The Portland daily press., 1880-05-17
The Decline of Literature,
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1t may seem paradoxical to talk of the de-
cline of literal ure at a time when "of making
many books there is no end'' But that sem
tence of the wise mans contains the very gist
Of the charge against, modern English litera-
ture. Authors are, indeed, busy with "mak
ing books" rather than with literary compost
tion in the true and old sense of the words A
glance at the most popular books of each sea-
son will prove the truth of this pessimstic as
sertion. The books that succeed best, apart,
OF course, from sermons, are of four or five
classes, and are chiefly forms of journalism.
There are pamphlets or tracts, big Or little, on
Questions of the day." These things are real
ly pamphlets: they are written for the minute,
rather than for the hour or the day, or we may
say that they are monumental leading articles
and they live but for the life of leading arti-
Gle. The fact that they are bound up between
cloth covers, and that each of them numbers
its four or five hundred pages, makes no essen
tial difference. Thus we may set about a
fourth of the new books aside as pamphlets
which are without FORM" and tomorrow will
be "void" of interest.
The second of the great classes of modern
books which are not literature consists of epic
turesque reporting''-or reportage, as the
French CONTEMPORARY call it-in disguise.
The picturesque reporter has plenty of fields in
which he can do business that is profitable,
and produce matter full of contemporary inter-
est, but still matter that lacks the form and
stamp OF literature. The picturesque reporter
may write in big, bloated volumes the life of a
contemporary statesman. He may hurry after
the special correspondents, and compile in sew
en- weeks the history of great war. He NAV
travel and bring back brilliant reports of the
countries he has visited on a bicycle, and the
manners he has viewed from the streets, and
in this case his work comes more near to per-
manence than in the others we have men
TONED. Humorous travels like Dumass, Cha
pelle and Bachaumont's, or Sterne's Sentiment
tai Journey" really belong to literature; but
we have probably not more than one traveller
whose writings are really humorous Most of
the rest produce Jumps of journalism, on lev
ell ESQ far as literary merit goes) with Mr.. STAN
ley's writings on Central Africa.
There remain three other sorts of books
which do not properly belong to literature
There is the mass of works of fiction which are
in no sense works of art There are novels. of
course, which belong to literature as much as
authors may easily be counted. When novel
writing became profession, it began to sink
from the level of an art to that of manufac-
ture: Again, there are the countless manuals
and handbo0kS which are published in series.
Mr.. Tozer, the dissenting butterman in "Sa-
lem Chapel" said that the congregation liked
"a course" of sermons. Apparently the public
also likes "series," and there are few histori-
cal, scientific, literary, or even philosophical
fields on which many focks of series are not
browsing. 1t may even be said that the scores
OF short popular paths to literary or philosophi-
cal, or scientific knowledge are themselves a
proof that literature is declining. Both the
production and the enjoyment of literature de-
mand leisure. Now writers hurry through old
books with notebook in hand, and readers
hustle rapidly through the pages of Primers.
that runs has seldom time or eye-sght for
more than glance at an advertisement by the
wayside