The San Francisco call. [volume] (San Francisco [Calif.]) 1895-1913, 1895-04-14
Our Literary Critics.

well-known writer, formerly OF this
city, but recently removed to more
congenial fields, writes to a California
friend in glowing terms regarding the
city where his lot is now cast. He
describes it as an Elysian field iol
letters, whereas literary San Francisco he
declares to be bleak as wintry moor.
San Francisco has of late had what
might be termed enviable opportunltle:
to see herself as others see her. Hel
literary critics have been numerous, anc
they have spoken their minds in regard tc
her with a frankness that is almost calcu'
lated to be edifying.
The Rev. Mr.. Haweis' remarks are still
recent enough to recall; our whilom poet
librarians sententious summary is I'M
doubtedly correct, from his standpoint
and only little longer time ago we had
the assurance of Professor Anderson OF
Palo Alto that San Francisco was the
vulgarest city in America III her attitude
toward letters.
Undoubtedly much of truth underlles
all these enthusiastically that, rightly
taken, ought to do us good. In literature
and art as in commerce and the news OF
the world, the worth and Importance OF
erything have been in the San Francisco
mind in direct ratio to its distance from
the Golden Gate.
But granting that this city has proven,
for literature but bleak and wintry moor,
where shall we look, not merely IN Amer
lea, but in the world, for the city that shell
tiers and cares for her literary tiocks,
tempering to their shorn condition the
winds that sweeping across the moors
might otherwise strike them chillywise?
Professor Anderson, when he character
lied us the vulgarest city in America, cited
Boston as city that had proven herself a
foster mother to letters. Here, before me,
is letter from man well known to liter
airy Boston, man whose name is known
almost equally well on this coast as writer
of keen trenchant prose, even as something
more than a wrIter-aS thinker-a writer
whom other writer's love to read, and to
learn from. This man, writing of his eX-
perience during the past year in Boston,
when stroke of i'll fortune had sent him
to newspapering, says:
II got through my work somehow IN
desperation, but each day was a new curse,
a new demand, fresh torture, yeritable
hell upon earth. | have often thrown
down rly pen in the office and gone out to
pace the streets, determined to end the
thing-to acknowledge | was crushed and
blotted out by sheer bestial vulgarity.
thought of trying to get employment on
the street railroad, of trying to start little
secondhand book store, of lecturing.
wrote q humorous lecture and had got up
circular and everything, prepared to turn
clown, of advertising, canvassing, of every
hopeless thing that fortunes the hopeless
poor. My book accepted in New York for
publication in 81, was rejected, after all,
in the spring of '93. | felt the
darkness close in about me and saw no
way out. The years loomed up in endless
days of vulgarity and trivial lying, per-
petual moral debasement."
Now, this man is no unknown struggler,
but one who, as writer and an editor, has
made a name for himse among New Eng
lands younger literary set. In this same
letter he writes of feeling Gas if born
again" because he has obtained a COM
mercial position and need no longer lean
upon 1.-The poor crutch of literature"
And this letter comes from literary
Boston. One might almost fancy it penned
from some attic in San Francisco.
From the same city, almost by the same
mail comes a letter from the head of a
well-known publishing-house. This I'M
doubted authority says:
"Our public is a good deal of sheep.
1t jumps whichever way it sees the other
people jumping. If it discovers them
jumping your way it Immediately proceeds
to take an interest in you, and if the same
dear public does not suppose that some one
else has taken an interest in you it will let
you severely alone. This may be unfor-
tunate, but it is true"
How easily this might be mistaken for a
wall from the Golden Gate The world is
suffering to-day from literary plethora.
IT'S question whether 1.-The art preserva-
tive of all arts may not in the end prove
more of bane than blessing. 1t is so
easy to get things printed, and the writer,
like the female wage-worker, suffers from
amateur competition