The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1886-07-10
METROPOLITAN CHAT.
ON AND UNDER THE SURFACE OF
LIFE IN NEW YORK.
A Literary WOman's DisappOintment-An
Episode in a Fashionable Resteu-
rant-Remants of the
Dark Ages.
[OriginaLl

[OriginaLl
I met a literary woman recently from
England the other day-aD American, who
has been abroad ten years. She came back
full Of enthusiasm and hope. She had plans
for great work-what writer has not2 She
fancied she could find her old niche in the lit
erary activity Of Now York, take up the
thread of life in the spirit Of former days, and
go on with the sweep Of the times.
Vain dreami Her foothold among the
workers was not TO be found. 1t had been
swept away by the foods of change. Not g
trace Of it remained. The entire face OF the
literary landscape had changed. The decade
she had been absent seemed TO have almost
obliterated cid forms and methods. Even
old friends had succumbed to the force of the
eternal food and been swept out of sight.
There was no place for her. Imagination,
colored and warmed by memory, had played
her false. She had pictured New York as
the head fountain of inspiration because she
remembered it as it had been when she was
one of its workers. She was astonished to
discover that there is far less stimulus in
looking into the ring from the outside than In
being one Of the performers, especially if
the gates are Serred. She said, quite
pitifully: 81 believe I will go back
to England. have lost my place and my
chance in my own country. l imagined I
could find inspiration, if not opportunity,
here, but instead thu atmosphere is destruc-
tive to good work, there is such a whirl, such
8 pressure Of life. That part of New York
that have touched seems to be composed en-
tirely of Observation-Disclosures and landladies
OF hotels and boarding houses struggling to
pay the enormous rents of their big houses,
and their boarders struggling to pay their
portion and living in all sorts of little pens
for the privilege of living here at all Who
can do anything above the ordinary in such
an atmosphere? Literature has become a
trade. The muses. have turned gossps,' and
there is nothing to do but to gossip with
them or run away"
This and similar instances point out quite
plainly to me that the duration of a writer's
reputation is yearly growing shorter and
shorter. Increased competition, constant
change of taste on the part of the public, the
demand for new names as we'll as new goods
which characterize the day, all conspire to
make the crowded hour of glorious life" en-
joyed by the men and women of the pen par
ticularly brief and perilous. He who would
make himself welcome to the public more
than ten years must be content to write for
the few and not the many. He must seek for
no ''hits," those perilOus strokes of luck
which oftener kill than make their winners.
Ceaseless is the struggle for every foot Of
vantage ground among writer's. The success
full and the aspiring are both equally vigilant
the one to hold what he has gained, the
other to gain if it be but an inch. II must
keep myself before the public" is the battle
cry of the ambitious indeed, of the entire pen
armed throng. Yet the whimsical public viii
judge for itself, and whenever it tires of them
will push them out of it's way, no matter how
Rlany dishes they prepare for it. Uncertain
are the souls whose meat is appreciation
They may fare sumptuously to-day and starve
tomorrow.