The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1899-04-30

say. The essayist has practically dis
appeared from the field, in the sense
of any direct and immediate influence
on the public. This, too, is a compare
lively recent change. Many of the
greatest minds must now be content to
influence the public by influencing
those who work through the press, the
pulpit, the stage, and the more popu
lar forms of literature, upon the mass
of the people. They don't reach the
public directly, and it is no longer nee
essary that they should, for there are
middle-men in thought, just as there
are in trade. Take Tolstoi, Ibsen,
Hauptman and others; their great
ness is manifest by the influence they
WELD in this indirect way for the re-
generation of thought. and their own
work might be, for the time, denied
the wider audience"
Speks of Zola.
In this way we came to the discus
sion of lola and his work.
''Zola is one of the men who has no
intermediary. He is decidedly moral,
in spite of his materials. Any true
presentation of life must be moral. [
would not, for that reason, advocate
putting his books in every ones hands.
To put them in the hands of immature
people would be as ridiculous and dam
2eIOUS
Bible in the hands of young children.
L believe that the trend of literature
is toward health, rather than unhealth.
There are eddies and counter cur
rents. and some new elements, perhaps,
but the trend and current is healthful,
and it is significant that the influence
of literature has increased with the
immense increase in printed matter.
The output, on the whole, is better
form, truer. There is, of course, vast
mass of rot; but then three-fourths of
the British classics might be given TO
the poor. Even the hack work, of
which so much must of necessity be
done. is better now than it has ever
been"
Pay For Literary Wares.
1.-THE pay for literary work is inf
nitely better. The Grub street days
tripled. Quadrupled. No one in the
United States, when l began to write,
lived by authorship alone. All had to
piece out in some way.
Il have never been sensible that the
remoteness from type and printing
presses, in which most authors live
and labor nowadays, has in any way
changed the character of writing
Proximity to the means of production
facility. and all that. 1t would tend to
journalism, and journalism is merely
hurried literature.
mol Writers have not become more
timid with the changed conditions and
interdependence of modern life. They
are bolder decidedly. Very few men
are now afraid to say what they Think.
The trouble is to know what they think
at all. A good deal that passes for
1N.,IrI
reality, quite the reverse Any sort of
vehemence is an indication of weak
ness.
Refinement is a mode of strength.
and if a man is strong enough to hold
still and refine his work, his reward is
almost certain, for delicacy is a proof
of power.
4 cannot say that I think there has
been any especial change in the rela-
ton of an author to his audience. 1t is
not more intimate There is a change in
manner from generation to generation.
which may appear like a change of
character, but it is not. Thomas Hardy.
the most famous among modern Eng
lishmen of letters, is not so unpleas-
antly intimate with his readers as
Dickens was with his.
The personal note in letters may
seem more pronounced than formerly,
but | doubt if it really is Consider
No one could be more per
sonal than he was. Charles Lamb, |
Leigh Hunt, the essayists Of the Spec |
tator, all were personal. The animosity
of Journalism has done much to dis |
this personal note.
L do not think the growth of the |
has brought about any real |
change. 1t is a different form of pub
lication-that is all. 1t has promoted |
the short story, and it has fostered the |
novel also. While editors are continu- |
ally deciding not to publish novels |
serially, yet more novels are issued in |
this way every year.
The magazines of thirty years ago |
differed from the magazines of today |
in the inferiority or absence of illus !
trations, in the inferiority of it's litera- |
ture, and the provincialism of its crit
cism.
Yes, the influence of the magazines |
has been decidedly beneficial to the lit !
erature that is closest to life, and that |
is the best literature. 1t has brought it |
closer 1t may not have intensified the |
interest in literature, but it has wild |
ened it,
Howells On Short Story.
AS to the short story as a medium |
Tor the presentation of plot, character. |
thought and style, l can only say that |
{ can't do or say so much. and it can't |
10 or say it so Well as the novel It |
IAN be fine. and 1t can represent char |
lcter pointedly, but modelling is lost |
There is no room for it, as there is in
he novel. The short story. | should |
say, has the merit of an intaglio. I |
-hink there can be strong literature