Literature and Life | Page 5

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 Civil 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 imbittered 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, unless he is the author of an historical romance.
IV
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 then
had at least the purchasing power of sixty thousand now. Moore had
three thousand guineas for 'Lalla Rookh,' but what publisher would be
rash enough to pay fifteen 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 few leading 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