The Osceola times., 1881-08-13
LITERATURE As A BUSINESS.
rast and Prevent Examples and the Part
Journaiism has Played.
Iondon Daily News.


journalism has Played.
London Daily News.
The stories of Otway, Chatterton snd
savage prove that the misery OF even
distinguished men OF letters was some-
thing more than a myth suggested by
Pope's hatred OF Grub street. The vast
increase in the number of readers has
ICED literature from the gutter, and
even enabled her TO share the crumbs
that fall from civic tables. Chaiterton
and Otway, and even Savage, coulc
scarcely nanage to starve in our time
10 be sure, IL they had insisted on writ
ing poetry, and nothing but poetry, they
might have made acquaintance with
hunger, bankruptcy, and the work
house. But the times would have
taught them wisdom. There is only
one recorded instance of poet who re-
fused 10 write even an ordinary letter in
prose. and he was a Frenchman Of 1880.
In Chattertons days the most degraded
fixtures in literature, the poet whose
lines would neither scan nor rhyme;
turned "eazeteers." Pope describes
them as numberless and nameless, as
blind puppies drowned before they can
see. D1uotless Chattertop and Otway
would have stopped to this rather than
have starved or begged.
But if the modern appetite for period-
zeal literature, boundless and insatiate
as II is. has rescued literature from hun.
ser, it is not certain that literature has
thereby been elevated as an art. 1t, as
well as journalism, has become profess
sion, and a profession of which the
members are apt to be rather hurried in
heir work. Even in the middle OF thu
! ,st century literature was turning ~
this direction. Johnson's greatest plecs
we're done as regular jobs for the hooks
sellers. Goldsmith was generally paid
III advance for his copy, and was con.
stantly in arrears. A certain haste and
perfunctoriness, certain laxity OF style,
are likely to be the defects OF a Literature
which is turned out as a piece of business
to meet a given demand. Literature
which has much of this defect can hard
ly become classical and live. Forum
ately, there will always be men Of letters
so gifted by nature with style, and 30
truly artists, that even their hack work
will be well done. OF these men were
johnson and Goldsmith in England,
Poe in America, and Gautier in France,
though the nature of his avocation, and
the hurry in which he Piled his trade,
often causing Gautier to want ideas
worthy of his beautiful workmanship.
All men of letters in an age when letters
are profession are apt, as Thackeray
said. TO exhaust the soil of their minds,
TO till and refill field into which they
could afford to put no new material OF
reading and of thinking. Excellent lit
erary work can scarcely be obtained for
any length of time from men who hav9 ,
taken early and by choice 20 their pro
tession. Their time is 80 occupied In
writing, it is go necessary for them to be
always producing, that they have no
Chance of acquiring and digesting new
stores of knowledge. Even in romance
when the weaving of fiction becomes a
handicraft, the same difficulty makes
itself felt. Men eau only write fiction
out of their experience; they must study
character, and make acquaintances with
many social ranks, with many new
places and new faces, If they are to write
with freshness and vigor.
The critics of the future, II they trouble
themselves much about our literature oil
to-day, viii probably begin by rejecting
all that part of it which is really jour
nalism in graver disguise. All the
countless and clever magazine articles
about questions of morality, questions OF
politics, will be thrown on one side, as
at best, curious material for the histori'
az. They have not the mark OF style,
they are not refined productions of leis'
ure, like the delightful essays of Addison,
And how rarely have they even touch
of Steele's sweet humor. Our histories
have a far better chance "to reach the
land of matters unfDrgot," partly because
sone of them have been written by men
of leisure-men who have nothing to
hurry them--like Mr.. Grote. 1t is so
difficult to catch authors in the right
mood for producing anything permac
nent. Johnson's "Lives of the Poets, y
and probably most Of the rest of his
lahors would never have been finished
if book sellers and dire necessity had not
driven on the lazy, reluctant giant. Mr.:
Thackeray, as Mr.. Trollope has been
swing, was almost equally aversed to
work; he liked delay, and only the ap-
proach of the day OF publication could
make him sit down rcsolutely to finish a
number Of "Pendennis" or The New
comes" 1t seems certain that If litera'
ture had not been 10 them a necessary
profession both Thackeray end johnson
aud many others would have produced
extremely little, mere trifles perhaps,
and would have been best known and
remembered as witty companions. In
theii case necessity has been our bene-
factor, but the needs OF daily profess
sion could never have made any man
= a ~
perhaps Macauley's history. And it is
certain that necessity, in spite of Hor-
aces confession and example TO the
contrary, will seldom make any man
produce poetry worth reading.