The Montgomery advertiser., 1905-10-29
By Margaret E. sangster.

|
 l Copyright, 1905. by Joseph B. Bowles.) In order to know an author as one
 knows a frined, or knows his trade or
 business, something more is needful
 than the mere hurried perusai of his | book One does not know an author l in any real sense, unless he gets hold oi the personality behind the work. In | all the world nothing Is more vital than | A book, If it be written by man | who has put his soul into the page, whose purpose in work has been higher than offering mere amusement, or the hope of making money. To amuse ana entertain the public is a legitimate ob- feet. and we cannot but send our grate- full thanks to anybody whose gay good humor brings smile Co careworn peo- pie. An author, let us add. like any other day laborer. is worthy of his hire' if his work be well done.
 But the mirth- producing book is gem orally ephemeral. and should be used rather as dessert after a meal than as the meal itself. And as for author ship. while occasionally a successful writer makes a fortune. its emolu- ments are not usually in bank stock or real estate. The books that Will i've longest and that have done most for the world have not been books which paid their authors very much in coin of the realm.
 But this is a bit apart from the top- ic. How shall we know an author, who is still living, and therefore whose biography has not been published?
 After a mans work Is done, his me- moirs throw a great illumination upon it, and no reading Is more profitable than that of biography. The great statesman, the great poet, the great commander, having finished his course and gone to the majority. leaves behind him footprints on the sands of time. Some one then tells the story of his childhood, his training, his adventures, and his methods of work, and reading about him, we take a hew interest in ali that he has done and said. Many of us feel as well acquainted with Ten- uyson and Browning, Carlyle, Ruskin and Stevenson, Emerson, Hawthorne and Longfellow, as if we had sat at their tables or talked with them beside our own Ares We may even know them in a way that their contempora- ries did not, for the intimacies of domestic life are too often laid bare in the letters and memorials which appear when the dead can no longer defend their privacy.
 As for the living author. he may bar his door and put up his shutters if he chooses. He cannot be invaded by ln- reviewers or besieged by admirers against his will. Still, 1t is compli- ment rather than an intrusion to seek to know something about an authors environment his home life and the im- pression he makes on his townspeople. TO the later, to his grocer, butcher and baker, he is very much like anybody else. They regard him with no espe-
 ha Ia NrngfY and a curmudReon, he is charitably sup posed to be eccentric.
 Tn our day few authors affect oddi- | ttes of dress or behavior. They look, | act and talk very much as other citi- gems do Eccentricity is not a badge | of genius, although 1t may be a mis- fortune Of genius one may consult if he have to write | a paper for a literary club. What ever one needs to know In terse, | condensed form about Edward Everett | Hale. John Burroughs. Rudyard kip- ling or Mrs. Humphrey Ward, one may And out by visiting the nearest norary and 1lanclng into the latest edition Of
 who's Who. If one loves an author very much and has had great pleasure or help from what he has said. so that his name in the family is a household word. and one would willingly take ionrney to clasp his hand, write him iatter: tell him the extent of the Sr,endly debt, and ask as a child might. ,rhatever he is willing to reveal SUch a letter will probably be graciously re- ceived
 rba careless reader of a book com oo-ns himself with the book itself and iooks very seldom at the title page. so tbtat he might finish story and lay hook aside without knowing who wrote 1t or having the ghost of an idea as to it's publisher To treat an author tO this cavalier way is as discourteoua