The Jersey City news. (Jersey City [N.J.]) 1889-1906, 1894-01-20
NEW PUBLICATIONS.
Copyright, 1894. By A. s. cody.)


s'That high, dead level of damnable excel
lence,' las a certain literary gentleman of
my acquaintance, whose language is more
forcible than polite, once put it, has become
SO high and SO excellent and so dead, that a
wise and witty woman has openly accused
Howells, the thigh priest Of the washy-
washy,n with being distinctly immoral.
His petty, correct, uninspired and uninspir-
ing portraiture of weak humanity she con-
sidered poison of the deadliesb type, because
it was offered as a harmless sedative drug.
An accusation of immortality against Mr.,
Howells, which of necessity extends itself to
nearly everything hat is printed in the
large monthly magazines, was new to me,
but on reflection l am not sure but it is just.
tThere is immortality and immortality"
argued my fair revolutienist, negative i'm
morality as well as positive immortality.
That which poisons the heart is immoral
always, whether it be like the drug strych-
nine, which produces commissions, or opium,
which brings lethargy, dreams and slow
death"
However, this may be, there is not a man,
woman or child not prejudiced beforehand,
who does not feel the dead pail of the COM
| monplace that hangs over all our higher
literature. You take up a number OF Hdf-
pef's Monthly and look it through. There is
a dialect story, a chapter or two in one or
two serials which are quite and
mildly interesting, some of the endless series
of travel articles, and a little elegant essay
writing. The; poems are chosen for their
ability to fit the place at the bottom of the
page, and are usually about flowers n
streams and the Western zephyr. A poem
that may become the keynote of a life, a
story that will thrill and rouse n put new
courage into a struggling man, live essays
on the practical problems of life-these are
conspicuousIy absent. They would spoil the
beauty of that high dead level of tortured
excellence which is so priced by the editor
and is a tradition of all literature. The Gem
tury or Scrtbner's or the Atlantic are edited
on the same general principle. Every book
| YOU take I'D is written in the same spirit of
| hide-bound restriction. Last year a thousand
new novels appeared in the United States, of
| which five hundred were distinctly readable,
| and seventy-ive were of the first quality.
| Just think of it! Seventy-five novels
in one year of the first quality,
from which it would be practically impossible
| to pick ten better than any other ten. /
| know this to be a fact, because read the five
| hundred readable novels, and have lately re-
viewed my notes upon them in the effort to
choose a few which might be called the best.
There were a little over seventy-1ve best, out.
| of which choosing was invidious. That dead
| level of common place has become the test
| which all editors and all publishers apply to
| every new manuscript offered; and those who
| know their business write with this standard
I in mind. It is like a decree of the Modes and
| Persians, invielable. No man infringes it
| and lives. But the people die.
What are we going to do about its Give
| us something better, say the publishers, and
we will publish it. But nobody dares to
write anything better. This bold offer of
| the publishers applies only to a whole litera-
| ture offered at once, not to any individual
| manuscript. Besides, a new and fresh and
| strong story would be an experiment. You
can never tell how good or how bad a story
4 L. r,.ftI afto,s un.1 n0 wa rarintQI If and IN or
| der to have good stories sometimes, you
must necessarily admit others that are dis
tinetlY bad, because the poor Judgment of
mortal man is not infallible, especially when
it comes to the Judgment of the highest art,
| whether literary or other. But will the wise
business man risk a possible failure for a
| possible big success, when he can be sure of
a fair success.
No! American literature today is run to
make money-not for the author or for the
people. but for the publisher. The publisher
must make money whoever dies for it. Risks.
experiments, the highest possibilities of
| American literature are nothing. A con-
sentative business policy is at the bottom of
| all our literature today. Will it surely not
lose US money! is the question that is asked
| of every manuscript. If there is any doubt,
| that manuscript is as dead as if it had never
| been born-and then it becomes poisonous,
for it kills out of the heart of the author all
hope for his hearts message. Why have we
no strong literature? Because nobody dares
| to write itl nobody has the courage! it
would do no good, for we are ruled by a
miserable standard of misery money, which
is infiexible as steel bound about ten times
The authors and the people have submitted
to the slavery which conservative business
has laid upon them, and they have almost
convinced themselves that conservative bust
ness is right and noble and true, and the
best thing that can govern our literature.
But, perhaps some objector win remon-
strate-Do we wish to put in the place of our
clean, safe American literature, such filth as
they have in France, or such immaturity as
they have in Chicago! Mol we do not want
the filth of France, and we will never get it,
for our people are not yet poisoned with the
Intoxicating wine of lust. But a thousand
| times better the immaturity of Chicago than
the refined cruel of Boston and New York,
not to mention Philadelphia. Immaturity,
imperfection, mistakes of Judgment, can be
forgiven, but innate cowardice of heart,
never!
But what. are you going to do about it?
We all admit it, we all deplore it, even we
who write it and edit it and print it. But
what are you going to do about itg
Iappeal to the newspaper press OF the
country. The newspapers are not always
pure and sweet, not always exactly refined
in language, not always above the trick that
brings the ducats. But the newspapers are
l 1tEdl GAO aObh IN PSCHAS ~ PRO0 W
the press is to appeal to the people. All the
courage and honesty and natural intelligence
that are in the people, are in the press. The
magazines are edited in remote dens, far
from the olnmon throng, and are sold for
their pictures, while the reading matter is
such as least to distract attention from the
beauty of the artists work. They sell, but
they do not touch the pulse of the public. No
newspaper could live a moment If it did not
speak a great deal of truth along with its
mass of indifferently bad verbiage. The
press is like a ~strapping young lad who has
grown big enough to thrash his father.
When the old gentleman gets into bad
habits, it is perfectly proper that his strap
| ping son should thrash him. Such occasions
are rare indeed. They are called revolt
tions. But revolutions are now and then a
good thing. When our young Jonathan
| ago. it was a good thing. 1t will be a good
thing now if the young Erastus of the press
would pitch into that correct dandy, Nath-
aniel Green, curator of American literature,
and make him unlock some of his treasures
for the benefit of the people, the real owners
of them. ~A~
Ny next two or three letters I shall devote
to a personal consideration of my friend,
Mr.. Howells. IRVING.
NEW YORK, Jan. 16, 1894.
Literary News and Notes.
The name of Jonathan Sturges first be-
came known to the public through his trans
lation of s'The Odd Number" a collection of
short stories by Guy de Maupassant, which
has almost become a household word. 1t is
not often that q translation of a single book
is good enough to- bring distinction, but of
all the transactions of the famous French