The Van Buren press. [volume] (Van Buren, Ark.) 1859-1914, 1897-06-26
pRoFLlGAcY OF WRITING.
II Is No Longer a Distinction TO he an
Author.

II l. No Longer Distinctfoh ~ pe a."
Author.
This is an age of vigorous intelleets'
but not of great minds. This is as eYl-
dent in science as in the arts. II is
the motto which every publisher should
naint over his door. There were never
50 many vigorous intelleets. The
schoolgirl has one; your office boy al
fronts YOU with lbs vigorous intellect.
II is the stigma of the age. The result
has been general leveling uP-and
down. There is less scholarship and
more intelligence. There is less genius
and more talent.
Fifty wears ago it was in the way OF
being a distinction to have written
hook. Authors were pointed out on
the streets; l,oets had hats DOTTED to
them. The female novelist was an eX-
eeptional person. Amazement waited
upon her public appearances. as though
she had been a white crow. To-day Il
far surer anodyne TO oblivion is to be
nodded at as the man who has never
written a book or a letter to neWspa-
per. The cause of all this profiigacy of
writing is not far to seek. The world
is democratic. education of a sort is
universal, the printing press has be-
come a fecund and impersonal breeding
monster. OF old it sat like hen and
hatehed out dozen novels IN twelve
month; now it is am incubator, which
Las practically no limitations. 1t can
hatch its thousands as easily as its
scores.
Production is at the cheapest. The
most anaemic schoolgirl can publish her
novel for a few hundred dollars, even
If the speculative publishers reject it.
And literature-who used to be retir-
| ing and august dame-has gone down
into the highways and byways. She
NAV be found in the boudoir and in the
nursery. on the race track and in the
barber shop. If you are beset now and
again by a curious, eager wish to look
into the future. you have often asked
Yourself what the outcome of this is to
| be. 1t is evident that literature is oom-
| ing home to mems bosoms and business.
There can be no question of this fact.
| Most Of us write, and all of us read
The wisdom that used to be kept in the
jars of the pundits has been spread thin
over the whole generation. No one of
us is very wise, but, taken all together,
we know more than our ancestors. Wis
dom was a fiye-pound note, which one
man carried in his pocketbook; to-day
it is changed into coppers, and each one
has his tuppence.
Books are cheap-even good books
are wantonly cheap. For $50 you can
| buy better classical library than
Christopher North could have bought
for $500 More than that, for few
cents you can buy a newspaper contain
| ing more sound literature than your
grandfather could have got for twice
as many dollars. The popularization of
| literature is the most notable fact OF
| tc-day-more notable than the meehan
icnl progress of which it is the exponent.
| 1t is inevitable that the average should
be low. You cannot get quantity and
| quality. The machine which makes
things cheap and plentiful makes them
| insignificant Books are set up and
printed by machinery. Some of them
are not even written by hand = Mr..
EIowells nses a typewriter. This il
natural. There is an immense market
which can only be supplied by tireless
machinery. In this race to supply a
demand the man Of genius goes under
There is no place for him.
None of the books written to-day vii
surprise rosteritY. We are happy. III
tellectual and mediocre generation. We
are prodigal and feeund, but we lael
distinction. Literature has become d
trade, in spite of some desperate Ell
deavors to raise it to the dignity of {
sport. This result is perfectly logica
in an age the shibboleth of which is the
greatest good of the greatest number
1t is better that every man should have
a Waterbury than that one man should
have Tobias.
What is true of literature is equally
true of the arts. One need not assum,
the airs of prophet in foreseeng The
time when oil painting will be done by
machinery The statue makers have
already shown the way. Democracy de
mands the merely clever workman, be
cause it is he-and not the man O
genius-who contributes most to the
general comfort, physical or intel
lectual. The tendency is easily dis
cerned. Books will grow cheaper ant
more plentiful; little by little the linz
between journalism and literature will
be oblterated; the state of literature
will correspond to the social state.
The tendency is not deplorable; it is
indeed, the most hopeful sign of The
day. The greater danger of the future
lies in the greed of the unintelligen'
rich and the despair Of the unintelligen
poor. The best weapon against this
danger is the printing press. For it il
only unintelligence that is dangerous
N. Y. Advertiser.
Twisting Tobacco.
When the raw leaf tobacco reaches
the factory il is in large hogsheads
packed tightly asd done up in hands,
just as it comes from the curing house
The first process is to strip the stem'
out of the wide red leaves and smootl
the heaviest of them into long striDs fo-