Millheim Journal. [volume] (Millheim, Pa.) 1876-1984, 1880-09-30
What Brains Bring.

Our beet authors have, us u rule, made
very little money. Some of them, like
Longfellow, Lowell and Holmes, have an
independence without work. Emerson and
Whittier live very simply and plainly, and
this fact explains why their earnings sup
port them Hawthorne was very poor un-
til he had been appointed Consul at Liver
pool; Poe was always IN pecuniary Distress
and would have compressed by circumstan-
ces had his habits been provident. Mrs.
Stowe made by "Uncle Toms Cabin, {"
which, in the same time, has had a larger
sale than any other work since the invention
of printing, not much over $40, 900, al
though her publishers got rich by the world
renowned antl-slavery novel.
The most capable and industrious Httera-
tcur can seldom earn more than 81, 600 to
$4,000 IA year at the extreme, while un-
questlonably clever, energetic fellows are
Obliged To content themselves with from
81, 800 to $1,000. A glance at some of our
best known and most popular authors, resi-
dent i'll or near New York, will show that
the ink they use is far from golden. The vete
ran William Cullen Bryant was moderately
wealthy; but he had not grown so by
his poetry or by any of the works to which
he had lent his name, but which he had not
written. He owed MS fortune TO his partial
ownership of the EUenittg Post for the last
80 or 40 years. Worth probably $500, 900
or $500, 900 at the lowest, and getting 500
600 to $50, 900 per annum from all sources,
II lnay be doubted ii his entire literary work
would have yielded him $50, 900. Bryant's
love of dollars is wholly disproportioned to
his professional capacity to earn them. He
has been writing in his slow, deliberate,
painstaklng and painsgiving way for 90
years-he did the 'Thanatopsis" at Is, and
has never quite equalled it slnce-and vet
at no time could he have got 1000 or
or even S., 900 per annum by the dir, ct use
of his pen. While the publisher has pros
pered the poet might have starved.
Parke Goodwin, Bryants son-D law, is
a brilliant Httcrateur as well as journalist,
and is pecuniarily independent. He owes
his independence, however, to his interest
in the ECGHing POst-he has had no con-
nection with 1t, edItorially or otherwise
for several years-not TO his literary talent.
The books he has published have returned
HIM few thousands OF dollars, and his lee
lures in the past have helped out his income;
but he would have been poor deprived of
what the Post has brought him.
Bayard Taylor was one of oar most popular |
books of travel have had |
very wide sale-and he has been remark |
ably diligent with his pen from early youth. |
AS a lecturer he had been extremely popu- |
Iar-he cleared $40, 900 year before last by |
the lyceum-having made more as a lectu-
rer than as author. His reputation as a
traveller and descrlber of travels did not |
please him, Notwithstanding 1t has been
profitable. His high ambition was poetic
and he was poet but the great public re-
yarded him rs a traveller. We doubt if his
Life Of Goethe, . on vi is excellent, paid
lim Tor any part of his great labor. AT
4 liberal esti nate, if the times were what
hey have been, Taylor might lave been
worth $40, 600 to $50, 900, much Of which
he obtained from dividends on his five shares |
Of Tribune stock. Taylor drew a jour |
nalisuc salary OF So,
Richard Grant White may be considered |
a successful author. He has been before !
the public over quarter of a century, and |
his Shakespeare has gained him the title of |
deniably the ablest work on the dramatlst |
that has been produced by any American,
and he is a man of large and varied culture. |
He studied law, and medicine after gradu- |
ating, not with view to practiCing, but for
the sake of increasing his knowledge. |
Now, beyond fifty, he literally wins his
bread by contributing to the daily press
and the magazines; he frequently writes
editorials for the Times and Evening Post
he holds position In the
Custom House at $2, 500 year.
George William Curtis one of the dainti-
est and most polished writers in the Repub-
lie, and yet a strong and positive intellect,
has been for years engaged on the periOdi-
cal publications of the Harper's. He
writes the political editorials of the Weekly
the Editors Easy Chair of the Monthly,
and until recently wrote the discurslve. Gle
CANT essays which appeared in the Bdzar,
over the signature of "Old Bachelor" His
salary from the Harpers Is SO, 900 year,
which is one Of the largest paid in the city.
lie had but 81, 900 until 1869, when the
death of Henry j. Raymond, and the desire
OF the Times TO supply his place, induced
its publishers to offer curtis SO, 900. Cur
It's declined to become editor of the Times,
preferrlng to remain with the old firm. Its
members heard Of the offer, though not
through Curtis, and Immediately advanced
his salary to the figure named-as much, no
doubt, from fear OF losing him as from a
sense of generosity. Curtis is native of
Providence, X. l., well bred and well edu-
Gated.