Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1905-12-02

What is commercialism in liter
ature?" asks 1.-The Chicago DIAL" and
it thus answers its own question:
1t is the effort on the part of the
publisher to make the cheap manufac-
ture and the extensive selling of books
his foremost aim. 1t is the effort on
the part of the author to write what
will sell the best, and to accept the
highest bid that is made for his work.
irrespective of all other considerations.
And what is professionalism in liter
ature?" again asks THE DIAL" and
answers:
1t is the determination on the part of
the publisher to eschew speculation, to
adhere to the old fashioned code of
ethics, to think more of the dignity and
responsibility of his occupation than of
its cash returns. 1t is the decision on
the part of the author to exert his pow
ers for the general welfare rather than
for the largest personal gain. to write
well rather than to write much, and to
recognize that in his relations with the
publisher he has obligations no less
than rights. Publishing and author
ship alike may degenerate from pro-
fessions into trades if sordid and short
sighted motives are allowed to prevail.
A small number of choice books is
sufficient.-Voltaire.
A great deal of memorializing has
been done in London lately. Last
month "a tablet was placed on the house
in Young street, Kensington, where
Tha ckeray lived from 1916 to 1853 It
was in this house that Michael Angelo
Titmarsh" gave the party to Charlotte
Bronte which proved so dire a failure,
and there Henry Esmond" and Pen
dennis were written, Becky Sharp"
was created and Vanity Fair" took
shape. Passing the house in later
years with Fields, the American pub
Usher. Down on your knees, you
rogue." cried Thackeray; for here
Vanity Fair was penned. And l will
so down too. for have high opinion
of that little production myself" OF
equal interest, too, are nos. so and 81
Wimpole street. No. 50-marked with
a tablet by the Society of Arts-was
the home of Elizabeth Barrett. Here
she made the acquaintance of Mrs.
Jameson, who was visiting some
friends at No. 81, and, the acquaintance
rspening into friendship, supplied trans
latiOns from the Odyssey for her
'Nanthian Marbles" 1t was to No. so.
that Robert Browning came a-weoing.
in spite of that singular father of
Elizabeth's- "a man of strange eccen-
tricity and selfishness who thought
that the lives of all his children should
be devoted exclusively to himself, and
hn fHy1s IL - =
marriage it was from the same
house that Miss Barrett slipped out, in
December, 1876, to become the poets
wife, few days later stealing away to
Join her husband on that Continental
journey which was to give back life to
one who had been looked upon as
marked for an early grave. No. 67-|
easily identified by another tablet-was
the London residence of Henry Hallam,
ard it was here that he wrote his 'Eu-
rope During the Middle Ages" and the
constitutional History of England"
Hither came Alfred Tennyson to meet
Arthur Hallam, and made the street
famous by his references to it in I'm
Memoriam."
Harper's Weekly for December 2 is
an issue of uncommon interest, variety
and timeliness. 1.-THE Man Who Beat
the Machine in Ohio" by Charles w.
Tyler is a story of a Dolitical triy,rnb