The Vancouver independent. (Vancouver, W.T. [Wash.]) 1875-1910, 1877-09-06
Literary Ambition.

Literary AmDlClOn.
Stage-struck young men and women
are well-understood incidents Of modern
society. They are impossible young
people who have acquired fondness for
the theater, and perhaps cherish belief
that they resemble some popular actor.
Nowadays it is Booth whose style is most
affected. You may have seen several
young men who, it might be said, look
more like Booth than he does himself, es-
pecially since he has been wearing Lis
hair shorter. Or perhaps the stage mani
&C is the product of private theatricals,
or of the defamation class, or of the de-
batting society. These amiable youths
sometimes hire hall or a provincial the
alter, and come out as Hamlet, for one
night only Sometimes they go on the
regular stage in subordinate capacity,
and soon become disillusionized, as it is
called.
The stage-struck youth is more easily
cured of his folly than the youth who is,
as you may say, stage-struck for litera-
ture or for painting wonder whether
leading actors are not more frank with
amateur aspirants for theatrical honOrs
than leading authors are with amateur
aspirants for literary hOnOrs. This may
partly arise from the fact that so many
notable mistakes have been made in the
case of budding authors. Nobody wants
to 60 down to history, as the man told
young Longfellow he would never make
poet. Young people, who desire to be
"literary," are moreover easily deceived
as to their abilities by the ease with
which certain sort of notoriety may be
obtained. In the case Of young painters,
the fact that boy is called an artist"
the moment he takes brush in his hand
is itself enough to turn ones head.
The youth stage-struck or paint-struck
or pen struck is sometimes ridiculous,
sometimes pathetic, sometimes tragic
object; he is generally amiable, always
interesting, and occasionally it transpires
that he is in the first phases of a genuine
artistic career. AS before remarked, the
initiative Booth is apt to find his level be-
fore great while. The youth who has
taken up painting merely because he
thinks it would be fine thing TO paint,
either puts it aside early, or makes a
painful failure later on, or persists till he
acquires dexterity enough to paint bad
and popular pictures. The youth who
has taken up literature merely because he
thinks it would be fine thing to be a
writer, either goes at something else, or
becomes drudge or conscious failure
or he makes himself, after while, an OBJ
ject neither of pity or of interest; wins a
cheap notoriety by getting. his pieces
printed where little or nothing is paid
for them; assails editors Of periodicals
with bewailings and opportunities; but
as a writer, no matter how much dexter
ity he may acquire, or how many pieces
he may give away or worry into print, he
never gets beyond imitation and empti-
ness. "Why do you not help mes Have
you no sympathy with struggling merit
Remember that you yourself, o great and
mighty editor, was once at the bottom of
the ladder!" 1t is hard to reply to such
an appeal, "My dear fellow, if you were
even sincere, though without ability, l
would not do one thing to wound you.
But you have been at this business now
for years; you have not shown one parti-
Gle Of talent; your literature is all echo
your ambition is for not0riety, not for
recognition. would cut off my right
hand rather than be unjust to you. If
should help you up the ladder should be
unjust to you, for every step in the d.
rection you desire to go is false step;
and the position you really wish to attain
is false position. Monthly.