty-five thousand dollars for the +masterpiece of a minor poet now? The book, except in very rare +instances, makes nothing like the return to the author that the +magazine makes, and there are but two or three authors who find their +account in that form of publication. Those who do, those who sell the +most widely in book form, are often not at all desired by editors; with +difficulty they get a serial accepted by any principal magazine. On +the other hand, there are authors whose books, compared with those of +the popular favorites, do not sell, and yet they are eagerly sought for +by editors; they are paid the highest prices, and nothing that they +offer is refused. These are literary artists; and it ought to be plain +from what I am saying that in belles-lettres, at least, most of the +best literature now first sees the light in the magazines, and most of +the second best appears first in book form. The old-fashioned people +who flatter themselves upon their distinction in not reading magazine +fiction, or magazine poetry, make a great mistake, and simply class +themselves with the public whose taste is so crude that they cannot +enjoy the best. Of course this is true mainly, if not merely, of +belles-lettres; history, science, politics, metaphysics, in spite of +the many excellent articles and papers in these sorts upon what used to +be called various emergent occasions, are still to be found at their +best in books. The most monumental example of literature, at once +light and good, which has first reached the public in book form is in +the different publications of Mark Twain; but Mr. Clemens has of late +turned to the magazines too, and now takes their mint mark before he +passes into general circulation. All this may change again, but at +present the magazines--we have no longer any reviews--form the most +direct approach to that part of our reading public which likes the +highest things in literary art. Their readers, if we may judge from +the quality of the literature they get, are more refined than the book +readers in our community; and their taste has no doubt been cultivated +by that of the disciplined and experienced editors. So far as I have +known these they are men of aesthetic conscience, and of generous +sympathy. They have their preferences in the different kinds, and they +have their theory of what kind will be most acceptable to their +readers; but they exercise their selective function with the wish to +give them the best things they can. I do not know one of them--and it +has been my good fortune to know them nearly all--who would print a +wholly inferior thing for the sake of an inferior class of readers, +though they may sometimes decline a good thing because for one reason +or another they believe it would not be liked. Still, even this does +not often happen; they would rather chance the good thing they doubted +of than underrate their readers' judgment. + +New writers often suppose themselves rejected because they are unknown; +but the unknown man of force and quality is of all others the man whom +the editor welcomes to his page. He knows that there is always a danger +that the reigning favorite may fail to please; that at any rate, in the +order of things, he is passing away, and that if the magazine is not to +pass away with the men who have made it, there must be a constant +infusion of fresh life. Few editors are such fools and knaves as to +let their personal feeling disable their judgment; and the young writer +who gets his manuscript back may be sure that it is not because the +editor dislikes him, for some reason or no reason. Above all, he can +trust me that his contribution has not been passed unread, or has +failed of the examination it merits. Editors are not men of infallible +judgment, but they do use their judgment, and it is usually good. + +The young author who wins recognition in a first-class magazine has +achieved a double success, first, with the editor, and then with the +best reading public. Many factitious and fallacious literary +reputations have been made through books, but very few have been made +through the magazines, which are not only the best means of living, but +of outliving, with the author; they are both bread and fame to him. If +I insist a little upon the high office which this modern form of +publication fulfils in the literary world, it is because I am impatient +of the antiquated and ignorant prejudice which classes the magazines as +ephemeral. They are ephemeral in form, but in substance they are not +ephemeral, and what is best in them awaits its resurrection in the +book, which, as the first form, is so often a lasting death. An +interesting proof of the value of the magazine to literature is the +fact that a good novel will have wider acceptance as a book from having +been a magazine serial. + +I am not sure that the decay of the book is not owing somewhat to the +decay of reviewing. This does not now seem to me so thorough, or even +so general as it was some years ago, and I think the book oftener +comes to the buyer without the warrant of a critical estimate than it +once did. That is never the case with material printed in a magazine +of high class. A well-trained critic, who is bound by the strongest +ties of honor and interest not to betray either his employer or his +public, has judged it, and his practical approval is a warrant of +quality. + + + +VI. + +Under the regime of the great literary periodicals the prosperity of +literary men would be much greater than it actually is, if the +magazines were altogether literary. But they are not, and this is one +reason why literature is still the hungriest of the professions. +Two-thirds of the magazines are made up of material which, however +excellent, is without literary quality. Very probably this is because +even the highest class of readers, who are the magazine readers, have +small love of pure literature, which seems to have been growing less +and less in all classes. I say seems, because there are really no +means of ascertaining the fact, and it may be that the editors are +mistaken in making their periodicals two-thirds popular science, +politics, economics, and the timely topics which I will call +contemporaries; I have sometimes thought they were. But however that +may be, their efforts in this direction have narrowed the field of +literary industry, and darkened the hope of literary prosperity kindled +by the unexampled prosperity of their periodicals. They pay very well +indeed for literature; they pay from five or six dollars a thousand +words for the work of the unknown writer, to a hundred and fifty +dollars a thousand words for that of the most famous, or the most +popular, if there is a difference between fame and popularity; but they +do not, altogether, want enough literature to justify the best business +talent in devoting itself to belles-lettres, to fiction, or poetry, or +humorous sketches of travel, or light essays; business talent can do +far better in drygoods, groceries, drugs, stocks, real estate, +railroads, and the like. I do not think there is any danger of a +ruinous competition from it in the field which, though narrow, seems so +rich to us poor fellows, whose business talent is small, at the best. + +The most of the material contributed to the magazines is the subject of +agreement between the editor and the author; it is either suggested by +the author, or is the fruit of some suggestion from the editor; in any +case the price is stipulated beforehand, and it is no longer the custom +for a well-known contributor to leave the payment to the justice or the +generosity of the publisher; that was never a fair thing to either, nor +ever a wise thing. Usually, the price is so much a thousand words, a +truly odious method of computing literary value, and one well +calculated to make the author feel keenly the hatefulness of selling +his art at all. It is as if a painter sold his picture at so much a +square inch, or a sculptor bargained away a group of statuary by the +pound. But it is a custom that you cannot always successfully quarrel +with, and most writers gladly consent to it, if only the price a +thousand words is large enough. The sale to the editor means the sale +of the serial rights only, but if the publisher of the magazine is also +a publisher of books, the republication of the material is supposed to +be his right, unless there is an understanding to the contrary; the +terms for this are another affair. Formerly something more could be +got for the author by the simultaneous appearance of his work in an +English magazine, but now the great American magazines, which pay far +higher prices than any others in the world, have a circulation in +England so much exceeding that of any English periodical, that the +simultaneous publication can no longer be arranged for from this side, +though I believe it is still done here from the other side. + + + +VII. + +I think this is the case of authorship as it now stands with regard to +the magazines. I am not sure that the case is in every way improved +for young authors. The magazines all maintain a staff for the careful +examination of manuscripts, but as most of the material they print has +been engaged, the number of volunteer contributions that they can use +is very small; one of the greatest of them, I know, does not use fifty +in the course of a year. The new writer, then, must be very good to be +accepted, and when accepted he may wait long before he is printed. The +pressure is so great in these avenues to the public favor that one, +two, three years, are no uncommon periods of delay. If the writer has +not the patience for this, or has a soul above cooling his heels in the +courts of fame, or must do his best to earn something at once, the book +is his immediate hope. How slight a hope the book is I have tried to +hint already, but if a book is vulgar enough in sentiment, and crude +enough in taste, and flashy enough in incident, or, better or worse +still, if it is a bit hot in the mouth, and promises impropriety if not +indecency, there is a very fair chance of its success; I do not mean +success with a self-respecting publisher, but with the public, which +does not personally put its name to it, and is not openly smirched by +it. I will not talk of that kind of book, however, but of the book +which the young author has written out of an unspoiled heart and an +untainted mind, such as most young men and women write; and I will +suppose that it has found a publisher. It is human nature, as +competition has deformed human nature, for the publisher to wish the +author to take all the risks, and he possibly proposes that the author +shall publish it at his own expense, and let him have a percentage of +the retail price for managing it. If not that, he proposes that the +author shall pay for the stereotype plates, and take fifteen per cent. +of the price of the book; or if this will not go, if the author cannot, +rather than will not do it (he is commonly only too glad to do anything +he can), then the publisher offers him ten per cent. of the retail +price after the first thousand copies have been sold. But if he fully +believes in the book, he will give ten per cent. from the first copy +sold, and pay all the costs of publication himself. The book is to be +retailed for a dollar and a half, and the publisher is very well +pleased with a new book that sells fifteen hundred copies. Whether the +author has as much reason to be so is a question, but if the book does +not sell more he has only himself to blame, and had better pocket in +silence the two hundred and twenty-five dollars he gets for it, and +bless his publisher, and try to find work somewhere at five dollars a +week. The publisher has not made any more, if quite as much as the +author, and until a book has sold two thousand copies the division is +fair enough. After that, the heavier expenses of manufacturing have +been defrayed, and the book goes on advertising itself; there is merely +the cost of paper, printing, binding, and marketing to be met, and the +arrangement becomes fairer and fairer for the publisher. The author +has no right to complain of this, in the case of his first book, which +he is only too grateful to get accepted at all. If it succeeds, he has +himself to blame for making the same arrangement for his second or +third; it is his fault, or else it is his necessity, which is +practically the same thing. It will be business for the publisher to +take advantage of his necessity quite the same as if it were his fault; +but I do not say that he will always do so; I believe he will very +often not do so. + +At one time there seemed a probability of the enlargement of the +author's gains by subscription publication, and one very well-known +American author prospered fabulously in that way. The percentage +offered by the subscription houses was only about half as much as that +paid by the trade, but the sales were so much greater that the author +could very well afford to take it. Where the book-dealer sold ten, the +book-agent sold a hundred; or at least he did so in the case of Mark +Twain's books; and we all thought it reasonable he could do so with +ours. Such of us as made experiment of him, however, found the facts +illogical. No book of literary quality was made to go by subscription +except Mr. Clemens's books, and I think these went because the +subscription public never knew what good literature they were. This +sort of readers, or buyers, were so used to getting something worthless +for their money, that they would not spend it for artistic fiction, or +indeed for any fiction all, except Mr. Clemens's, which they probably +supposed bad. Some good books of travel had a measurable success +through the book agents, but not at all the success that had been hoped +for; and I believe now the subscription trade again publishes only +compilations, or such works as owe more to the skill of the editor than +the art of the writer. Mr. Clemens himself no longer offers his books +to the public in that way. + +It is not common, I think, in this country, to publish on the +half-profits system, but it is very common in England, where, owing +probably to the moisture in the air, which lends a fairy outline to +every prospect, it seems to be peculiarly alluring. One of my own +early books was published there on these terms, which I accepted with +the insensate joy of the young author in getting any terms from a +publisher. The book sold, sold every copy of the small first edition, +and in due time the publisher's statement came. I did not think my +half of the profits was very great, but it seemed a fair division after +every imaginable cost had been charged up against my poor book, and +that frail venture had been made to pay the expenses of composition, +corrections, paper, printing, binding, advertising, and editorial +copies. The wonder ought to have been that there was anything at all +coming to me, but I was young and greedy then, and I really thought +there ought to have been more. I was disappointed, but I made the best +of it, of course, and took the account to the junior partner of the +house which employed me, and said that I should like to draw on him for +the sum due me from the London publishers. He said, Certainly; but +after a glance at the account he smiled and said he supposed I knew how +much the sum was? I answered, Yes; it was eleven pounds nine +shillings, was not it? But I owned at the same time that I never was +good at figures, and that I found English money peculiarly baffling. +He laughed now, and said, It was eleven shillings and nine pence. In +fact, after all those charges for composition, corrections, paper, +printing, binding, advertising, and editorial copies, there was a most +ingenious and wholly surprising charge of ten per cent. commission on +sales, which reduced my half from pounds to shillings, and handsomely +increased the publisher's half in proportion. I do not now dispute the +justice of the charge. It was not the fault of the half-profits +system, it was the fault of the glad young author who did not +distinctly inform himself of its mysterious nature in agreeing to it, +and had only to reproach himself if he was finally disappointed. + +But there is always something disappointing in the accounts of +publishers, which I fancy is because authors are strangely constituted, +rather than because publishers are so. I will confess that I have such +inordinate expectations of the sale of my books which I hope I think +modestly of, that the sales reported to me never seem great enough. +The copyright due me, no matter how handsome it is, appears deplorably +mean, and I feel impoverished for several days after I get it. But +then, I ought to add that my balance in the bank is always much less +than I have supposed it to be, and my own checks, when they come back +to me, have the air of having been in a conspiracy to betray me. + +No, we literary men must learn, no matter how we boast ourselves in +business, that the distress we feel from our publisher's accounts is +simply idiopathic; and I for one wish to bear my witness to the +constant good faith and uprightness of publishers. + +It is supposed that because they have the affair altogether in their +hands they are apt to take advantage in it; but this does not follow, +and as a matter of fact they have the affair no more in their own hands +than any other business man you have an open account with. There is +nothing to prevent you from looking at their books, except your own +innermost belief and fear that their books are correct, and that your +literature has brought you so little because it has sold so little. + +The author is not to blame for his superficial delusion to the +contrary, especially if he has written a book that has set everyone +talking, because it is of a vital interest. It may be of a vital +interest, without being at all the kind of book people want to buy; it +may be the kind of book that they are content to know at second hand; +there are such fatal books; but hearing so much, and reading so much +about it, the author cannot help hoping that it has sold much more than +the publisher says. The publisher is undoubtedly honest, however, and +the author had better put away the comforting question of his integrity. + +The English writers seem largely to suspect their publishers (I cannot +say with how much reason, for my English publisher is Scotch, and I +should be glad to be so true a man as I think him); but I believe that +American authors, when not flown with flattering reviews, as largely +trust theirs. Of course there are rogues in every walk of life. I +will not say that I ever personally met them in the flowery paths of +literature, but I have heard of other people meeting them there, just +as I have heard of people seeing ghosts, and I have to believe in both +the rogues and the ghosts, without the witness of my own senses. I +suppose, upon such grounds mainly, that there are wicked publishers, +but in the case of our books that do not sell, I am afraid that it is +the graceless and inappreciative public which is far more to blame than +the wickedest of the publishers. It is true that publishers will drive +a hard bargain when they can, or when they must; but there is nothing +to hinder an author from driving a hard bargain, too, when he can, or +when he must; and it is to be said of the publisher that he is always +more willing to abide by the bargain when it is made than the author +is; perhaps because he has the best of it. But he has not always the +best of it; I have known publishers too generous to take advantage of +the innocence of authors; and I fancy that if publishers had to do with +any race less diffident than authors, they would have won a repute for +unselfishness that they do not now enjoy. It is certain that in the +long period when we flew the black flag of piracy there were many among +our corsairs on the high seas of literature who paid a fair price for +the stranger craft they seized; still oftener they removed the cargo, +and released their capture with several weeks' provision; and although +there was undoubtedly a good deal of actual throat-cutting and +scuttling, still I feel sure that there was less of it than there would +have been in any other line of business released to the unrestricted +plunder of the neighbor. There was for a long time even a comity among +these amiable buccaneers, who agreed not to interfere with each other, +and so were enabled to pay over to their victims some portion of the +profit from their stolen goods. Of all business men publishers are +probably the most faithful and honorable, and are only surpassed in +virtue when men of letters turn business men. + +Publishers have their little theories, their little superstitions, and +their blind faith in the great god Chance, which we all worship. These +things lead them into temptation and adversity, but they seem to do +fairly well as business men, even in their own behalf. They do not +make above the usual ninety-five per cent. of failures, and more +publishers than authors get rich. I have known several publishers who +kept their carriages, but I have never known even one author to keep +his carriage on the profits of his literature, unless it was in some +modest country place where one could take care of one's own horse. But +this is simply because the authors are so many, and the publishers are +so few. If we wish to reverse their positions, we must study how to +reduce the number of authors and increase the number of publishers; +then prosperity will smile our way. + + + +VIII. + +Some theories or superstitions publishers and authors share together. +One of these is that it is best to keep your books all in the hands of +one publisher if you can, because then he can give them more attention +ad sell more of them. But my own experience is that when my books were +in the hands of three publishers they sold quite as well as when one +had them; and a fellow author whom I approached in question of this +venerable belief, laughed at it. This bold heretic held that it was +best to give each new book to a new publisher, for then the fresh man +put all his energies into pushing it; but if you had them all together, +the publisher rested in a vain security that one book would sell +another, and that the fresh venture would revive the public interest in +the stale ones. I never knew this to happen, and I must class it with +the superstitions of the trade. It may be so in other and more +constant countries, but in our fickle republic, each last book has to +fight its own way to public favor, much as if it had no sort of +literary lineage. Of course this is stating it rather largely, and the +truth will be found inside rather than outside of my statement; but +there is at least truth enough in it to give the young author pause. +While one is preparing to sell his basket of glass, he may as well ask +himself whether it is better to part with all to one dealer or not; and +if he kicks it over, in spurning the imaginary customer who asks the +favor of taking entire stock, that will be his fault, and not the fault +of the question. + +However, the most important question of all with the man of letters as +a man of business, is what kind of book will sell the best of itself, +because, at the end of the ends, a book sells itself or does not sell +at all; kissing, after long ages of reasoning and a great deal of +culture, still goes by favor, and though innumerable generations of +horses have been led to water, not one horse has yet been made to +drink. With the best, or the worst, will in the world, no publisher +can force a book into acceptance. Advertising will not avail, and +reviewing is notoriously futile. If the book does not strike the +popular fancy, or deal with some universal interest, which need by no +means be a profound or important one, the drums and the cymbals shall +be beaten in vain. The book may be one of the best and wisest books in +the world, but if it has not this sort of appeal in it, the readers of +it, and worse yet, the purchasers, will remain few, though fit. The +secret of this, like most other secrets of a rather ridiculous world, +is in the awful keeping of fate, and we can only hope to surprise it by +some lucky chance. To plan a surprise of it, to aim a book at the +public favor, is the most hopeless of all endeavors, as it is one of +the unworthiest; and I can, neither as a man of letters nor as a man of +business, counsel the young author to do it. The best that you can do +is to write the book that it gives you the most pleasure to write, to +put as much heart and soul as you have about you into it, and then hope +as hard as you can to reach the heart and soul of the great multitude +of your fellow-men. That, and that alone, is good business for a man +of letters. + +The failures in literature are no less mystifying than the successes, +though they are upon the whole not so mortifying. I have seen a good +many of these failures, and I know of one case so signal that I must +speak of it, even to the discredit of the public. It is the case of a +novelist whose work seems to me of the best that we have done in that +sort, whose books represent our life with singular force and singular +insight, and whose equipment for his art, through study, travel, and +the world, is of the rarest. He has a strong, robust, manly style; his +stories are well knit, and his characters are of the flesh and blood +complexion which we know in our daily experience; and yet he has failed +to achieve one of the first places in our literature; if I named his +name here, I am afraid that it would be quite unknown to the greatest +part of my readers. I have never been able to account for his want of +success, except through the fact that his stories did not please women, +though why they did not, I cannot guess. They did not like them for +the same reason that they did not like Dr. Fell; and that reason was +quite enough for them. It must be enough for him, I am afraid; but I +believe that if this author had been writing in a country where men +decided the fate of books, the fate of his books would have been +different. + +The man of letters must make up his mind that in the United States the +fate of a book is in the hands of the women. It is the women with us +who have the most leisure, and they read the most books. They are far +better educated, for the most part, than our men, and their tastes, if +not their minds, are more cultivated. Our men read the newspapers, but +our women read the books; the more refined among them read the +magazines. If they do not always know what is good, they do know what +pleases them, and it is useless to quarrel with their decisions, for +there is no appeal from them. To go from them to the men would be +going from a higher to a lower court, which would be honestly surprised +and bewildered, if the thing were possible. As I say, the author of +light literature, and often the author of solid literature, must resign +himself to obscurity unless the ladies choose to recognize him. Yet it +would be impossible to forecast their favor for this kind or that. Who +could prophesy it for another, who guess it for himself? We must +strive blindly for it, and hope somehow that our best will also be our +prettiest; but we must remember at the same time that it is not the +ladies' man who is the favorite of the ladies. + +There are of course a few, a very few, of our greatest authors, who +have striven forward to the first place in our Valhalla without the +help of the largest reading-class among us; but I should say that these +were chiefly the humorists, for whom women are said nowhere to have any +warm liking, and who have generally with us come up through the +newspapers, and have never lost the favor of the newspaper readers. +They have become literary men, as it were, without the newspapers' +readers knowing it; but those who have approached literature from +another direction, have won fame in it chiefly by grace of the women, +who first read them, and then made their husbands and fathers read +them. Perhaps, then, and as a matter of business, it would be well for +a serious author, when he finds that he is not pleasing the women, and +probably never will please them, to turn humorous author, and aim at +the countenance of the men. Except as a humorist he certainly never +will get it, for your American, when he is not making money, or trying +to do it, is making a joke, or trying to do it. + + + +IX. + +I hope that I have not been hinting that the author who approaches +literature through journalism is not as fine and high a literary man as +the author who comes directly to it, or through some other avenue; I +have not the least notion of condemning myself by any such judgment. +But I think it is pretty certain that fewer and fewer authors are +turning from journalism to literature, though the entente cordiale +between the two professions seems as great as ever. I fancy, though I +may be as mistaken in this as I am in a good many other things, that +most journalists would have been literary men if they could, at the +beginning, and that the kindness they almost always show to young +authors is an effect of the self-pity they feel for their own thwarted +wish to be authors. When an author is once warm in the saddle, and is +riding his winged horse to glory, the case is different: they have then +often no sentiment about him; he is no longer the image of their own +young aspiration, and they would willingly see Pegasus buck under him, +or have him otherwise brought to grief and shame. They are apt to gird +at him for his unhallowed gains, and they would be quite right in this +if they proposed any way for him to live without them; as I have +allowed at the outset, the gains ARE unhallowed. Apparently it is +unseemly for an author or two to be making half as much by their pens +as popular ministers often receive in salary; the public is used to the +pecuniary prosperity of some of the clergy, and at least sees nothing +droll in it; but the paragrapher can always get a smile out of his +readers at the gross disparity between the ten thousand dollars Jones +gets for his novel, and the five pounds Milton got for his epic. I +have always thought Milton was paid too little, but I will own that he +ought not to have been paid at all, if it comes to that. Again, I say +that no man ought to live by any art; it is a shame to the art if not +to the artist; but as yet there is no means of the artist's living +otherwise, and continuing an artist. + +The literary man has certainly no complaint to make of the newspaper +man, generally speaking. I have often thought with amazement of the +kindness shown by the press to our whole unworthy craft, and of the +help so lavishly and freely given to rising and even risen authors. To +put it coarsely, brutally, I do not suppose that any other business +receives so much gratuitous advertising, except the theatre. It is +enormous, the space given in the newspapers to literary notes, literary +announcements, reviews, interviews, personal paragraphs, biographies, +and all the rest, not to mention the vigorous and incisive attacks made +from time to time upon different authors for their opinions of +romanticism, realism, capitalism, socialism, Catholicism, and +Sandemanianism. I have sometimes doubted whether the public cared for +so much of it all as the editors gave them, but I have always said this +under my breath, and I have thankfully taken my share of the common +bounty. A curious fact, however, is that this vast newspaper publicity +seems to have very little to do with an author's popularity, though +ever so much with his notoriety. Those strange subterranean fellows +who never come to the surface in the newspapers, except for a +contemptuous paragraph at long intervals, outsell the famousest of the +celebrities, and secretly have their horses and yachts and country +seats, while immodest merit is left to get about on foot and look up +summer board at the cheaper hotels. That is probably right, or it +would not happen; it seems to be in the general scheme, like +millionairism and pauperism; but it becomes a question, then, whether +the newspapers, with all their friendship for literature, and their +actual generosity to literary men, can really help one much to fortune, +however much they help one to fame. Such a question is almost too +dreadful, and though I have asked it, I will not attempt to answer it. +I would much rather consider the question whether if the newspapers can +make an author they can also unmake him, and I feel pretty safe in +saying that I do not think they can. The Afreet once out of the bottle +can never be coaxed back or cudgelled back; and the author whom the +newspapers have made cannot be unmade by the newspapers. They consign +him to oblivion with a rumor that fills the land, and they keep +visiting him there with an uproar which attracts more and more notice +to him. An author who has long enjoyed their favor, suddenly and +rather mysteriously loses it, through his opinions on certain matters +of literary taste, say. For the space of five or six years he is +denounced with a unanimity and an incisive vigor that ought to convince +him there is something wrong. If he thinks it is his censors, he +clings to his opinions with an abiding constance, while ridicule, +obloquy, caricature, burlesque, critical refutation and personal +detraction follow unsparingly upon every expression, for instance, of +his belief that romantic fiction is the highest form of fiction, and +that the base, sordid, photographic, commonplace school of Tolstoy, +Tourguenief, Zola, Hardy, and James, are unworthy a moment's comparison +with the school of Rider Haggard. All this ought certainly to unmake +the author in question, and strew his disjecta membra wide over the +realm of oblivion. But this is not really the effect. Slowly but +surely the clamor dies away, and the author, without relinquishing one +of his wicked opinions, or in anywise showing himself repentant, +remains apparently whole; and he even returns in a measure to the old +kindness: not indeed to the earlier day of perfectly smooth things, but +certainly to as much of it as he merits. + +I would not have the young author, from this imaginary case, believe +that it is well either to court or to defy the good opinion of the +press. In fact, it will not only be better taste, but it will be +better business for him to keep it altogether out of his mind. There +is only one whom he can safely try to please, and that is himself. If +he does this he will very probably please other people; but if he does +not please himself he may be sure that he will not please them; the +book which he has not enjoyed writing, no one will enjoy reading. +Still, I would not have him attach too little consequence to the +influence of the press. I should say, let him take the celebrity it +gives him gratefully but not too seriously; let him reflect that he is +often the necessity rather than the ideal of the paragrapher, and that +the notoriety the journalists bestow upon him is not the measure of +their acquaintance with his work, far less his meaning. They are good +fellows, those poor, hard-pushed fellows of the press, but the very +conditions of their censure, friendly or unfriendly, forbid it +thoroughness, and it must often have more zeal than knowledge in it. + + + +X. + +Whether the newspapers will become the rivals of the magazines as the +vehicle of literature is a matter that still remains in doubt with the +careful observer, after a decade of the newspaper syndicate. Our daily +papers never had the habit of the feuilleton as those of the European +continent have it; they followed the English tradition in this, though +they departed from it in so many other things; and it was not till the +Sunday editions of the great dailies arose that there was any real hope +for the serial in the papers. I suspect that it was the vast demand +for material in their pages--twelve, eighteen, twenty-four, +thirty-six--that created the syndicate, for it was the necessity of the +Sunday edition not only to have material in abundance, but, with all +possible regard for quality, to have it cheap; and the syndicate, when +it came into being, imagined a means of meeting this want. It sold the +same material to as many newspapers as it could for simultaneous +publication in their Sunday editions, which had each its special field, +and did not compete with another. + +I do not think the syndicate began with serials, and I do not think it +is likely to end with them. It has rather worked the vein of +interviews, personal adventure, popular science, useful information, +travel, sketches, and short stories. Still it has placed a good many +serial stories, and at pretty good prices, but not generally so good as +those the magazines pay the better sort of writers; for the worse sort +it has offered perhaps the best market they have had out of book form. +By the newspapers, the syndicate conceives, and perhaps justly, that +something sensational is desired; yet all the serial stories it has +placed cannot be called sensational. It has enlarged the field of +belles-lettres, certainly, but not permanently, I think, in the case of +the artistic novel. As yet the women, who form the largest, if not the +only cultivated class among us, have not taken very cordially to the +Sunday edition, except for its social gossip; they certainly do not go +to it for their fiction, and its fiction is mainly of the inferior sort +with which boys and men beguile their leisure. + +In fact the newspapers prefer to remain newspapers, at least in quality +if not in form; and I heard a story the other day from a charming young +writer of his experience with them, which may have some instruction for +the magazines that less wisely aim to become newspapers. He said that +when he carried his work to the editors they struck out what he thought +the best of it, because it was what they called magaziny; not +contemptuously, but with an instinctive sense of what their readers +wanted of them, and did not want. It was apparent that they did not +want literary art, or even the appearance of it; they wanted their +effects primary; they wanted their emotions raw, or at least saignantes +from the joint of fact, and not prepared by the fancy or the taste. + +The syndicate has no doubt advanced the prosperity of the short story +by increasing the demand for it. We Americans had already done pretty +well in that kind, for there was already a great demand for the short +story in the magazines; but the syndicate of Sunday editions +particularly cultivated it, and made it very paying. I have heard that +some short-story writers made the syndicate pay more for their wares +than they got from the magazines for them, considering that the +magazine publication could enhance their reputation, but the Sunday +edition could do nothing for it. They may have been right or not in +this; I will not undertake to say, but that was the business view of +the case with them. + +In spite of the fact that short stories when gathered into a volume and +republished would not sell so well as a novel, the short story +flourished, and its success in the periodicals began to be felt in the +book trade: volumes of short stories suddenly began to sell. But now +again, it is said the bottom has dropped out, and they do not sell, and +their adversity in book form threatens to affect them in the magazines; +an editor told me the other day that he had more short stories than he +knew what to do with; and I was not offering him a short story of my +own, either. + +A permanent decline in the market for a kind of literary art which we +have excelled in, or if we have not excelled, have done some of our +most exquisite work, would be a pity. + +There are other sorts of light literature once greatly in demand, but +now apparently no longer desired by editors, who ought to know what +their readers desire. Among these is the travel sketch, to me a very +agreeable kind, and really to be regretted in its decline. There are +some reasons for its decline besides a change of taste in readers, and +a possible surfeit. Travel itself has become so universal that +everybody, in a manner, has been everywhere, and the foreign scene has +no longer the charm of strangeness. We do not think the Old World +either so romantic or so ridiculous as we used; and perhaps from an +instinctive perception of this altered mood writers no longer appeal to +our sentiment or our humor with sketches of outlandish people and +places. Of course this can hold true only in a general way; the thing +is still done, but not nearly so much done as formerly. When one +thinks of the long line of American writers who have greatly pleased in +this sort, and who even got their first fame in it, one must grieve to +see it obsolescent. Irving, Curtis, Bayard Taylor, Herman Melville, +Ross Browne, Ik Marvell, Longfellow, Lowell, Story, Mr. James, Mr. +Aldrich, Colonel Hay, Mr. Warner, Mrs. Hunt, Mr. C.W. Stoddard, Mark +Twain, and many others whose names will not come to me at the moment, +have in their several ways richly contributed to our pleasure in it; +but I cannot now fancy a young author finding favor with an editor in a +sketch of travel, or a study of foreign manners and customs; his work +would have to be of the most signal importance and brilliancy to +overcome the editor's feeling that the thing had been done already; and +I believe that a publisher if offered a book of such things, would look +at it askance, and plead the well-known quiet of the trade. Still, I +may be mistaken. + +I am rather more confident about the decline of another literary +species, namely, the light essay. We have essays enough and to spare, +of certain soberer and severer sorts, such as grapple with problems and +deal with conditions; but the kind I mean, the slightly humorous, +gentle, refined, and humane kind, seems no longer to abound as it once +did. I do not know whether the editor discourages them, knowing his +readers' frame, or whether they do not offer themselves, but I seldom +find them in the magazines. I certainly do not believe that if anyone +were now to write essays such as Mr. Warner's "Backlog Studies," an +editor would refuse them; and perhaps nobody really writes them. +Nobody seems to write the sort that Colonel Higginson formerly +contributed to the periodicals, or such as Emerson wrote. Without a +great name behind it, I am afraid that a volume of essays would find +few buyers, even after the essays had made a public in the magazines. +There are, of course, instances to the contrary, but they are not so +many or so striking as to make me think that the essay could not be +offered as a good opening for business talent. + +I suspect that good poetry by well-known hands was never better paid in +the magazines than it is now. I must say, too, that I think the +quality of the minor poetry of our day is better than that of +twenty-five or thirty years ago. I could name half a score of young +poets whose work from time to time gives me great pleasure, by the +reality of its feeling, and the delicate perfection of its art, but I +will not name them, for fear of passing over half a score of others +equally meritorious. We have certainly no reason to be discouraged, +whatever reason the poets themselves have to be so, and I do not think +that even in the short story our younger writers are doing better work +than they are doing in the slighter forms of verse. Yet the notion of +inviting business talent into this field would be as preposterous as +that of asking it to devote itself to the essay. What book of verse by +a recent poet, if we except some such peculiarly gifted poet as Mr. +Whitcomb Riley, has paid its expenses, not to speak of any profit to +the author? Of course, it would be rather more offensive and +ridiculous that it should do so than that any other form of literary +art should do so; and yet there is no more provision in our economic +system for the support of the poet apart from his poems, than there is +for the support of the novelist apart from his novel. One could not +make any more money by writing poetry than by writing history, but it +is a curious fact that while the historians have usually been rich men, +and able to afford the luxury of writing history, the poets have +usually been poor men, with no pecuniary justification in their +devotion to a calling which is so seldom an election. + +To be sure, it can be said for them that it costs far less to set up +poet than to set up historian. There is no outlay for copying +documents, or visiting libraries, or buying books. In fact, except as +historian, the man of letters, in whatever walk, has not only none of +the expenses of other men of business, but none of the expenses of +other artists. He has no such outlay to make for materials, or models, +or studio rent as the painter or the sculptor has, and his income, such +as it is, is immediate. If he strikes the fancy of the editor with the +first thing he offers, as he very well may, it is as well with him as +with other men after long years of apprenticeship. Although he will +always be the better for an apprenticeship, and the longer +apprenticeship the better, he may practically need none at all. Such +are the strange conditions of his acceptance with the public, that he +may please better without it than with it. An author's first book is +too often not only his luckiest, but really his best; it has a +brightness that dies out under the school he puts himself to, but a +painter or sculptor is only the gainer by all the school he can give +himself. + + + +XI. + +In view of this fact it become again very hard to establish the +author's status in the business world, and at moments I have grave +question whether he belongs there at all, except as a novelist. There +is, of course, no outlay for him in this sort, any more than in any +other sort of literature, but it at least supposes and exacts some +measure of preparation. A young writer may produce a brilliant and +very perfect romance, just as he may produce a brilliant and very +perfect poem, but in the field of realistic fiction, or in what we used +to call the novel of manners, a writer can only produce an inferior +book at the outset. For this work he needs experience and observation, +not so much of others as of himself, for ultimately his characters will +all come out of himself, and he will need to know motive and character +with such thoroughness and accuracy as he can acquire only through his +own heart. A man remains in a measure strange to himself as long as he +lives, and the very sources of novelty in his work will be within +himself; he can continue to give it freshness in no other way than by +knowing himself better and better. But a young writer and an untrained +writer has not yet begun to be acquainted even with the lives of other +men. The world around him remains a secret as well as the world within +him, and both unfold themselves simultaneously to that experience of +joy and sorrow that can come only with the lapse of time. Until he is +well on toward forty, he will hardly have assimilated the materials of +a great novel, although he may have accumulated them. The novelist, +then, is a man of letters who is like a man of business in the +necessity of preparation for his calling, though he does not pay +store-rent, and may carry all his affairs under his hat, as the phrase +is. He alone among men of letters may look forward to that sort of +continuous prosperity which follows from capacity and diligence in +other vocations; for story-telling is now a fairly recognized trade, +and the story-teller has a money-standing in the economic world. It is +not a very high standing, I think, and I have expressed the belief that +it does not bring him the respect felt for men in other lines of +business. Still our people cannot deny some consideration to a man who +gets a hundred dollars a thousand words. That is a fact appreciable to +business, and the man of letters in the line of fiction may reasonably +feel that his place in our civilization, though he may owe it to the +women who form the great mass of his readers, has something of the +character of a vested interest in the eyes of men. There is, indeed, +as yet no conspiracy law which will avenge the attempt to injure him in +his business. A critic, or a dark conjuration of critics, may damage +him at will and to the extent of their power, and he has no recourse +but to write better books, or worse. The law will do nothing for him, +and a boycott of his books might be preached with immunity by any class +of men not liking his opinions on the question of industrial slavery or +antipaedobaptism. Still the market for his wares is steadier than the +market for any other kind of literary wares, and the prices are better. +The historian, who is a kind of inferior realist, has something like +the same steadiness in the market, but the prices he can command are +much lower, and the two branches of the novelist's trade are not to be +compared in a business way. As for the essayist, the poet, the +traveller, the popular scientist, they are nowhere in the competition +for the favor of readers. The reviewer, indeed, has a pretty steady +call for his work, but I fancy the reviewers who get a hundred dollars +a thousand words could all stand upon the point of a needle without +crowding one another; I should rather like to see them doing it. +Another gratifying fact of the situation is that the best writers of +fiction who are most in demand with the magazines, probably get nearly +as much money for their work as the inferior novelists who outsell them +by tens of thousands, and who make their appeal to the innumerable +multitude of the less educated and less cultivated buyers of fiction in +book-form. I think they earn their money, but if I did not think all +of the higher class of novelists earned so much money as they get, I +should not be so invidious as to single out for reproach those who did +not. + +The difficulty about payment, as I have hinted, is that literature has +no objective value really, but only a subjective value, if I may so +express it. A poem, an essay, a novel, even a paper on political +economy, may be worth gold untold to one reader, and worth nothing +whatever to another. It may be precious to one mood of the reader, and +worthless to another mood of the same reader. How, then, is it to be +priced, and how is it to be fairly marketed? All people must be fed, +and all people must be clothed, and all people must be housed; and so +meat, raiment, and shelter are things of positive and obvious +necessity, which may fitly have a market price put upon them. But +there is no such positive and obvious necessity, I am sorry to say, for +fiction, or not for the higher sort of fiction. The sort of fiction +which corresponds to the circus and the variety theatre in the +show-business seems essential to the spiritual health of the masses, +but the most cultivated of the classes can get on, from time to time, +without an artistic novel. This is a great pity, and I should be very +willing that readers might feel something like the pangs of hunger and +cold, when deprived of their finer fiction; but apparently they never +do. Their dumb and passive need is apt only to manifest itself +negatively, or in the form of weariness of this author or that. The +publisher of books can ascertain the fact through the declining sales +of a writer; but the editor of a magazine, who is the best customer of +the best writers, must feel the market with a much more delicate touch. +Sometimes it may be years before he can satisfy himself that his +readers are sick of Smith, and are pining for Jones; even then he +cannot know how long their mood will last, and he is by no means safe +in cutting down Smith's price and putting up Jones's. With the best +will in the world to pay justly, he cannot. Smith, who has been boring +his readers to death for a year, may write to-morrow a thing that will +please them so much that he will at once be a prime favorite again; and +Jones, whom they have been asking for, may do something so +uncharacteristic and alien that it will be a flat failure in the +magazine. The only thing that gives either writer positive value is +his acceptance with the reader; but the acceptance is from month to +month wholly uncertain. Authors are largely matters of fashion, like +this style of bonnet, or that shape of gown. Last spring the dresses +were all made with lace berthas, and Smith was read; this year the +butterfly capes are worn, and Jones is the favorite author. Who shall +forecast the fall and winter modes? + + + +XII. + +In this inquiry it is always the author rather than the publisher, +always the contributor rather than the editor, whom I am concerned for. +I study the difficulties of the publisher and editor only because they +involve the author and the contributor; if they did not, I will not say +with how hard a heart I should turn from them; my only pang now in +scrutinizing the business conditions of literature is for the makers of +literature, not the purveyors of it. + +After all, and in spite of my vaunting title, is the man of letters +ever a business man? I suppose that, strictly speaking, he never is, +except in those rare instances where, through need or choice, he is the +publisher as well as the author of his books. Then he puts something +on the market and tries to sell it there, and is a man of business. +But otherwise he is an artist merely, and is allied to the great mass +of wage-workers who are paid for the labor they have put into the thing +done or the thing made; who live by doing or making a thing, and not by +marketing a thing after some other man has done it or made it. The +quality of the thing has nothing to do with the economic nature of the +case; the author is, in the last analysis, merely a workingman, and is +under the rule that governs the workingman's life. If he is sick or +sad, and cannot work, if he is lazy or tipsy and will not, then he +earns nothing. He cannot delegate his business to a clerk or a +manager; it will not go on while he is sleeping. The wage he can +command depends strictly upon his skill and diligence. + +I myself am neither sorry nor ashamed for this; I am glad and proud to +be of those who eat their bread in the sweat of their own brows, and +not the sweat of other men's brows; I think my bread is the sweeter for +it. In the meantime I have no blame for business men; they are no more +of the condition of things than we workingmen are; they did no more to +cause it or create it; but I would rather be in my place than in +theirs, and I wish that I could make all my fellow-artists realize that +economically they are the same as mechanics, farmers, day-laborers. It +ought to be our glory that we produce something, that we bring into the +world something that was not choately there before; that at least we +fashion or shape something anew; and we ought to feel the tie that +binds us to all the toilers of the shop and field, not as a galling +chain, but as a mystic bond also uniting us to Him who works hitherto +and evermore. + +I know very well that to the vast multitude of our fellow-workingmen we +artists are the shadows of names, or not even the shadows. I like to +look the facts in the face, for though their lineaments are often +terrible, yet there is light nowhere else; and I will not pretend, in +this light, that the masses care any more for us than we care for the +masses, or so much. Nevertheless, and most distinctly, we are not of +the classes. Except in our work, they have no use for us; if now and +then they fancy qualifying their material splendor or their spiritual +dulness with some artistic presence, the attempt is always a failure +that bruises and abashes. In so far as the artist is a man of the +world, he is the less an artist, and if he fashions himself upon +fashion, he deforms his art. We all know that ghastly type; it is more +absurd even than the figure which is really of the world, which was +born and bred in it, and conceives of nothing outside of it, or above +it. In the social world, as well as in the business world, the artist +is anomalous, in the actual conditions, and he is perhaps a little +ridiculous. + +Yet he has to be somewhere, poor fellow, and I think that he will do +well to regard himself as in a transition state. He is really of the +masses, but they do not know it, and what is worse, they do not know +him; as yet the common people do not hear him gladly or hear him at +all. He is apparently of the classes; they know him, and they listen +to him; he often amuses them very much; but he is not quite at ease +among them; whether they know it or not, he knows that he is not of +their kind. Perhaps he will never be at home anywhere in the world as +long as there are masses whom he ought to consort with, and classes +whom he cannot consort with. The prospect is not brilliant for any +artist now living, but perhaps the artist of the future will see in the +flesh the accomplishment of that human equality of which the instinct +has been divinely planted in the human soul. + + + + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Man of Letters as a Man of Business, by +William Dean Howells + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MAN OF LETTERS, MAN OF BUSINESS *** + +***** This file should be named 724.txt or 724.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/7/2/724/ + +Produced by Anthony J. Adam. 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I do not think any man ought to live by an art. A man's +art should be his privilege, when he has proven his fitness to +exercise it, and has otherwise earned his daily bread; and its +results should be free to all. There is an instinctive sense of +this, even in the midst of the grotesque confusion of our +economic being; people feel that there is something profane, +something impious, in taking money for a picture, or a poem, or a +statue. Most of all, the artist himself feels this. He puts on +a bold front with the world, to be sure, and brazens it out as +Business; but he knows very well that there is something false +and vulgar in it; and that the work which cannot be truly priced +in money cannot be truly paid in money. He can, of course, say +that the priest takes money for reading the marriage service, for +christening the new-born babe, and for saying the last office for +the dead; that the physician sells healing; that justice itself +is paid for; and that he is merely a party to the thing that is +and must be. He can say that, as the thing is, unless he sells +his art he cannot live, that society will leave him to starve if +he does not hit its fancy in a picture, or a poem, or a statue; +and all this is bitterly true. He is, and he must be, only too +glad if there is a market for his wares. Without a market for +his wares he must perish, or turn to making something that will +sell better than pictures, or poems, or statues. All the same, +the sin and the shame remain, and the averted eye sees them +still, with its inward vision. Many will make believe otherwise, +but I would rather not make believe otherwise; and in trying to +write of Literature as Business I am tempted to begin by saying +that Business is the opprobrium of Literature. + + +II. + +Literature is at once the most intimate and the most articulate +of the arts. It cannot impart its effect through the senses or +the nerves as the other arts can; it is beautiful only through +the intelligence; it is the mind speaking to the mind; until it +has been put into absolute terms, of an invariable significance, +it does not exist at all. It cannot awaken this emotion in one, +and that in another; if it fails to express precisely the meaning +of the author, if it does not say HIM, it says nothing, and is +nothing. So that when a poet has put his heart, much or little, +into a poem, and sold it to a magazine, the scandal is greater +than when a painter has sold a picture to a patron, or a sculptor +has modelled a statue to order. These are artists less +articulate and less intimate than the poet; they are more +exterior to their work; they are less personally in it; they part +with less of themselves in the dicker. It does not change the +nature of the case to say that Tennyson and Longfellow and +Emerson sold the poems in which they couched the most mystical +messages their genius was charged to bear mankind. They +submitted to the conditions which none can escape; but that does +not justify the conditions, which are none the less the +conditions of hucksters because they are imposed upon poets. If +it will serve to make my meaning a little clearer we will suppose +that a poet has been crossed in love, or has suffered some real +sorrow, like the loss of a wife or child. He pours out his +broken heart in verse that shall bring tears of sacred sympathy +from his readers, and an editor pays him a hundred dollars for +the right of bringing his verse to their notice. It is perfectly +true that the poem was not written for these dollars, but it is +perfectly true that it was sold for them. The poet must use his +emotions to pay his provision bills; he has no other means; +society does not propose to pay his bills for him. Yet, and at +the end of the ends, the unsophisticated witness finds the +transaction ridiculous, finds it repulsive, finds it shabby. +Somehow he knows that if our huckstering civilization did not at +every moment violate the eternal fitness of things, the poet's +song would have been given to the world, and the poet would have +been cared for by the whole human brotherhood, as any man should +be who does the duty that every man owes it. + +The instinctive sense of the dishonor which money-purchase does +to art is so strong that sometimes a man of letters who can pay +his way otherwise refuses pay for his work, as Lord Byron did, +for a while, from a noble pride, and as Count Tolstoy has tried +to do, from a noble conscience. But Byron's publisher profited +by a generosity which did not reach his readers; and the Countess +Tolstoy collects the copyright which her husband foregoes; so +that these two eminent instances of protest against business in +literature may be said not to have shaken its money basis. I +know of no others; but there may be many that I am culpably +ignorant of. Still, I doubt if there are enough to affect the +fact that Literature is Business as well as Art, and almost as +soon. At present business is the only human solidarity; we are +all bound together with that chain, whatever interests and tastes +and principles separate us, and I feel quite sure that in writing +of the Man of Letters as a Man of Business, I shall attract far +more readers than I should in writing of him as an Artist. +Besides, as an artist he has been done a great deal already; and +a commercial state like ours has really more concern in him as a +business man. Perhaps it may sometimes be different; I do not +believe it will till the conditions are different, and that is a +long way off. + + +III. + +In the meantime I confidently appeal to the reader's imagination +with the fact that there are several men of letters among us who +are such good men of business that they can command a hundred +dollars a thousand words for all they write; and at least one +woman of letters who gets a hundred and fifty dollars a thousand +words. It is easy to write a thousand words a day, and supposing +one of these authors to work steadily, it can be seen that his +net earnings during the year would come to some such sum as the +President of the United States gets for doing far less work of a +much more perishable sort. If the man of letters were wholly a +business man this is what would happen; he would make his forty +or fifty thousand dollars a year, and be able to consort with +bank presidents, and railroad officials, and rich tradesmen, and +other flowers of our plutocracy on equal terms. But, +unfortunately, from a business point of view, he is also an +artist, and the very qualities that enable him to delight the +public disable him from delighting it uninterruptedly. "No rose +blooms right along," as the English boys at Oxford made an +American collegian say in a theme which they imagined for him in +his national parlance; and the man of letters, as an artist, is +apt to have times and seasons when he cannot blossom. Very often +it shall happen that his mind will lie fallow between novels or +stories for weeks and months at a stretch; when the suggestions +of the friendly editor shall fail to fruit in the essays or +articles desired; when the muse shall altogether withhold +herself, or shall respond only in a feeble dribble of verse which +he might sell indeed, but which it would not be good business for +him to put on the market. But supposing him to be a very +diligent and continuous worker, and so happy as to have fallen on +a theme that delights him and bears him along, he may please +himself so ill with the result of his labors that he can do +nothing less in artistic conscience than destroy a day's work, a +week's work, a month's work. I know one man of letters who wrote +to-day, and tore up tomorrow for nearly a whole summer. But even +if part of the mistaken work may be saved, because it is good +work out of place, and not intrinsically bad, the task of +reconstruction wants almost as much time as the production; and +then, when all seems done, comes the anxious and endless process +of revision. These drawbacks reduce the earning capacity of what +I may call the high-cost man of letters in such measure that an +author whose name is known everywhere, and whose reputation is +commensurate with the boundaries of his country, if it does not +transcend them, shall have the income, say, of a rising young +physician, known to a few people in a subordinate city. + +In view of this fact, so humiliating to an author in the presence +of a nation of business men like ours, I do not know that I can +establish the man of letters in the popular esteem as very much +of a business man after all. He must still have a low rank among +practical people; and he will be regarded by the great mass of +Americans as perhaps a little off, a little funny, a little soft! + +Perhaps not; and yet I would rather not have a consensus of +public opinion on the question; I think I am more comfortable +without it. + + +IV. + +There is this to be said in defence of men of letters on the +business side, that literature is still an infant industry with +us, and so far from having been protected by our laws it was +exposed for ninety years after the foundation of the republic to +the vicious competition of stolen goods. It is true that we now +have the international copyright law at last, and we can at least +begin to forget our shame; but literary property has only +forty-two years of life under our unjust statutes, and if it is +attacked by robbers the law does not seek out the aggressors and +punish them, as it would seek out and punish the trespassers upon +any other kind of property; but it leaves the aggrieved owner to +bring suit against them, and recover damages, if he can. This +may be right enough in itself; but I think, then, that all +property should be defended by civil suit, and should become +public after forty-two years of private tenure. The Constitution +guarantees us all equality before the law, but the law-makers +seem to have forgotten this in the case of our infant literary +industry. So long as this remains the case, we cannot expect the +best business talent to go into literature, and the man of +letters must keep his present low grade among business men. + +As I have hinted, it is but a little while that he has had any +standing at all. I may say that it is only since the was that +literature has become a business with us. Before that time we +had authors, and very good ones; it is astonishing how good they +were; but I do not remember any of them who lived by literature +except Edgar A. Poe, perhaps; and we all know how he lived; it +was largely upon loans. They were either men of fortune, or they +were editors, or professors, with salaries or incomes apart from +the small gains of their pens; or they were helped out with +public offices; one need not go over their names, or classify +them. Some of them must have made money by their books, but I +question whether any one could have lived, even very simply, upon +the money his books brought him. No one could do that now, +unless he wrote a book that we could not recognize as a work of +literature. But many authors live now, and live prettily enough, +by the sale of the serial publication of their writings to the +magazines. They do not live so nicely as successful +tradespeople, of course, or as men in the other professions when +they begin to make themselves names; the high state of brokers, +bankers, railroad operators, and the like is, in the nature of +the case, beyond their fondest dreams of pecuniary affluence and +social splendor. Perhaps they do not want the chief seats in the +synagogue; it is certain they do not get them. Still, they do +very fairly well, as things go; and several have incomes that +would seem riches to the great mass of worthy Americans who work +with their hands for a living--when they can get the work. Their +incomes are mainly from serial publication in the different +magazines; and the prosperity of the magazines has given a whole +class existence which, as a class, was wholly unknown among us +before the war. It is not only the famous or fully recognized +authors who live in this way, but the much larger number of +clever people who are as yet known chiefly to the editors, and +who may never make themselves a public, but who do well a kind of +acceptable work. These are the sort who do not get reprinted +from the periodicals; but the better recognized authors do get +reprinted, and then their serial work in its completed form +appeals to the readers who say they do not read serials. The +multitude of these is not great, and if an author rested his +hopes upon their favor he would be a much more embittered man +than he now generally is. But he understands perfectly well that +his reward is in the serial and not in the book; the return from +that he may count as so much money found in the road--a few +hundreds, a very few thousands, at the most. + + +V. + +I doubt, indeed, whether the earnings of literary men are +absolutely as great as they were earlier in the century, in any +of the English-speaking countries; relatively they are nothing +like as great. Scott had forty thousand dollars for "Woodstock," +which was not a very large novel, and was by no means one of his +best; and forty thousand dollars had at least the purchasing +powers of sixty thousand then. Moore had three thousand guineas +for "Lalla Rookh," but what publisher would be rash enough to pay +twenty-five thousand dollars for the masterpiece of a minor poet +now? The book, except in very rare instances, makes nothing like +the return to the author that the magazine makes, and there are +but two or three authors who find their account in that form of +publication. Those who do, those who sell the most widely in +book form, are often not at all desired by editors; with +difficulty they get a serial accepted by any principal magazine. +On the other hand, there are authors whose books, compared with +those of the popular favorites, do not sell, and yet they are +eagerly sought for by editors; they are paid the highest prices, +and nothing that they offer is refused. These are literary +artists; and it ought to be plain from what I am saying that in +belles-lettres, at least, most of the best literature now first +sees the light in the magazines, and most of the second best +appears first in book form. The old-fashioned people who flatter +themselves upon their distinction in not reading magazine +fiction, or magazine poetry, make a great mistake, and simply +class themselves with the public whose taste is so crude that +they cannot enjoy the best. Of course this is true mainly, if +not merely, of belles-lettres; history, science, politics, +metaphysics, in spite of the many excellent articles and papers +in these sorts upon what used to be called various emergent +occasions, are still to be found at their best in books. The +most monumental example of literature, at once light and good, +which has first reached the public in book form is in the +different publications of Mark Twain; but Mr. Clemens has of late +turned to the magazines too, and now takes their mint mark before +he passes into general circulation. All this may change again, +but at present the magazines--we have no longer any reviews--form +the most direct approach to that part of our reading public which +likes the highest things in literary art. Their readers, if we +may judge from the quality of the literature they get, are more +refined than the book readers in our community; and their taste +has no doubt been cultivated by that of the disciplined and +experienced editors. So far as I have known these they are men +of aesthetic conscience, and of generous sympathy. They have +their preferences in the different kinds, and they have their +theory of what kind will be most acceptable to their readers; but +they exercise their selective function with the wish to give them +the best things they can. I do not know one of them--and it has +been my good fortune to know them nearly all--who would print a +wholly inferior thing for the sake of an inferior class of +readers, though they may sometimes decline a good thing because +for one reason or another they believe it would not be liked. +Still, even this does not often happen; they would rather chance +the good thing they doubted of than underrate their readers' +judgment. + +New writers often suppose themselves rejected because they are +unknown; but the unknown man of force and quality is of all +others the man whom the editor welcomes to his page. He knows +that there is always a danger that the reigning favorite may fail +to please; that at any rate, in the order of things, he is +passing away, and that if the magazine is not to pass away with +the men who have made it, there must be a constant infusion of +fresh life. Few editors are such fools and knaves as to let +their personal feeling disable their judgment; and the young +writer who gets his manuscript back may be sure that it is not +because the editor dislikes him, for some reason or no reason. +Above all, he can trust me that his contribution has not been +passed unread, or has failed of the examination it merits. +Editors are not men of infallible judgment, but they do use their +judgment, and it is usually good. + +The young author who wins recognition in a first-class magazine +has achieved a double success, first, with the editor, and then +with the best reading public. Many factitious and fallacious +literary reputations have been made through books, but very few +have been made through the magazines, which are not only the best +means of living, but of outliving, with the author; they are both +bread and fame to him. If I insist a little upon the high office +which this modern form of publication fulfils in the literary +world, it is because I am impatient of the antiquated and +ignorant prejudice which classes the magazines as ephemeral. +They are ephemeral in form, but in substance they are not +ephemeral, and what is best in them awaits its resurrection in +the book, which, as the first form, is so often a lasting death. +An interesting proof of the value of the magazine to literature +is the fact that a good novel will have wider acceptance as a +book from having been a magazine serial. + +I am not sure that the decay of the book is not owing somewhat to +the decay of reviewing. This does not now seem to me so +thorough, or even so general as it was some years ago, and I +think the book oftener comes to the buyer without the warrant of +a critical estimate than it once did. That is never the case +with material printed in a magazine of high class. A +well-trained critic, who is bound by the strongest ties of honor +and interest not to betray either his employer or his public, has +judged it, and his practical approval is a warrant of quality. + + +VI. + +Under the regime of the great literary periodicals the prosperity +of literary men would be much greater than it actually is, if the +magazines were altogether literary. But they are not, and this +is one reason why literature is still the hungriest of the +professions. Two-thirds of the magazines are made up of material +which, however excellent, is without literary quality. Very +probably this is because even the highest class of readers, who +are the magazine readers, have small love of pure literature, +which seems to have been growing less and less in all classes. I +say seems, because there are really no means of ascertaining the +fact, and it may be that the editors are mistaken in making their +periodicals two-thirds popular science, politics, economics, and +the timely topics which I will call contemporanies; I have +sometimes thought they were. But however that may be, their +efforts in this direction have narrowed the field of literary +industry, and darkened the hope of literary prosperity kindled by +the unexampled prosperity of their periodicals. They pay very +well indeed for literature; they pay from five or six dollars a +thousand words for the work of the unknown writer, to a hundred +and fifty dollars a thousand words for that of the most famous, +or the most popular, if there is a difference between fame and +popularity; but they do not, altogether, want enough literature +to justify the best business talent in devoting itself to belles- +lettres, to fiction, or poetry, or humorous sketches of travel, +or light essays; business talent can do far better in drygoods, +groceries, drugs, stocks, real estate, railroads, and the like. +I do not think there is any danger of a ruinous competition from +it in the field which, though narrow, seems so rich to us poor +fellows, whose business talent is small, at the best. + +The most of the material contributed to the magazines is the +subject of agreement between the editor and the author; it is +either suggested by the author, or is the fruit of some +suggestion from the editor; in any case the price is stipulated +beforehand, and it is no longer the custom for a well-known +contributor to leave the payment to the justice or the generosity +of the publisher; that was never a fair thing to either, nor ever +a wise thing. Usually, the price is so much a thousand words, a +truly odious method of computing literary value, and one well +calculated to make the author feel keenly the hatefulness of +selling his art at all. It is as if a painter sold his picture +at so much a square inch, or a sculptor bargained away a group of +statuary by the pound. But it is a custom that you cannot always +successfully quarrel with, and most writers gladly consent to it, +if only the price a thousand words is large enough. The sale to +the editor means the sale of the serial rights only, but if the +publisher of the magazine is also a publisher of books, the +republication of the material is supposed to be his right, unless +there is an understanding to the contrary; the terms for this are +another affair. Formerly something more could be got for the +author by the simultaneous appearance of his work in an English +magazine, but now the great American magazines, which pay far +higher prices than any others in the world, have a circulation in +England so much exceeding that of any English periodical, that +the simultaneous publication can no longer be arranged for from +this side, though I believe it is still done here from the other +side. + + +VII. + +I think this is the case of authorship as it now stands with +regard to the magazines. I am not sure that the case is in every +way improved for young authors. The magazines all maintain a +staff for the careful examination of manuscripts, but as most of +the material they print has been engaged, the number of volunteer +contributions that they can use is very small; one of the +greatest of them, I know, does not use fifty in the course of a +year. The new writer, then, must be very good to be accepted, +and when accepted he may wait long before he is printed. The +pressure is so great in these avenues to the public favor that +one, two, three years, are no uncommon periods of delay. If the +writer has not the patience for this, or has a soul above cooling +his heels in the courts of fame, or must do his best to earn +something at once, the book is his immediate hope. How slight a +hope the book is I have tried to hint already, but if a book is +vulgar enough in sentiment, and crude enough in taste, and flashy +enough in incident, or, better or worse still, if it is a bit hot +in the mouth, and promises impropriety if not indecency, there is +a very fair chance of its success; I do not mean success with a +self-respecting publisher, but with the public, which does not +personally put its name to it, and is not openly smirched by it. +I will not talk of that kind of book, however, but of the book +which the young author has written out of an unspoiled heart and +an untainted mind, such as most young men and women write; and I +will suppose that it has found a publisher. It is human nature, +as competition has deformed human nature, for the publisher to +wish the author to take all the risks, and he possibly proposes +that the author shall publish it at his own expense, and let him +have a percentage of the retail price for managing it. If not +that, he proposes that the author shall pay for the stereotype +plates, and take fifteen per cent. of the price of the book; or +if this will not go, if the author cannot, rather than will not +do it (he is commonly only too glad to do anything he can), then +the publisher offers him ten per cent. of the retail price after +the first thousand copies have been sold. But if he fully +believes in the book, he will give ten per cent. from the first +copy sold, and pay all the costs of publication himself. The +book is to be retailed for a dollar and a half, and the publisher +is very well pleased with a new book that sells fifteen hundred +copies. Whether the author has as much reason to be so is a +question, but if the book does not sell more he has only himself +to blame, and had better pocket in silence the two hundred and +twenty-five dollars he gets for it, and bless his publisher, and +try to find work somewhere at five dollars a week. The publisher +has not made any more, if quite as much as the author, and until +a book has sold two thousand copies the division is fair enough. +After that, the heavier expenses of manufacturing have been +defrayed, and the book goes on advertising itself; there is +merely the cost of paper, printing, binding, and marketing to be +met, and the arrangement becomes fairer and fairer for the +publisher. The author has no right to complain of this, in the +case of his first book, which he is only too grateful to get +accepted at all. If it succeeds, he has himself to blame for +making the same arrangement for his second or third; it is his +fault, or else it is his necessity, which is practically the same +thing. It will be business for the publisher to take advantage +of his necessity quite the same as if it were his fault; but I do +not say that he will always do so; I believe he will very often +not do so. + +At one time there seemed a probability of the enlargement of the +author's gains by subscription publication, and one very +well-known American author prospered fabulously in that way. The +percentage offered by the subscription houses was only about half +as much as that paid by the trade, but the sales were so much +greater that the author could very well afford to take it. Where +the book-dealer sold ten, the book-agent sold a hundred; or at +least he did so in the case of Mark Twain's books; and we all +thought it reasonable he could do so with ours. Such of us as +made experiment of him, however, found the facts illogical. No +book of literary quality was made to go by subscription except +Mr. Clemens's books, and I think these went because the +subscription public never knew what good literature they were. +This sort of readers, or buyers, were so used to getting +something worthless for their money, that they would not spend it +for artistic fiction, or indeed for any fiction all, except Mr. +Clemens's, which they probably supposed bad. Some good books of +travel had a measurable success through the book agents, but not +at all the success that had been hoped for; and I believe now the +subscription trade again publishes only compilations, or such +works as owe more to the skill of the editor than the art of the +writer. Mr. Clemens himself no longer offers his books to the +public in that way. + +It is not common, I think, in this country, to publish on the +half-profits system, but it is very common in England, where, +owing probably to the moisture in the air, which lends a fairy +outline to every prospect, it seems to be peculiarly alluring. +One of my own early books was published there on these terms, +which I accepted with the insensate joy of the young author in +getting any terms from a publisher. The book sold, sold every +copy of the small first edition, and in due time the publisher's +statement came. I did not think my half of the profits was very +great, but it seemed a fair division after every imaginable cost +had been charged up against my poor book, and that frail venture +had been made to pay the expenses of composition, corrections, +paper, printing, binding, advertising, and editorial copies. The +wonder ought to have been that there was anything at all coming +to me, but I was young and greedy then, and I really thought +there ought to have been more. I was disappointed, but I made +the best of it, of course, and took the account to the junior +partner of the house which employed me, and said that I should +like to draw on him for the sum due me from the London +publishers. He said, Certainly; but after a glance at the +account he smiled and said he supposed I knew how much the sum +was? I answered, Yes; it was eleven pounds nine shillings, was +not it? But I owned at the same time that I never was good at +figures, and that I found English money peculiarly baffling. He +laughed now, and said, It was eleven shillings and nine pence. +In fact, after all those charges for composition, corrections, +paper, printing, binding, advertising, and editorial copies, +there was a most ingenious and wholly surprising charge of ten +per cent. commission on sales, which reduced my half from pounds +to shillings, and handsomely increased the publisher's half in +proportion. I do not now dispute the justice of the charge. It +was not the fault of the half-profits system, it was the fault of +the glad young author who did not distinctly inform himself of +its mysterious nature in agreeing to it, and had only to reproach +himself if he was finally disappointed. + +But there is always something disappointing in the accounts of +publishers, which I fancy is because authors are strangely +constituted, rather than because publishers are so. I will +confess that I have such inordinate expectations of the sale of +my books which I hope I think modestly of, that the sales +reported to me never seem great enough. The copyright due me, no +matter how handsome it is, appears deplorably mean, and I feel +impoverished for several days after I get it. But then, I ought +to add that my balance in the bank is always much less than I +have supposed it to be, and my own checks, when they come back to +me, have the air of having been in a conspiracy to betray me. + +No, we literary men must learn, no matter how we boast ourselves +in business, that the distress we feel from our publisher's +accounts is simply idiopathic; and I for one wish to bear my +witness to the constant good faith and uprightness of publishers. + +It is supposed that because they have the affair altogether in +their hands they are apt to take advantage in it; but this does +not follow, and as a matter of fact they have the affair no more +in their own hands than any other business man you have an open +account with. There is nothing to prevent you from looking at +their books, except your own innermost belief and fear that their +books are correct, and that your literature has brought you so +little because it has sold so little. + +The author is not to blame for his superficial delusion to the +contrary, especially if he has written a book that has set +everyone talking, because it is of a vital interest. It may be +of a vital interest, without being at all the kind of book people +want to buy; it may be the kind of book that they are content to +know at second hand; there are such fatal books; but hearing so +much, and reading so much about it, the author cannot help hoping +that it has sold much more than the publisher says. The +publisher is undoubtedly honest, however, and the author had +better put away the comforting question of his integrity. + +The English writers seem largely to suspect their publishers (I +cannot say with how much reason, for my English publisher is +Scotch, and I should be glad to be so true a man as I think him); +but I believe that American authors, when not flown with +flattering reviews, as largely trust theirs. Of course there are +rogues in every walk of life. I will not say that I ever +personally met them in the flowery paths of literature, but I +have heard of other people meeting them there, just as I have +heard of people seeing ghosts, and I have to believe in both the +rogues and the ghosts, without the witness of my own senses. I +suppose, upon such grounds mainly, that there are wicked +publishers, but in the case of our books that do not sell, I am +afraid that it is the graceless and inappreciative public which +is far more to blame than the wickedest of the publishers. It is +true that publishers will drive a hard bargain when they can, or +when they must; but there is nothing to hinder an author from +driving a hard bargain, too, when he can, or when he must; and it +is to be said of the publisher that he is always more willing to +abide by the bargain when it is made than the author is; perhaps +because he has the best of it. But he has not always the best of +it; I have known publishers too generous to take advantage of the +innocence of authors; and I fancy that if publishers had to do +with any race less diffident than authors, they would have won a +repute for unselfishness that they do not now enjoy. It is +certain that in the long period when we flew the black flag of +piracy there were many among our corsairs on the high seas of +literature who paid a fair price for the stranger craft they +seized; still oftener they removed the cargo, and released their +capture with several weeks' provision; and although there was +undoubtedly a good deal of actual throat-cutting and scuttling, +still I feel sure that there was less of it than there would have +been in any other line of business released to the unrestricted +plunder of the neighbor. There was for a long time even a comity +among these amiable buccaneers, who agreed not to interfere with +each other, and so were enabled to pay over to their victims some +portion of the profit from their stolen goods. Of all business +men publishers are probably the most faithful and honorable, and +are only surpassed in virtue when men of letters turn business +men. + +Publishers have their little theories, their little +superstitions, and their blind faith in the great god Chance, +which we all worship. These things lead them into temptation and +adversity, but they seem to do fairly well as business men, even +in their own behalf. They do not make above the usual +ninety-five per cent. of failures, and more publishers than +authors get rich. I have known several publishers who kept their +carriages, but I have never known even one author to keep his +carriage on the profits of his literature, unless it was in some +modest country place where one could take care of one's own +horse. But this is simply because the authors are so many, and +the publishers are so few. If we wish to reverse their +positions, we must study how to reduce the number of authors and +increase the number of publishers; then prosperity will smile our +way. + + +VIII. + +Some theories or superstitions publishers and authors share +together. One of these is that it is best to keep your books all +in the hands of one publisher if you can, because then he can +give them more attention ad sell more of them. But my own +experience is that when my books were in the hands of three +publishers they sold quite as well as when one had them; and a +fellow author whom I approached in question of this venerable +belief, laughed at it. This bold heretic held that it was best +to give each new book to a new publisher, for then the fresh man +put all his energies into pushing it; but if you had them all +together, the publisher rested in a vain security that one book +would sell another, and that the fresh venture would revive the +public interest in the stale ones. I never knew this to happen, +and I must class it with the superstitions of the trade. It may +be so in other and more constant countries, but in our fickle +republic, each last book has to fight its own way to public +favor, much as if it had no sort of literary lineage. Of course +this is stating it rather largely, and the truth will be found +inside rather than outside of my statement; but there is at least +truth enough in it to give the young author pause. While one is +preparing to sell his basket of glass, he may as well ask himself +whether it is better to part with all to one dealer or not; and +if he kicks it over, in spurning the imaginary customer who asks +the favor of taking entire stock, that will be his fault, and not +the fault of the question. + +However, the most important question of all with the man of +letters as a man of business, is what kind of book will sell the +best of itself, because, at the end of the ends, a book sells +itself or does not sell at all; kissing, after long ages of +reasoning and a great deal of culture, still goes by favor, and +though innumerable generations of horses have been led to water, +not one horse has yet been made to drink. With the best, or the +worst, will in the world, no publisher can force a book into +acceptance. Advertising will not avail, and reviewing is +notoriously futile. If the book does not strike the popular +fancy, or deal with some universal interest, which need by no +means be a profound or important one, the drums and the cymbals +shall be beaten in vain. The book may be one of the best and +wisest books in the world, but if it has not this sort of appeal +in it, the readers of it, and worse yet, the purchasers, will +remain few, though fit. The secret of this, like most other +secrets of a rather ridiculous world, is in the awful keeping of +fate, and we can only hope to surprise it by some lucky chance. +To plan a surprise of it, to aim a book at the public favor, is +the most hopeless of all endeavors, as it is one of the +unworthiest; and I can, neither as a man of letters nor as a man +of business, counsel the young author to do it. The best that +you can do is to write the book that it gives you the most +pleasure to write, to put as much heart and soul as you have +about you into it, and then hope as hard as you can to reach the +heart and soul of the great multitude of your fellow-men. That, +and that alone, is good business for a man of letters. + +The failures in literature are no less mystifying than the +successes, though they are upon the whole not so mortifying. I +have seen a good many of these failures, and I know of one case +so signal that I must speak of it, even to the discredit of the +public. It is the case of a novelist whose work seems to me of +the best that we have done in that sort, whose books represent +our life with singular force and singular insight, and whose +equipment for his art, through study, travel, and the world, is +of the rarest. He has a strong, robust, manly style; his stories +are well knit, and his characters are of the flesh and blood +complexion which we know in our daily experience; and yet he has +failed to achieve one of the first places in our literature; if I +named his name here, I am afraid that it would be quite unknown +to the greatest part of my readers. I have never been able to +account for his want of success, except through the fact that his +stories did not please women, though why they did not, I cannot +guess. They did not like them for the same reason that they did +not like Dr. Fell; and that reason was quite enough for them. It +must be enough for him, I am afraid; but I believe that if this +author had been writing in a country where men decided the fate +of books, the fate of his books would have been different. + +The man of letters must make up his mind that in the United +States the fate of a book is in the hands of the women. It is +the women with us who have the most leisure, and they read the +most books. They are far better educated, for the most part, +than our men, and their tastes, if not their minds, are more +cultivated. Our men read the newspapers, but our women read the +books; the more refined among them read the magazines. If they +do not always know what is good, they do know what pleases them, +and it is useless to quarrel with their decisions, for there is +no appeal from them. To go from them to the men would be going +from a higher to a lower court, which would be honestly surprised +and bewildered, if the thing were possible. As I say, the author +of light literature, and often the author of solid literature, +must resign himself to obscurity unless the ladies choose to +recognize him. Yet it would be impossible to forecast their +favor for this kind or that. Who could prophesy it for another, +who guess it for himself? We must strive blindly for it, and +hope somehow that our best will also be our prettiest; but we +must remember at the same time that it is not the ladies' man who +is the favorite of the ladies. + +There are of course a few, a very few, of our greatest authors, +who have striven forward to the first place in our Valhalla +without the help of the largest reading-class among us; but I +should say that these were chiefly the humorists, for whom women +are said nowhere to have any warm liking, and who have generally +with us come up through the newspapers, and have never lost the +favor of the newspaper readers. They have become literary men, +as it were, without the newspapers' readers knowing it; but those +who have approached literature from another direction, have won +fame in it chiefly by grace of the women, who first read them, +and then made their husbands and fathers read them. Perhaps, +then, and as a matter of business, it would be well for a serious +author, when he finds that he is not pleasing the women, and +probably never will please them, to turn humorous author, and aim +at the countenance of the men. Except as a humorist he certainly +never will get it, for your American, when he is not making +money, or trying to do it, is making a joke, or trying to do it. + + +IX. + +I hope that I have not been hinting that the author who +approaches literature through journalism is not as fine and high +a literary man as the author who comes directly to it, or through +some other avenue; I have not the least notion of condemning +myself by any such judgment. But I think it is pretty certain +that fewer and fewer authors are turning from journalism to +literature, though the entente cordiale between the two +professions seems as great as ever. I fancy, though I may be as +mistaken in this as I am in a good many other things, that most +journalists would have been literary men if they could, at the +beginning, and that the kindness they almost always show to young +authors is an effect of the self-pity they feel for their own +thwarted wish to be authors. When an author is once warm in the +saddle, and is riding his winged horse to glory, the case is +different: they have then often no sentiment about him; he is no +longer the image of their own young aspiration, and they would +willingly see Pegasus buck under him, or have him otherwise +brought to grief and shame. They are apt to gird at him for his +unhallowed gains, and they would be quite right in this if they +proposed any way for him to live without them; as I have allowed +at the outset, the gains ARE unhallowed. Apparently it is +unseemly for an author or two to be making half as much by their +pens as popular ministers often receive in salary; the public is +used to the pecuniary prosperity of some of the clergy, and at +least sees nothing droll in it; but the paragrapher can always +get a smile out of his readers at the gross disparity between the +ten thousand dollars Jones gets for his novel, and the five +pounds Milton got for his epic. I have always thought Milton was +paid too little, but I will own that he ought not to have been +paid at all, if it comes to that. Again, I say that no man ought +to live by any art; it is a shame to the art if not to the +artist; but as yet there is no means of the artist's living +otherwise, and continuing an artist. + +The literary man has certainly no complaint to make of the +newspaper man, generally speaking. I have often thought with +amazement of the kindness shown by the press to our whole +unworthy craft, and of the help so lavishly and freely given to +rising and even risen authors. To put it coarsely, brutally, I +do not suppose that any other business receives so much +gratuitous advertising, except the theatre. It is enormous, the +space given in the newspapers to literary notes, literary +announcements, reviews, interviews, personal paragraphs, +biographies, and all the rest, not to mention the vigorous and +incisive attacks made from time to time upon different authors +for their opinions of romanticism, realism, capitalism, +socialism, Catholicism, and Sandemanianism. I have sometimes +doubted whether the public cared for so much of it all as the +editors gave them, but I have always said this under my breath, +and I have thankfully taken my share of the common bounty. A +curious fact, however, is that this vast newspaper publicity +seems to have very little to do with an author's popularity, +though ever so much with his notoriety. Those strange +subterranean fellows who never come to the surface in the +newspapers, except for a contemptuous paragraph at long +intervals, outsell the famousest of the celebrities, and secretly +have their horses and yachts and country seats, while immodest +merit is left to get about on foot and look up summer board at +the cheaper hotels. That is probably right, or it would not +happen; it seems to be in the general scheme, like millionairism +and pauperism; but it becomes a question, then, whether the +newspapers, with all their friendship for literature, and their +actual generosity to literary men, can really help one much to +fortune, however much they help one to fame. Such a question is +almost too dreadful, and though I have asked it, I will not +attempt to answer it. I would much rather consider the question +whether if the newspapers can make an author they can also unmake +him, and I feel pretty safe in saying that I do not think they +can. The Afreet once out of the bottle can never be coaxed back +or cudgelled back; and the author whom the newspapers have made +cannot be unmade by the newspapers. They consign him to oblivion +with a rumor that fills the land, and they keep visiting him +there with an uproar which attracts more and more notice to him. +An author who has long enjoyed their favor, suddenly and rather +mysteriously loses it, through his opinions on certain matters of +literary taste, say. For the space of five or six years he is +denounced with a unanimity and an incisive vigor that ought to +convince him there is something wrong. If he thinks it is his +censors, he clings to his opinions with an abiding constance, +while ridicule, obloquy, caricature, burlesque, critical +refutation and personal detraction follow unsparingly upon every +expression, for instance, of his belief that romantic fiction is +the highest form of fiction, and that the base, sordid, +photographic, commonplace school of Tolstoy, Tourguenief, Zola, +Hardy, and James, are unworthy a moment's comparison with the +school of Rider Haggard. All this ought certainly to unmake the +author in question, and strew his disjecta membra wide over the +realm of oblivion. But this is not really the effect. Slowly +but surely the clamor dies away, and the author, without +relinquishing one of his wicked opinions, or in anywise showing +himself repentant, remains apparently whole; and he even returns +in a measure to the old kindness: not indeed to the earlier day +of perfectly smooth things, but certainly to as much of it as he +merits. + +I would not have the young author, from this imaginary case, +believe that it is well either to court or to defy the good +opinion of the press. In fact, it will not only be better taste, +but it will be better business for him to keep it altogether out +of his mind. There is only one whom he can safely try to please, +and that is himself. If he does this he will very probably +please other people; but if he does not please himself he may be +sure that he will not please them; the book which he has not +enjoyed writing, no one will enjoy reading. Still, I would not +have him attach too little consequence to the influence of the +press. I should say, let him take the celebrity it gives him +gratefully but not too seriously; let him reflect that he is +often the necessity rather than the ideal of the paragrapher, and +that the notoriety the journalists bestow upon him is not the +measure of their acquaintance with his work, far less his +meaning. They are good fellows, those poor, hard-pushed fellows +of the press, but the very conditions of their censure, friendly +or unfriendly, forbid it thoroughness, and it must often have +more zeal than knowledge in it. + + +X. + +Whether the newspapers will become the rivals of the magazines as +the vehicle of literature is a matter that still remains in doubt +with the careful observer, after a decade of the newspaper +syndicate. Our daily papers never had the habit of the +feuilleton as those of the European continent have it; they +followed the English tradition in this, though they departed from +it in so many other things; and it was not till the Sunday +editions of the great dailies arose that there was any real hope +for the serial in the papers. I suspect that it was the vast +demand for material in their pages--twelve, eighteen, +twenty-four, thirty-six--that created the syndicate, for it was +the necessity of the Sunday edition not only to have material in +abundance, but, with all possible regard for quality, to have it +cheap; and the syndicate, when it came into being, imagined a +means of meeting this want. It sold the same material to as many +newspapers as it could for simultaneous publication in their +Sunday editions, which had each its special field, and did not +compete with another. + +I do not think the syndicate began with serials, and I do not +think it is likely to end with them. It has rather worked the +vein of interviews, personal adventure, popular science, useful +information, travel, sketches, and short stories. Still it has +placed a good many serial stories, and at pretty good prices, but +not generally so good as those the magazines pay the better sort +of writers; for the worse sort it has offered perhaps the best +market they have had out of book form. By the newspapers, the +syndicate conceives, and perhaps justly, that something +sensational is desired; yet all the serial stories it has placed +cannot be called sensational. It has enlarged the field of +belles-lettres, certainly, but not permanently, I think, in the +case of the artistic novel. As yet the women, who form the +largest, if not the only cultivated class among us, have not +taken very cordially to the Sunday edition, except for its social +gossip; they certainly do not go to it for their fiction, and its +fiction is mainly of the inferior sort with which boys and men +beguile their leisure. + +In fact the newspapers prefer to remain newspapers, at least in +quality if not in form; and I heard a story the other day from a +charming young writer of his experience with them, which may have +some instruction for the magazines that less wisely aim to become +newspapers. He said that when he carried his work to the editors +they struck out what he thought the best of it, because it was +what they called magaziny; not contemptuously, but with an +instinctive sense of what their readers wanted of them, and did +not want. It was apparent that they did not want literary art, +or even the appearance of it; they wanted their effects primary; +they wanted their emotions raw, or at least saignantes from the +joint of fact, and not prepared by the fancy or the taste. + +The syndicate has no doubt advanced the prosperity of the short +story by increasing the demand for it. We Americans had already +done pretty well in that kind, for there was already a great +demand for the short story in the magazines; but the syndicate of +Sunday editions particularly cultivated it, and made it very +paying. I have heard that some short-story writers made the +syndicate pay more for their wares than they got from the +magazines for them, considering that the magazine publication +could enhance their reputation, but the Sunday edition could do +nothing for it. They may have been right or not in this; I will +not undertake to say, but that was the business view of the case +with them. + +In spite of the fact that short stories when gathered into a +volume and republished would not sell so well as a novel, the +short story flourished, and its success in the periodicals began +to be felt in the book trade: volumes of short stories suddenly +began to sell. But now again, it is said the bottom has dropped +out, and they do not sell, and their adversity in book form +threatens to affect them in the magazines; an editor told me the +other day that he had more short stories than he knew what to do +with; and I was not offering him a short story of my own, either. + +A permanent decline in the market for a kind of literary art +which we have excelled in, or if we have not excelled, have done +some of our most exquisite work, would be a pity. + +There are other sorts of light literature once greatly in demand, +but now apparently no longer desired by editors, who ought to +know what their readers desire. Among these is the travel +sketch, to me a very agreeable kind, and really to be regretted +in its decline. There are some reasons for its decline besides a +change of taste in readers, and a possible surfeit. Travel +itself has become so universal that everybody, in a manner, has +been everywhere, and the foreign scene has no longer the charm of +strangeness. We do not think the Old World either so romantic or +so ridiculous as we used; and perhaps from an instinctive +perception of this altered mood writers no longer appeal to our +sentiment or our humor with sketches of outlandish people and +places. Of course this can hold true only in a general way; the +thing is still done, but not nearly so much done as formerly. +When one thinks of the long line of American writers who have +greatly pleased in this sort, and who even got their first fame +in it, one must grieve to see it obsolescent. Irving, Curtis, +Bayard Taylor, Herman Melville, Ross Browne, Ik Marvell, +Longfellow, Lowell, Story, Mr. James, Mr. Aldrich, Colonel Hay, +Mr. Warner, Mrs. Hunt, Mr. C.W. Stoddard, Mark Twain, and many +others whose names will not come to me at the moment, have in +their several ways richly contributed to our pleasure in it; but +I cannot now fancy a young author finding favor with an editor in +a sketch of travel, or a study of foreign manners and customs; +his work would have to be of the most signal importance and +brilliancy to overcome the editor's feeling that the thing had +been done already; and I believe that a publisher if offered a +book of such things, would look at it askance, and plead the +well-known quiet of the trade. Still, I may be mistaken. + +I am rather more confident about the decline of another literary +species, namely, the light essay. We have essays enough and to +spare, of certain soberer and severer sorts, such as grapple with +problems and deal with conditions; but the kind I mean, the +slightly humorous, gentle, refined, and humane kind, seems no +longer to abound as it once did. I do not know whether the +editor discourages them, knowing his readers' frame, or whether +they do not offer themselves, but I seldom find them in the +magazines. I certainly do not believe that if anyone were now to +write essays such as Mr. Warner's "Backlog Studies," an editor +would refuse them; and perhaps nobody really writes them. Nobody +seems to write the sort that Colonel Higginson formerly +contributed to the periodicals, or such as Emerson wrote. +Without a great name behind it, I am afraid that a volume of +essays would find few buyers, even after the essays had made a +public in the magazines. There are, of course, instances to the +contrary, but they are not so many or so striking as to make me +think that the essay could not be offered as a good opening for +business talent. + +I suspect that good poetry by well-known hands was never better +paid in the magazines than it is now. I must say, too, that I +think the quality of the minor poetry of our day is better than +that of twenty-five or thirty years ago. I could name half a +score of young poets whose work from time to time gives me great +pleasure, by the reality of its feeling, and the delicate +perfection of its art, but I will not name them, for fear of +passing over half a score of others equally meritorious. We have +certainly no reason to be discouraged, whatever reason the poets +themselves have to be so, and I do not think that even in the +short story our younger writers are doing better work than they +are doing in the slighter forms of verse. Yet the notion of +inviting business talent into this field would be as preposterous +as that of asking it to devote itself to the essay. What book of +verse by a recent poet, if we except some such peculiarly gifted +poet as Mr. Whitcomb Riley, has paid its expenses, not to speak +of any profit to the author? Of course, it would be rather more +offensive and ridiculous that it should do so than that any other +form of literary art should do so; and yet there is no more +provision in our economic system for the support of the poet +apart from his poems, than there is for the support of the +novelist apart from his novel. One could not make any more money +by writing poetry than by writing history, but it is a curious +fact that while the historians have usually been rich men, and +able to afford the luxury of writing history, the poets have +usually been poor men, with no pecuniary justification in their +devotion to a calling which is so seldom an election. + +To be sure, it can be said for them that it costs far less to set +up poet than to set up historian. There is no outlay for copying +documents, or visiting libraries, or buying books. In fact, +except as historian, the man of letters, in whatever walk, has +not only none of the expenses of other men of business, but none +of the expenses of other artists. He has no such outlay to make +for materials, or models, or studio rent as the painter or the +sculptor has, and his income, such as it is, is immediate. If he +strikes the fancy of the editor with the first thing he offers, +as he very well may, it is as well with him as with other men +after long years of apprenticeship. Although he will always be +the better for an apprenticeship, and the longer apprenticeship +the better, he may practically need none at all. Such are the +strange conditions of his acceptance with the public, that he may +please better without it than with it. An author's first book is +too often not only his luckiest, but really his best; it has a +brightness that dies out under the school he puts himself to, but +a painter or sculptor is only the gainer by all the school he can +give himself. + + +XI. + +In view of this fact it become again very hard to establish the +author's status in the business world, and at moments I have +grave question whether he belongs there at all, except as a +novelist. There is, of course, no outlay for him in this sort, +any more than in any other sort of literature, but it at least +supposes and exacts some measure of preparation. A young writer +may produce a brilliant and very perfect romance, just as he may +produce a brilliant and very perfect poem, but in the field of +realistic fiction, or in what we used to call the novel of +manners, a writer can only produce an inferior book at the +outset. For this work he needs experience and observation, not +so much of others as of himself, for ultimately his characters +will all come out of himself, and he will need to know motive and +character with such thoroughness and accuracy as he can acquire +only through his own heart. A man remains in a measure strange +to himself as long as he lives, and the very sources of novelty +in his work will be within himself; he can continue to give it +freshness in no other way than by knowing himself better and +better. But a young writer and an untrained writer has not yet +begun to be acquainted even with the lives of other men. The +world around him remains a secret as well as the world within +him, and both unfold themselves simultaneously to that experience +of joy and sorrow that can come only with the lapse of time. +Until he is well on toward forty, he will hardly have assimilated +the materials of a great novel, although he may have accumulated +them. The novelist, then, is a man of letters who is like a man +of business in the necessity of preparation for his calling, +though he does not pay store-rent, and may carry all his affairs +under his hat, as the phrase is. He alone among men of letters +may look forward to that sort of continuous prosperity which +follows from capacity and diligence in other vocations; for +story-telling is now a fairly recognized trade, and the +story-teller has a money-standing in the economic world. It is +not a very high standing, I think, and I have expressed the +belief that it does not bring him the respect felt for men in +other lines of business. Still our people cannot deny some +consideration to a man who gets a hundred dollars a thousand +words. That is a fact appreciable to business, and the man of +letters in the line of fiction may reasonably feel that his place +in our civilization, though he may owe it to the women who form +the great mass of his readers, has something of the character of +a vested interest in the eyes of men. There is, indeed, as yet +no conspiracy law which will avenge the attempt to injure him in +his business. A critic, or a dark conjuration of critics, may +damage him at will and to the extent of their power, and he has +no recourse but to write better books, or worse. The law will do +nothing for him, and a boycott of his books might be preached +with immunity by any class of men not liking his opinions on the +question of industrial slavery or antipaedobaptism. Still the +market for his wares is steadier than the market for any other +kind of literary wares, and the prices are better. The +historian, who is a kind of inferior realist, has something like +the same steadiness in the market, but the prices he can command +are much lower, and the two branches of the novelist's trade are +not to be compared in a business way. As for the essayist, the +poet, the traveller, the popular scientist, they are nowhere in +the competition for the favor of readers. The reviewer, indeed, +has a pretty steady call for his work, but I fancy the reviewers +who get a hundred dollars a thousand words could all stand upon +the point of a needle without crowding one another; I should +rather like to see them doing it. Another gratifying fact of the +situation is that the best writers of fiction who are most in +demand with the magazines, probably get nearly as much money for +their work as the inferior novelists who outsell them by tens of +thousands, and who make their appeal to the innumerable multitude +of the less educated and less cultivated buyers of fiction in +book-form. I think they earn their money, but if I did not think +all of the higher class of novelists earned so much money as they +get, I should not be so invidious as to single out for reproach +those who did not. + +The difficulty about payment, as I have hinted, is that +literature has no objective value really, but only a subjective +value, if I may so express it. A poem, an essay, a novel, even a +paper on political economy, may be worth gold untold to one +reader, and worth nothing whatever to another. It may be +precious to one mood of the reader, and worthless to another mood +of the same reader. How, then, is it to be priced, and how is it +to be fairly marketed? All people must be fed, and all people +must be clothed, and all people must be housed; and so meat, +raiment, and shelter are things of positive and obvious +necessity, which may fitly have a market price put upon them. +But there is no such positive and obvious necessity, I am sorry +to say, for fiction, or not for the higher sort of fiction. The +sort of fiction which corresponds to the circus and the variety +theatre in the show-business seems essential to the spiritual +health of the masses, but the most cultivated of the classes can +get on, from time to time, without an artistic novel. This is a +great pity, and I should be very willing that readers might feel +something like the pangs of hunger and cold, when deprived of +their finer fiction; but apparently they never do. Their dumb +and passive need is apt only to manifest itself negatively, or in +the form of weariness of this author or that. The publisher of +books can ascertain the fact through the declining sales of a +writer; but the editor of a magazine, who is the best customer of +the best writers, must feel the market with a much more delicate +touch. Sometimes it may be years before he can satisfy himself +that his readers are sick of Smith, and are pining for Jones; +even then he cannot know how long their mood will last, and he is +by no means safe in cutting down Smith's price and putting up +Jones's. With the best will in the world to pay justly, he +cannot. Smith, who has been boring his readers to death for a +year, may write to- morrow a thing that will please them so much +that he will at once be a prime favorite again; and Jones, whom +they have been asking for, may do something so uncharacteristic +and alien that it will be a flat failure in the magazine. The +only thing that gives either writer positive value is his +acceptance with the reader; but the acceptance is from month to +month wholly uncertain. Authors are largely matters of fashion, +like this style of bonnet, or that shape of gown. Last spring +the dresses were all made with lace berthas, and Smith was read; +this year the butterfly capes are worn, and Jones is the favorite +author. Who shall forecast the fall and winter modes? + + +XII. + +In this inquiry it is always the author rather than the +publisher, always the contributor rather than the editor, whom I +am concerned for. I study the difficulties of the publisher and +editor only because they involve the author and the contributor; +if they did not, I will not say with how hard a heart I should +turn from them; my only pang now in scrutinizing the business +conditions of literature is for the makers of literature, not the +purveyors of it. + +After all, and in spite of my vaunting title, is the man of +letters ever a business man? I suppose that, strictly speaking, +he never is, except in those rare instances where, through need +or choice, he is the publisher as well as the author of his +books. Then he puts something on the market and tries to sell it +there, and is a man of business. But otherwise he is an artist +merely, and is allied to the great mass of wage-workers who are +paid for the labor they have put into the thing done or the thing +made; who live by doing or making a thing, and not by marketing a +thing after some other man has done it or made it. The quality +of the thing has nothing to do with the economic nature of the +case; the author is, in the last analysis, merely a workingman, +and is under the rule that governs the workingman's life. If he +is sick or sad, and cannot work, if he is lazy or tipsy and will +not, then he earns nothing. He cannot delegate his business to a +clerk or a manager; it will not go on while he is sleeping. The +wage he can command depends strictly upon his skill and +diligence. + +I myself am neither sorry nor ashamed for this; I am glad and +proud to be of those who eat their bread in the sweat of their +own brows, and not the sweat of other men's brows; I think my +bread is the sweeter for it. In the meantime I have no blame for +business men; they are no more of the condition of things than we +workingmen are; they did no more to cause it or create it; but I +would rather be in my place than in theirs, and I wish that I +could make all my fellow-artists realize that economically they +are the same as mechanics, farmers, day-laborers. It ought to be +our glory that we produce something, that we bring into the world +something that was not choately there before; that at least we +fashion or shape something anew; and we ought to feel the tie +that binds us to all the toilers of the shop and field, not as a +galling chain, but as a mystic bond also uniting us to Him who +works hitherto and evermore. + +I know very well that to the vast multitude of our +fellow-workingmen we artists are the shadows of names, or not +even the shadows. I like to look the facts in the face, for +though their lineaments are often terrible, yet there is light +nowhere else; and I will not pretend, in this light, that the +masses care any more for us than we care for the masses, or so +much. Nevertheless, and most distinctly, we are not of the +classes. Except in our work, they have no use for us; if now and +then they fancy qualifying their material splendor or their +spiritual dulness with some artistic presence, the attempt is +always a failure that bruises and abashes. In so far as the +artist is a man of the world, he is the less an artist, and if he +fashions himself upon fashion, he deforms his art. We all know +that ghastly type; it is more absurd even than the figure which +is really of the world, which was born and bred in it, and +conceives of nothing outside of it, or above it. In the social +world, as well as in the business world, the artist is anomalous, +in the actual conditions, and he is perhaps a little ridiculous. + +Yet he has to be somewhere, poor fellow, and I think that he will +do well to regard himself as in a transition state. He is really +of the masses, but they do not know it, and what is worse, they +do not know him; as yet the common people do not hear him gladly +or hear him at all. He is apparently of the classes; they know +him, and they listen to him; he often amuses them very much; but +he is not quite at ease among them; whether they know it or not, +he knows that he is not of their kind. Perhaps he will never be +at home anywhere in the world as long as there are masses whom he +ought to consort with, and classes whom he cannot consort with. +The prospect is not brilliant for any artist now living, but +perhaps the artist of the future will see in the flesh the +accomplishment of that human equality of which the instinct has +been divinely planted in the human soul. + +End of Project Gutenberg's Etext of The Man of Letters as a Man of Business diff --git a/old/tmlmb10.zip b/old/tmlmb10.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..4d69ddc --- /dev/null +++ b/old/tmlmb10.zip |