The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1873-09-20
The Literary brought.

Where are the book-makers? Beginning
with the Christmas season of 1912 and COM
ing down to the present time, one does not
readily recall a single volume that has attract
ed general attention. In respect to literary
fertility it is the most barren year of the cen
fury. If George Elot's wonderful novel
''Middlemarcf," be excluded on account of
its having previously appeared in the periodi-
cas-, it viii be apparent to one looking even
cusory over the field that there has been a
genuine literary famine. Volumes enough
have been Issued from the press, but not
many that even so catholic a reader as
Charles Lamb would not instantly put into
his whimsical index eTpurgdtorias with
Court Calendars, Directories and the books
''that no gentlemans library should be with
out" There seems to have been general
mental paralysis, extending to all countries
and races. From this provincial standpoint
it would Of course be absurd to affect a mi
mute aud exhaustive knowledge of what the
writers If Frame and Germany have done
during the last twelve months, but striking
ly original work OF man of genius in either
the eager watchers for new stars in other
lands, that there is no presumption in assum
ing that continental Europe has shared in
the universal drought.
The youngest Of US can remember years
that afforded new novels, which afterwards
became classics, from the pens of Dickers,
Thackeray and Mrs. Stowe, while Victor
Hugo, George Sand, Macaulay Prescott, Ten
nyson, Longfellow, Darwin and Renan pro-
duced in their several departments works
that have yet many years to live. But there
is no intellectual ctivity this year on the
part of these to whom we commonly look for
mental food. except that Longfelow has sig
nalized the opening Of the autumn by vouch
safing his aftermath" for the refreshing of
the hungry people. Yet even this does not
evoke the general and hearty greeting which
was wont to meet the author of ''Evangeline."
There is nothing new from Tennyson; but
to this deprivation we can be very well re-
signed, unless the bard possesses more of his
old fire than his later productions have indi-
Gated. Mrs. Stoves new volume created not
so much as a ripple; Browning's fantastic
poem was feebly cursed little by the critics
and then was quickly forgotten. Huxley,
Tyndall, Herbert Spencer and Darwin have
startled the world with no new scientific the
DRY or discovery. They have not brought to
the support of old hypothesis new and i'm
pressive arguments and proofs. The poets
have been dumb, or have harped tediously
oil onH of
the American humorists, the most persistent
of literary types, have shown anything like
their accustomed freshness and wealth of re-
sources. Tie fountains of laughter are shut
up. Mark Twain, Bret Harte, John Hay.
Josh Billings and Nasty have all shown
symptoms of decay. Mast must have been
Frustrated by the gigantic labors of last fall
Bailey, the new favorite, still works pro-
ducJive vein Of rather monotonous humor,
but he is almost sure to fall with the autumn
leaves. The humorous side of domestic lie
cannot be exhibited in many new phases
without running into reprehensible extrava-
gance. Nor are there any new Juveniles
fro n Miss Al OFT, Mrs. Whitney OF sophie
May that have recalled the memory of their
early triumphs.
The multiplicity of new books is always
source of WEAKNESS, and be whom inclination
or duty leads tc read the most of them is the,
verlest slave But what would be the effect
on the world if the present torpidity of the
higher original and inventive literary powers
were to continue indefinitely PIT the stream
of new, vtvifying, tructifying thought that
stimulates mental activity, improves the NOR
ais and facilitates progress, were to be closed
even for a decade? 1t cannot be doubted
thai this is he vital current of civilization,
and that its suppression would be speedily
followed by the decay of the more exalted
characteristics Of the race. But we may
well comfort ourselves with the reflection
that seasons Of drought are uniformly followed
by seasons of corresponding productiveness.
The human mind is perhaps lying fallow as
preparation tor an extraordinary mental &C
tvity and moral exaItation in the near fu-
ture.