Litchfield enquirer., 1878-09-12
Stealing a Literature.

< was Oftener unwritten, was their ballads. s| What the ballad was to the. England of Eliza
 beth the novel is the England of Victoria
 and to the United States of Lincoln, Grant and
 Hayes. We have often noticed with interest
 the published reports of large libraries, show
 ing that more than three quarters of the books
 read by the average American citizen are nov Feis This seems to be the case even in colleges s,
 where one might naturally look for a solder literary taste.
 If the saying Vt the head of our article is as
 wise as 1t has for some three centuries been believed te be, some'of the widest and deepest
 of American influences will be found in the
 novels so generally read among us. Yet, to- | day, most of these influences are in English and not in American hands, While nc English
 man would now say as did Sydney Smith, half
 a century ago, that nobody reads an Ameri-
 can book, is it not still the fact that, so far
 as novel writing is concerned, America is
 mere province of England. In Nathaniel Haw-
 thorne America has produced one first class
 novelist Is one of his works sold to the hun
 dred of Scott, Dickens, Thackeray and George
 Eliot? We have few good second-rates, but
 how would the circulation of their works, here in America, compare with that of the novels of Charles Reade, Wilkie Collins, and Anthony Trollope? Even our common newspaper sto- ries are largely English. Our best magazines, | indeed, "patronize" the American writer, so far as the public taste will allow. The Atlan- tic is real American periodical. Scribner's is fast becoming such; but Harper's still con- tinues the older fasf'on of reprinting English serials cG. 1& We hold that this predominance of English novels among us is something worse than hu- initiating {; it flinders the natural development of American society. It is especially injuri- ous to the American woman, who is a person of much freer growth broader sympatbies, and more independent views than her English sister. One notorious proclivity the two have in com mon, ito the subdivision of society into castes. The English novel is as rule, bitterly aristo- cratic. Caste colors everything. As Thacke- ray ysfrankly confesses, the English novelist is a snob who worships pedigree and titles, who coddles the s'poor," and who hates and ridi- cules the shop keeper. Dickens and perhaps George Elliot excepted, they are all alike in painting and praising an aristocratic social sys- tenn that every true American would greatly dislike to see reproduced among us
 Upon our men the direct influence of the English novel may not be great, but its infu- ence upon the American woman is very per ceptible. The elegant imbecility of the En- glish novelist's female finds industrious copy ists in American society. Even English slang which has never been adopted here, we often hear used by women who must have culled it out of novels. Undoubtedly much of that dissatisfaction with everyday life, and es- pecially with everyday work, which is one of the most noticeable of the evil results of con- stant novel reading, grows out of the the ten dency of the works read. The American peo- pie is eminently working as well as read ing people; and literature of snobs, which despises all manual labor cannot but be curse to the American reader, whatever the genius of the writers. Even with the wealthy it fos- ters those caste feelings and distinctions which tend to make American society servile copy of bad English original.
 How happens it, then,' that the American mind, so original in many of it's developments, must still borrow it's light literature Y? We think that this our poverty will found, on close examination, to be moral rather than intellect ual. We have chosen to steal books instead of writing them. An Eighth Commandment is one of the most important steps from barbar- ism to civilization. No nation will ever accu- mulate much property till it has learned that theft is, in the long run, unprofitable. This is lesson over which politicians are still pug zling as regards finance it is a lesson they have never yet considered, as regards litera- lure. Yet nothing can be more certain than that no nation is likely to have higher litera- lure which gives literary property no adequate protection. Why should the American pub fisher pay American writers for thelr works when he can appropriate the works of English writers without pay? Love of fame, or of lit- erary work for it's own sake, may induce a few Americans to write books but these are motives which are prOverbially barren of prac- tical results. Work of thiskind is too arduous to be often undertaken without some reasona- ble prospect of remuneration. American edi- tors are tolerably well paid. Hence American literary genius turns to mere newspaper writing. Those who have won distinction in higher literary walks often fall back into mere editorial work Mir. Bryant wrote little ex- cellent poetry and then became an editor. Mir. George William Curtiss, formerly writer, is now only an editor Dr. Holland has within the past few years assumed very important editorial position. We imagine that even writer of so varied talent as Bayard Taylor has found editorial work the most profitable.
 It seems strange, that, in a country where Protection has been the rule, the author should have only obtained partial protection against theft. His own property cannot, indeed, be stolen from him, but what does that avail him when he must sell in a market glutted with stolen foreign goods? Unless his books have some unusual excellence, or unless they supply SOluc HaTIUN, IOCsl Wdut uOt OPcu tO StuGIdd competition, he can sell them for nothing. Would any manufacturer think. he could com pete in market fullof stolen foreign fabrics? He is not willing even that foreign nlanufac- lures, bought at a fair price, should be sold on even terms with his.
 The truth is that there is no representative government of which we have ever known anything, in which literary ability has been held in so low esteem as in our own There are no writers in Congress. The only use to which authors are ever put by our politicians, is to send them abroad. The s'd-d literary feller' is not often seen, either, in the English parliament; but the occasional selection of such members as Macaulay, Mill, Grote, and Disrae- li shows that there is no such complete disre- gard of literary ability there as here. In France the literary element has always met with distinguished recognition. Guizot