The copper country evening news. [volume] (Calumet, Mich.) 18??-1907, 1898-01-10
THE LITERARY HACK
ANDREW LANG EXPLAINS HOW HE
UNDERSTANDS THE TERM.

"A One who should Be an Authority ON
sAe Subject His Defense OF the Trade
and so,ne OF Its Followers Is Entitled TO
Respectful Consideration.
In some literary journal a "hsck" was
defined lately as q man who writes politics
on either or any side indifferently. A
hack might do this, and DR.. Maginn, a
famous hack OF old days, Is said to have
done ii. Whether the charge is true or
not / have no means Of ascertaining, but
the definition, in any case, is not good. IL
is too narrow In one sense and too wide In
another. A hack is a hired person Of all
work. A political hack Is wire puller
and intriguer, busy writer and speaker
and whisperer, who, In one shape or an
other, Is paid for his services He may
serve only one side and serve IL steadily,
but he is hack for all that. He works
for pay, not, like the nobler kind Of poll
tician, for love- ambition, patriotism or
what you please.
Now, by parity of reasoning, a literary
hack Is a writer of all work who writes for
pay, and, if he were not paid, could not
write. AS distinguished from a Chester
field or Walpole or Gray, he accepts jobs,
not, In the first place, because be likes
them, but because he must. A banker
like Mr. Grote, peer like Lord Mahon, a
poet like Wordsworth or Keats, or almost
any poet, is not hack, because he only
works as ne chooses. He is paid if he is
lucky, but he does not primarily write for
pay. DIR. Johnson, DIR. Goldsmith,
Southey, Scott lin his last years., Defoe
ialways), Collins (unsuccessfully), were
all hacks and we of the profession need
not be ashamed of them. They wrote ar
tlcles, reports of speeches, translations, es-
says, and so forth, because they needed
money, not because they were fascinated
disinterestedly by their themes. The
life of Napoleon" was hack work; SO
was the dictionary; so were Goldsmith's
histories; so were SOuthey's articles in The
Quarterly Review. But Macaulay's essays
in the Edinburgh Review could not DO
called hack work. They were spontaneous.
A great man of letters, now dead-one
who held high literary pOst-described
himself sadly as "a dependent on litera-
ture," He was not his own master, but
hedefned or described hack as one who
Wrote the same thing over and over again
In several places, as hacks are very apt TO
do. Nobody can have more than certain
stock of ideals, and any one who writes in
several serials is pretty certain to conform
to this definition of a hack. An author
who merely repeats himself in his books,
as certain philosophers do, is in different
kind of position. He has no master in the
form of an editor TO whom he owes origi-
nality which he cannot pay l do not
mean that reiterating certain ideas, philo-
They need to be driven into the public
head by repeated hammerings. But the
hack repeats not only his ideas, but his H.
Illustrations. Hazlitt was hack, and his
favorite illustrations quotations and so
forth betray him by their temperatures
In this matter we all sin, but the sin Is
one of which we ought TO be watchful.
The hack has commonly been spoken Of
contemptuously, because we have not
shaken of the old opinion that literature
cannot be honestly or honorably piled as a
profession. Our ancestors allowed only to
disinterested genius right TO ply the pen
Mercenary talent, however honest, was
frowned upon and laughed at.
The notions Of Major Pendennis, who
had back for nephew, still exist. To be
a hack, people think, is to be destitute of
genius and mechanical, yet we could easily
add to our list men Of genius who were
hacks, like Thackeray in his erly career,
like Hood, like hundred Others of honor
able names. The notion is that ttle artist
takes pleasure in his work, while the hack
does not. But the hack can elevate his
function by doing it with pleasure, with
a zest, whatever the work may be. A
man may delight, if no be happily tenn
pered, even in making an index. To
make an index is really rather ENJOYABLE.
and good index even will not be complied
without enjoyment A man may subtly
enforce his own ideas or cunningly in
dulge his humor even in this apparently
mechanical labor. A dictionary offers
him still better openings. No doubt DR.
johnson enjoyed his own dictionary. l
can conceive man writing with "a zest
even sermons at half asrown. They will
scarcely be worth the iii crown il no does
not. 'Ihe lowly estate is also elevated by
It's motive, which may DO the support of q
family or may be the desire to find means
Tor living and writing spontaneously.
Southey wrote his articles and biopra
phies, which were well paid, that he might
DO able TO afford to write his poems and
histories, which were probably very i'll
paid. The hack who would keep his self
respect must ever have on hand soma
spontaneous work. 1t may be and prob
ably will be unremunerative. The world
does not want mans best thoughts.
sun less doeSlt want his learning. Very
likely his best thoughts are not, in fact,
nearly so good or. taking as his second or
third best. But no does not easily resign
himself 10 believe this, and it is well for
him to put what he thinks the cream of
himself into epics and treatises which no.
body buys, while his skimmilk- finds a
ready market. 1t keeps up mans heart
and self respect and makes him, II n hack.
still not all hack, but'a soul which has
its hours of freedom. And then there Is nj.
ways the mirage of postority.-Andrev
Lang in London ILLUSTRATED news