New-York tribune., 1901-04-07
LITERARY RTBBI.SU.
MR. HOWELI.S ON ITS PRESENT VOGUE
AND ULTIMATE. FATE

your doubts whether a book especially
worth reading because its sale had reached u
hundred thousand. or two, or even five hundred
| thousand?
The editor looked wary about his den, and
| seeing that ne VAS quite alone with the Easy
| CEalr, he confessed. Yes; have already eE-
pressed grave doubts of that sort, but nobody
else seems to have them and as do not like to
be odd do not keep insisting upon mine
| II am not you right" said the Easy
Chair. Perhaps other people have them. and
if you insist upon them you would not find
| yourself odd. after all Is the fact that a
book has not sold half a million copies proof that
| it is poor terature2"
Il should be sorry to think So" said the od-
tor. Il have written books, and | am afraid it
would rule mine out, except in the very few
cases where they have passed that fsure
| But would you like to have written the hooks
that sell half million? Candidly. now
"Candidly. then, | wouldn't But l would
| rather write them than read them; 1 think it
would be easier. \ certain kind of man would
! write of the recent enormous successes he
| cause if he wished to write at all he would have
no choice but To write that kind of book. He
would be made So, but no one could he imagin-
ably made that he must read such book,
in the sense that the author must write it.
| Il don't know about that said the Easy
! Chair, musincly The fact that there two
| or three or ten or twenty men who must write
trashy books possibly implies the. fact that there
| are two three or twenty millions who must
read them Have you any philosophy to the
vast popularity Of the hooks that have been
lately filling the world with the noise OF their
publicity? 1t used to be called advertising but
l rather like the Gallic neatness of the new
! word
NO unless it is the publicity that does it.
only. the publicity seems not to come first. al
ways.
1t can't be the publicity that does it. then.
though the publicity helps. The thing seems
largely meteorological 1t is scarcely more an
affair of vohtion than the weather. \ certain
--osperic pressure in the material world causes
10 rain water and a certain atmospheric pres
sure in the literary world causes il to rain rub
hish. We suppose that in both cases the rain
comes from the clouds, from above. but in both
cases ii comes primarily from the ground from
In iC-
count for the literary rubbish which now pre-
walls is not to analyze the authors, who are the
mere modes of its discharge. hut to ascertain
the condition OF their readers. from WhOm they
receive it an imperceptible exhalation. and
who receive it back from the authors in an
| aIpreciable form
You mean. in other terms" said the editor.
that the number of readers has enlarged the
number of writer's, and the writer's trashy
because the readers are
"Oh. YOU mustn't press the Inference too far
Logic always turn upon and make
its prey. if we do that. You Will be saying
next that popular education is mistake, and
that people should not be taught 10 read and
write because they read and write rubbish.
"bh, no. should not go so far as that. But
might say they had better not be taught TO
write"
And l. said the Easy Chair, putting it's
traditional air IF optimism contend that they
can safely be. taught To DO both You must not
regard the present state final. 1t is not u
state at all, in fact it is a stage, and an adj
vance taking in .th' whole body of readers
| the lovers of half -rnillon-copy novel are
| r,creant lovers Of Hawthorne, or George Eliot,
| or Mr.. Thomas Hardy. The most part of them
| never heard of those authors. To leave the
mctcorulogicaI figure We have been working, up
tu this point ana try something aboriCutural-
/ We may Hkcn immeaSurabe mental level
to the prairie country, which, when men begin
To plant il with trees they first plant with the
coarse. rank cottonwood. After a generation or
two of cOttonWood they can grow oaks ana
emS and naples on the prairie. but not at first.
You may be that the plains in which the
literary cuttonWoodS now flourish have never
/ grown oaks or cmS naples Up to the time
/ the readers of the recent successes began to
read them they had read dime novels and story
papers. they Went to the theatres Hut the
exhalaton and precipitation of rubbish cannot
go forever
II don't see why it shouldn't the editor
broke. in. Lets near by what new metaphor
Won escape the logic of your poStulate.
II have none that fits the Easy Chair frankly
owned but all the same feel sure of my
position. The forces in the mental world
not governed 10y the same laws as these of the
material world. In the material world it must
keep on raining water. but il need not rain
rubbish always in the mental world. Imper-
ceptbly the conditions will vary. and in the
process of time the inspirations will he changed.
and the eXpiratoas with them. ON any vastly
extended scale YOU can't expect taste for the
best things: hut many people of bad taste
would willingly have good taste if they could.
No no." the Easy Chair continued, I'VE must
never despair of the republic. in anything"