The news & observer. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1894-current, 1905-07-02
HERE AND THERE
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META FoLCER TOWNSEND

L
men that women marry and why they
marry them, / wonder the women
don't quit the business altogether"
When | consider the tales of woe
that have been handed down in re-
gard to authors ever since the year
one, you might say, | am astonished
that men and women will continue to
rush into print.
It's a very old book and one full of
exceeding wisdom which declares: "Of
making many books there is no end,
and much study is WEAKNESS of the
flesh.''
From that day on down to the date
of Pearson's magazine for July, writer's
have stood on the race course of liter
allure and beat the air wildly with
uplifted arms while shouting to 9th
ers warning them to keep off the track
because of danger ahead
It's an old story that of the diff
culties Desetting the life of the English
writer till often there was little left
for him but to starve or become a
hanger-on in some great mans re-
tinue-the great man being always the
one who had money and power at
court while the lesser one was the
man of brains and, possibly of gifts
that brought Immortality to his name
long after the other had passed out
telling in Kenilworth how the Earl of
Leicester spoke in friendly fashion, if
patronizingly, TO Will Shakespeare.
THE player bowed, the Earl passed
on that is the way ii would have
been told in their day to ours it
would be, the immortal had done
homage to mortality.
Thackeray gives US a picture of Mr..
Addison which is not altogether at
tractive, representing him, as it does,
in the earlier part of his career be-
fore prosperity, in the shape of his
rich countess, had smiled upon him.
The unattractive thing in the picture
is not so much his lack of prosperity
as the fact that he was looking to
the great of the land for support and
advancement. If a man CHANGED to be
poor there was little hope of his being
ind aDendent.
CHANGING over q list of noted names
in the last two centuries of English
literature we find that some of the
greatest men stand out as opponents
of the truth that an authors ways are
beset by trials. Think of poor Gold
smith and of Samuel Johnson with
their hand-to-hand fight against alb
ject poverty Think of Chatterton's
literally starving to death. OF Keats
with his sensitive soul suffering at the
hands of his mercileSS critics. OF
Byron's fiery spirit springing to arms
Under the lash of the Scotch Review
erS
And even where the author escaped
such goods as these there were often
other trials which belong peculiarly to
the literary life. But coming on down
70 our day, it might appear, on tho
face of things that authorship now
has fewer worries and greater cOmpen-
sations than ever before.
When one considers the prices that
are paid certain writer's the outlook
for life of ease or even Opulence is
fairly good-for these fortunate few.
We know that Mrs. Humphrey Ward
receives Il modest fortune for each of
her books, and, l daresay, Mr.. Tom
Dixon is in a position to lay up
competence for old age or any num-
Der of rainy days. But between these
two-one representing the best paid
element of real literary workers and
the other standing at the front of
those who are makers of money but
not makers of literature, there's
great host who toll on under tremen-
dous discouragements, if we may be
lieve their own tale.
If one shows the least tendency tc
the writer's fever there will be friends
who are ready to conclude that any
thing from the pen of the amateui
might be a success. "Why don't you
write a book and make us some mon.
ey? / am tired of being SO poor, Il
but half a joke.-the speaker is in
clined to believe there's something in
the suggestion. But the listener, II
he be wise, will be cautious.
He is in Il strait betwixt two. There's
the consciousness of his own limita-
tions..-the knowledge that he does not
have within him the imagination, the
20 hi ar
thy book. On the other hand there's
a sense of nausea ae the thought OF
sending out any addition to the flood
of trash that sweeps through the land
Suppose. you know that Laura JeaI
Libby earned several thousand year
or that Marie Corelli makes a fortune
would you be willing to win repnta
ton of that sort if you could?t Even
granting that a thing is not intrinsical-
ly bad, admitting that it has some
claim to decency, there is something
repugnant to you in the idea of cheaI
literature, of trash which can have nc
other effect on the mind than to keep
it at a low standard If one may not
do anything to bring up the level OF
taste among readers, one may at least
refrain from doing what might furth-
err degrade 1t.
If you consider the books that have
had immense sales for years, you are
tempted to believe that this matter OF
catering to the public is something
hardly to be counted on, an unguess-
able quantity.
Do you have any idea as to the num-
Der of Augusta Evans Wilson's novels
that have been sold in the South since
the war? or even in the last decade
What is the circulation of Mrs
Holmes stories as compared with
HaWthOrne'S or HOWellS'?
A writer in the July PearsOn's has
much to say of the Authorizations of
Authorship. 1t is surely enough to-
make any would-be author pause be-
fore he begins the desperate under
taking of climbing the Hill of Diff
Guilty.
ut is a long, steep, hill road, this
journey to successful authorship; yet
a road crowded with every type and
age of mankind. Far away at the
top, and nearer, but well up the sides,
a few lights glimmer. Men and women
struggle toward them, desperately,
sacrificing their homes, their business,
even their familieS-yet all apparently
blind, for not a man on that road
can see those swarming beside, in