New-York tribune., 1905-07-16
gbe Nehs'1lo4k Gribaqsre.
SUNDAY, JULY 1G, 1905.

The people of Vienna are going to give whole
come literature its chance. According to 'HThe
Academy" that city has of late been terribly
afflicted with cheap sensational printed matter
with the result that suicide is increasingly fire.
quent and HOoliganism stalks abroad" Where
upon the Viennese have established a society
for the encouragement of decent literature
through the offering of substantial prizes for
healthy" novels. The idea is not simply to
give authors an incentive but to make a special
appeal to the public. The prize winning novels
will be put on the market at so cheap a price
that the unhealthy authors will be unable to
compete, but will be compelled, like the rivals
OF the Standard Oil combination, to shut I'D
shop" 1.-THE Academy" hopes for the best, but
we fear that there is only too much to Justify
the surmise that 'the public which buys 'sensa-
tionaP fiction buys it because it prefers it and
not from any abstract desire to lay ont money
to the best advantage" The consumption of
good or bad literature can never be arbitrarily
fixed The gradual education of the public is
all that we can rely upon to work improvement
TN the matter, and this process is not only slow.
but, at the best, Is bound to leave large area
of ignorance unaffected.
Fate seems to take malicious pleasure in
causing the posthumOus reversal OF the wishes
of just the men whose memories ought to be
Gus in his workmanship, never publishing any
thing which he has not put into shape for the
press with the utmost care, we may be sure that
the manuscripts he had himself rejected will be
put into book after his death. If he leaves
the strictest commands against the publication
of biography, the story Of his life is neVerthe
less bound to be told. The case of Thackeray
offers a perfect illustration in point. We are
reminded of the way in which these things |
hxy0 Iaffar ChoIIo
the other day at auction in London. Writing to |
Leigh Hunt, he says:
I never will be a party in making my pri- |
vate affairs or those of others to be topics of /
general discussion. Who can know them but |
the actors? And if they have erred or often |
When they have not erred, is there not pain |
enough to punish them? My public character |
as a writer of verses-as a speculator on poll |
tics, or morals. or religion-as the adherent of |
any party or cause-iS public property, and my |
good faith or ill faith in conducting these, my |
talent, my penetration, and my stupidity all |
are subjects of criticism.
Poor Shelley! He little thought that the dav
would come when the world would be filed |
with the sound of chatter about his private af-
fairs. In the light of our latter-day methods |
where topics of general discussion" are con- |
cerned, there seems to be something positively |
naive about his question, "WhO can know them |
but the actOrs? Lack of knowledge is the last |
thing in the world to silence the chatterboxes |
NliCi IIiGy Idhe lllO Iu0lr uedQS 10 Datten on
the corpse Of famous man.
Once more the hundred best books have |
turned up. Everybody remembers the list
drawn up by Lord Avebury (then Sir John Lub- |
bock) and the flood of nonsense which followed |
it. Now it appears that the late Lord Acton, |
wise as he was also thought it worth while to |
formulate one of these useless programmes. 1t |
Is printed in ''The Pail Mall Magazine" in the |
course of an article on the subject by Mr.. Glenn
ent Shorter, who begins with grave doubts as |
to its value, and ends, quantity, with the COM |
pilation of a list of his own. Apparently |
guesses at the hundred best books are to be |
counted among the harmless foibles of man. |
kind They are certainly harmless but are they |
not just certainly absurd-sO absurd as to |
make one gasp at the participation of a man |
like Lord Acton in such follies? He drew up |
his list, having in view, as his beneficiary, "any |
English youth whose education is finished, who |
knows common things, and is not training for
a profession" and he further explained to Miss |
Gladstone, to whom he sent the document Just |
what it was calculated to do for such a reader. |
1t was meant in part, he said, 'to perfect his |
mind and open windows in every direction, to |
raise him to the level of his age, so that he may
know the twenty or thirty forces that have !
made our world what it is and still reign over |
it." Now it may be admitted that the German |