The Democratic advocate. [volume] (Westminster, Md.) 1865-1972, 1896-04-25

pOmc nIJy years Or SO ago cultured
Englishman sneeringly referred to America
as "a country without literature. - This
country has since that time quite fairly
made up for the literary infertiity of its
swaddling- clothes days. Its book prod
ucts gradually increased IN volume; the
tiny riyulet became brook; the brook
river; the river a very Gulf Stream of
printed matter, sweeping across the ATTAIN
tic and moderating the literary climate of
Europe, even as the waters Of the actual
Gulf Stream render England habitable.
One of the most striking features of this
marked development has been the increase
in the number and variety of monthly pub
lications. Fifteen years ago the popular
illustrated monthly in the English language
was almost exclusively an American prod
uet, pre-empting all visible territory both
here and abroad In those days where
six Britishers would read the Contemporary
Review and similar eighty-one tonners of
literature, twenty would eagerly buy and
enjoy the Century, Harpers', and Serb
ners' imported for their especial delecta-
ton, because unequaled by any magazine
product of their own Now, however,
they have their Strand and Pail Mall Mag
azines, their English Illustrated Monthly
and others; while we have a more exceed
ing multiplicity than ever. The young,
infertile, non-literary nation has budded,
blossomed out, and is bearing fruit hun
dred-fold more plentifully than the myopic
Englishman ever dreamed of.
Why it almost sounds as though the
American Eagle intended to scream in this
column. But it won't The good old
bird has so many pressing engagements in
foreign fields just now, over doctrines
and .'spheres of influence and "mon-
archial aggressions that it must be ex-
cused. In its absence, therefore, we may
be able to take dispassionate view of the
true inwardness of our literary productivity.
If you look from a distance at the Statue
of Liberty in New York harbor, you are
apt to admire the apparently massive ped
estal on which it stands A closer inspec-
tion will show you, however, that for
considerable distance up it is nothing but
very doubtful concrete. Study the rides
cent glory of a soap-bubble and it is diff
cult to realize that plain, everyday wash
tub soap could produce it. Look afar off
at an imitation sealskin sacque and it is
apparently scrumptuous, almost certainly
deceiving you as to the wealth of the
owner Draw near and touch it and
whereas you thought it to be a skin before
you feel confident Of ii now.
All these metaphors and more too re-
garding the deceptiveness of things mum
dane will apply to the present food of mag
azine literature. We hold up our hands
in amaze and think it glorious; we empty
our pockets and buy fully as much as we
can intelligently compass. Yet there is a
rift in the lutte.
Poor old Cardinal Wolsey in that sad
lament over his vanished power describes
himself as having been little boy swim
ming in summer seas with a bladder TO
support him. Our cheap magazine litera-
ture is foated on bladder to every nook
and corner of the world. Without this
distended receptacle its buoyancy would
be the buoyancy of a wet butterfly. Prick
the bladder and down would sink a vast
proportion of those literary parasites that
crawl all over the field of monthly htera-
ture posing as givers Of thought to the
people.
The bladder is the advertiser
There was once very proud organist
who often would say in the hearing of his
blower II played this, &c. (" Finally on
very important occasion the worker Of
the bellows secured his proper recognition
by stopping in the midst of selection and
asserting that he would never pump another
bellowsful unless the organist would say
we in future The eronaut is,a neces-
sary adjunct of balloon ascension; equally
essential is the gas that sustains him If
that escapes it is doubtful whether he will.
The ''we" and the gas are the adver-
tiser
The publishers of a whole basketful of
popular magazines are like acrobats swing
ing on lofty wires insecurely fastened.
They sparkle all over with spangles; they
swing over one another; they seem almost
to turn one another inside out. They
evoke tremendous applause. But beware,
they will come tumbling down in common
ruin if the wire gives way
The wire is the advertiser; the spark
ling and unsafe contortionists are the tei
cent publishers.
A mans dignity does not alone inhere
in the style of his collar and the twisting
of bis cravat Let little unseen trouser
button give way at an unexpected moment
and his pride and f-satisfaction vanish
like mosquito in winter time. The mag
azine editor who struts around as swagger
as swagger can be, unmindful of the but
ton on which his dignity depends is about
as well clad mentally as King Calico phys
ically with his top hat, pair of cuffs and
smile.
The button on which everything depends
is the advertiser.
Let us not deceive ourselves, nor permit
Others to deceive us. The present swamp
ing food of writers would have no medium
for voicing their mediocrities, were it not
for the colnplacent kindness of the adver-
tiser. The old fable of the fly on the
bulls horn would apply in both ways.
These writers have an over-weening sense
of their own importance and forget what
supports them; the support itself is hardly
conscious of what it is sustaining. Sup
pose for one moment that the great adver-
tisers of soaps, corsets, cottolene, teething
remedies, hooks and eyes, baking powder,
Florida water and what not, were to pool
their interests and decide in future to cir
cularize direct to the public 1t would be