Year: 1865

Says the Chicago Journal: r.


The fall trade" in books has opened in
good earnest, and literature, in cloth" is
pouring in on us in prodigious and perpetual
stream. One wonders how under the sun so
many books can be made to "pay'' their pub
fishers, but second thought brings their au-
thors to our wondering attention.


1t is not generally known, we think, that
books are oftener published at the risk exclu-
sively of their authors than of their publish
ers Of the multitude who have an itching to
make an appearance in the form of a book,
few but what are willing to run any sort or
amount of hazard to have it published They
would invest their ALL their little, their much,
their nothing, or their less than nothing, rath-
er than miss their chance of seeing them
selves in q title page and 12mo. They will
borrow to be q" booked;" imagining in their
verdancy that they need only to get astride
of volume, be it what it may, to ride down
to posterity amid the admiration of the ages.
How many there are, alas, alas, who have it
in their heads that fame always comes at the
bidding of book; that they have only to be
seen Of their contemporaries in print in order
to be seen of their posterity in the Pantheon
of the renowned.


To realize the truth of this you have only to
be an editor, and see the seige of the "contri-
buttons to current literature" with which an
editor is beset. 1t will amaze the reader to be
informed that there are, within the domain of
our circulation, at least, say, one thousand Ia
dies and gentlemen, who have the enormous
idea upon their infnitesimal brains that they
have only to write for the newspapers, in order
to write themselves illustrious. The indiffer-
ent communication which barely passes mus
ter, through the editorial good nature, is mag
nifed by it's author into brilliant piece of
literature that is to get the whole reading pub
lie by the ears in an ecstasy Of delight. But if
they who scribble for the daily press are pos
sessed with an attempt to print themselves fs-
nous, they who have passion for book wri-
ting are devoured with the assurance of the
Immortality of their renown the moment their
book is distributed to "the trade


What must be the disappointment of such
then when, having expended his last borrowed
dollar, and idea, when by dint of hard reading
and harder writing, by such ingenuity and
cramming" he has burst upon the world as
an author, he is suddenly confronted with the
fact that books to be bought must be books
that's SELL and books that WillAsell mastrhe
books which, when sold, will not leave their
buyers "sold" as we'll. What must be the
that his book is drug with the booksellers
and bore to its readers And ninety-nine
hundredths OF books are Just exactly this, and
Just exactly nothing more. But it is a mistake
70 suppose that the loss in such cases is all ON
the side OF the publisher. The author always
shares 1T, sometimes carries it alone. Itis only
we'll accredited and veteran authors who are
masters of the bookmart situation The rest
| have to take what they can get, and sometimes
they can get only very great amount of the
want OF appreciation.
! There are more books that are still-born that
are born alive, and that live after they are
| born. We might carpet the planet with the
contents of the 'spigeon holes that contain


rejected manuscripts, and there are enough
books hiddenin the shieroglyphies of the hand
writing OF their authors to sink the Great Eas-
tern. e." .'''' = =. 8 .'.'s's >.i' al


Taking the books as they come, they con-
tam 2 vast amount of rubbish. Our American
novels especially are especially fat, while a
MAJOR partofthe fine writing which halls
from New England, reaches the perfection of
insipidity. Our American Homers even, Of


ten nod, and prove by the wateriness of their
works the instability of their genius When
Theodore Parker had cotton fairly under way
with his style of Incompatible transnarencv.
the learned President Of Yale is reported to
have said, Mr.. Parker willxpoiihis writings
by writing so much. The great Reformer' s
literature maintained its perspicacity to the
end, however, but there is significance and
force in President Wolsay's remark Nearly
all our writers of note write too much. They
are too prolific to be profound, and too impa-
tient to be immortal to compose with the com
pogure without which Immortality is impossi-
Bile. When the cistern is empty, nothing
comes through the pipes but air. Ditto the
brain. When it is empty nothing comes out
at the pen but air. As to the cistern, we have
to wait upon the clonds as TO the brain, we
must wait upon the thoughts AS we'll expect
an exhausted cistern TO run good water by
turning. the spigot, as the exhausted brain to
run real ideas by scratching with the pen
When our book-writers get one book off their
hands, let them wait for the rain before they
tap the cistern for another. Books are growths.
1t is rare brain that can produce more than
pair of them in a Lifetime and yet it is rare
iy that You find an American book-writer who
does not write books as multitudinous in guam
tlty as they are inferior in quality. publishers
would do our literati as well as our literature a
very great service by Publishing nc books but
what have respectable thought in them some-
where between one cover Of them and the 9TH
1 or. - aa 49, Z, ..,.... !, -.