The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1898-06-19

authors are concerned. But the royalties
account has grown 10 be very important
item in the publishing business, and pub
fishers are forced, in planning their ven
lures and shaping their affairs, to give il
much consideration. Take Eugene Fields
BOOKS for an example; most people would
say, probably, that, while those books
might have made fair profit for the pub
fishers they could not have yielded much
TO Mr.. Field, or, since his death to his rep
resentatiVes. Yet / understand that the
royalty must by now have rounded out
into quite a handsome sum. In quite a.
short period, l am told. the new edition Of
Henry Georges works, of which as vet
only three or four volumes are issued. has
yielded his family $1,000 in royalties. There
are number of authors whose books, tax
en- year by year, are as good as the pro-
verbal wheat in the mill.
The humanitarian impulse which has
prompted most of Mr.. W. D. Howells'
later essays, and which shows so strong
IN number of his novels, does not ex-
pend itself with him in merely literary
endeayor. He makes frequent excursions
into the east side, to visit the schools and
social clubs and various establishments
maintained for the relief and improve
ment of the poor people who live packed
almost to suffocation In that quarter. and
gives them his encoura cement and some
times takes part in their special exercises
ana entertainments. For example, he Is
not an intrequent visitor at the university
and college settlements and has become
very well known to the BOYS and girls
who constitute the membership of those
societies With some of them he has even
established rather close personal friend
ship, and has given them on occasions
special advice and aid and now and then
he Is one OF the readers or speakers at the
ma hi fsrt,a
the Social Reform Club, In short. he
proves his sympathy with the impover-
ished and suffering part of humanity by
his acts no less than by his words. And
for man whose social as well as literary
engagements are many, and one whose
words are so widely read and so infiuen-
tlai that he might very well discharge his
conscience by holding that they We're the
full equivalent of deeds, / must saw that
/ think this very handsome and rare con-
duct But then, one never heard of any
but the fine thing being done by Howells
one may, or may not, care for his novels
according as ones literary preference
runs IN this direction or in that, but one
must always think well of the man.
II IS curious. and also amusing. the
abundance and kind Of criticism an author
provokes when he undertakes to present
either in recital of personal experiences
or In the form of fiction, an unusal sid..
Of real hfe Naturally the people who
read such writings with most intensity are
those who have had a share in the partlcu-
lar Kind OF the life portrayed, and to these
the least inaccuracy or the smallest omls-
zion Is apt TO be mortal offense. MANY
81 them cannot rest until they have writ
ten letter to the author or his Dub
Usher showing him up In all OF his char.
latanry.
For instance very stormy letter was
written not long since to Mr. Herbert
Hambien author of that thrilling book Of
railroad experiences, THE General Mana
gers story indicating to him large