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278	https://historysoa.com/items/show/278	The Author, Vol. 06 Issue 01 (June 1895)	<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=49&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=%3Cem%3EThe+Author%3C%2Fem%3E%2C+Vol.+06+Issue+01+%28June+1895%29"><em>The Author</em>, Vol. 06 Issue 01 (June 1895)</a>			<a href="https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015013732253" target="_blank" rel="noopener">https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015013732253</a>								<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=51&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Publication">Publication</a>	1895-06-01-The-Author-6-1					1–28																		<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=89&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=6">6</a>											<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=76&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=1895-06-01">1895-06-01</a>							1			18950601	C be El u t b or,<br /> (The Organ of the Incorporated Society of Authors.<br /> Monthly.)<br /> CONDUCTED BY SIR wal.TER BESANT.<br /> VoI. VI.-No. 1.]<br /> JUNE 1, 1895.<br /> [PRICE SIXPENCE.<br /> For the Opinions earpressed in papers that are<br /> signed or initialled the Authors alone are<br /> responsible. None of the papers or para-<br /> graphs must be taken as eacpressing the<br /> collective opinions of the committee unless<br /> they are officially signed by G. Herbert<br /> Thring, Sec.<br /> *- - --&quot;<br /> - - -<br /> HE Secretary of the Society begs to give notice that all<br /> remittances are acknowledged by return of post, and<br /> requests that all members not receiving an answer to<br /> important communications within two days will write to him<br /> without delay. All remittances showld be crossed Union<br /> Bank of London, Chancery-lane, or be sent by registered<br /> letter only.<br /> Communications and letters are invited by the Editor on<br /> all subjects connected with literature, but on no other sub-<br /> jects whatever. Articles which cannot be accepted are<br /> returned if stamps for the purpose accompany the MSS.<br /> *- A -<br /> •- w -<br /> WARNINGS AND ADVICE.<br /> I • RAWING THE AGREEMENT.--It is not generally<br /> understood that the author, as the vendor, has the<br /> absolute right of drafting the agreement upon<br /> whatever terms the transaction is to be carried out.<br /> Authors are strongly advised to exercise that right. In<br /> every form of business, this among others, the right of<br /> drawing the agreement rests with him who sells, leases, or<br /> has the control of the property.<br /> 2. SERIAL RIGHTS.—In selling Serial Rights remember<br /> that you may be selling the Serial Right for all time; that<br /> is, the Right to continue the production in papers. If you<br /> object to this, insert a clause to that effect.<br /> 3. STAMP You R AGREEMENTs. – Readers are most<br /> URGENTLY warned not to neglect stamping their agreements<br /> immediately after signature. If this precaution is neglected<br /> for two weeks, a fine of £10 must be paid before the agree-<br /> ment can be used as a legal document. In almost every<br /> case brought to the secretary the agreement, or the letter<br /> which serves for one, is forwarded without the stamp. The<br /> author may be assured that the other party to the agree-<br /> ment seldom neglects this simple precaution. The Society,<br /> to save trouble, undertakes to get all the agreements of<br /> members stamped for them at no ea pense to themselves<br /> eaccept the cost of the stamp.<br /> WOL. VI.<br /> 4. ASCERTAIN WEIAT A PROPOSED AGREEMENT GIVES TO<br /> BOTH SIDES BEFORE SIGNING IT.-Remember that an<br /> arrangement as to a joint venture in any other kind of busi-<br /> ness whatever would be instantly refused should either party<br /> refuse to show the books or to let it be known what share he<br /> reserved for himself.<br /> 5. LITERARY AGENTS.–Be very careful. You cannot be<br /> too careful as to the person whom you appoint as your<br /> agent. Remember that you place your property almost un-<br /> reservedly in his hands. Your only safety is in consulting<br /> the Society, or some friend who has had personal experience<br /> of the agent. Do not trust advertisements alone.<br /> 6. COST OF PRODUCTION.—Never sign any agreement of<br /> which the alleged cost of production forms an integral part,<br /> until you have proved the figures.<br /> 7. CHOICE OF PUBLISHERS.–Never enter into any cor-<br /> respondence with publishers, especially with those who ad-<br /> vertise for MSS., who are not recommended by experienced<br /> friends or by this Society.<br /> 8. FUTURE WORK.—Never, on any account whatever,<br /> bind yourself down for future work to anyone.<br /> 9. PERSONAL RISK.—Never accept any pecuniary risk or<br /> responsibility whatever without advice.<br /> Io. REJECTED MSS.—Never, when a M.S. has been re-<br /> fused by respectable houses, pay others, whatever promises<br /> they may put forward, for the production of the work.<br /> II. AMERICAN RIGHTS.—Never sign away American<br /> rights. Keep them by special clause. Refuse to sign any<br /> agreement containing a clause which reserves them for the<br /> publisher, unless for a substantial consideration.<br /> 12. CESSION OF COPYRIGHT.-Never sign any paper,<br /> either agreement or receipt, which gives away copyright,<br /> without advice. -<br /> 13. ADVERTISEMENTs. --Keep some control over the<br /> advertisements, if they affect your returns, by a clause in<br /> the agreement.<br /> I4. NEVER forget that publishing is a business, like any<br /> other business, totally unconnected with philanthropy,<br /> You have to do with<br /> Be yourself a business man.<br /> charity, or pure love of literature.<br /> business men.<br /> Society’s Offices :-<br /> 4, PORTUGAL STREET, LINCOLN&#039;s INN FIELDs.<br /> *- A --&quot;<br /> HOW TO USE THE SOCIETY.<br /> I. VERY member has a right to ask for and to receive<br /> advice upon his agreements, his choice of a pub.<br /> lisher, or any dispute arising in the conduct of his<br /> business or the administration of his property. If the advice<br /> B 2<br /> <br /> <br /> ## p. (#356) ################################################<br /> <br /> 2 THE AUTHOR.<br /> Sought is such as can be given best by a solicitor, the member<br /> has a right to an opinion from the Society’s solicitors. If the<br /> case is such that Counsel’s opinion is desirable, the Com-<br /> mittee will obtain for him Counsel’s opinion. All this<br /> without any cost to the member.<br /> 2. Remember that questions connected with copyright<br /> and publisher&#039;s agreements do not generally fall within the<br /> experience of ordinary solicitors. Therefore, do not scruple<br /> to use the Society first—our solicitors are continually<br /> engaged upon such questions for us.<br /> 3. Send to the office copies of past agreements and past<br /> accounts with the loan of the books represented. This is in<br /> order to ascertain what has been the nature of your agree-<br /> ments, and the results to author and publisher respectively<br /> So far. The Secretary will always be glad to have any<br /> agreements, new or old, for inspection and note. The infor-<br /> mation thus obtained may prove invaluable.<br /> 4. If the examination of your previous business trans-<br /> actions by the Secretary proves unfavourable, you should<br /> take advice as to a change of publishers.<br /> 5. Before signing any agreement whatever, send the pro-<br /> posed document to the Society for examination.<br /> 6. The Society is acquainted with the methods, and—in<br /> the case of fraudulent houses—the tricks of every publish-<br /> ing firm in the country.<br /> 7. Remember always that in belonging to the Society you<br /> are fighting the battles of other writers, even if you are<br /> reaping no benefit to yourself, and that you are advancing<br /> the best interests of literature in promoting the indepen-<br /> dence of the writer.<br /> 8. Send to the Editor of the Author notes of everything<br /> important to literature that you may hear or meet with. . .<br /> 9. The committee have now arranged for the reception of<br /> members’ agreements and their preservation in a fireproof<br /> safe. The agreements will, of course, be regarded as con-<br /> fidential documents to be read only by the Secretary, who<br /> will keep the key of the safe. The Society now offers:—(1)<br /> To read and advise upon agreements and publishers. (2) To<br /> stamp agreements in readiness for a possible action upon<br /> them. (3) To keep agreements. (4) To enforce payments<br /> due according to agreements.<br /> &gt;<br /> THE AUTHORS’ SYNDICATE,<br /> EMBERS are informed :<br /> 1. That the Authors&#039; Syndicate takes charge of<br /> the business of members of the Society. That it<br /> submits MSS. to publishers and editors, concludes agree-<br /> ments, examines, passes, and collects accounts, and, gene-<br /> rally, relieves members of the trouble of managing business<br /> details.<br /> 2. That the terms upon which its services can be secured<br /> will be forwarded upon detailed application.<br /> 3. That the Authors&#039; Syndicate works only for those<br /> members of the Society whose work possesses a market<br /> value.<br /> 4. That the Syndicate can only undertake any negotiations<br /> whatever on the distinct understanding that those negotia-<br /> tions are placed eaclusively in its hands, and that all<br /> communications relating thereto are referred to it.<br /> 5. That clients can only be seen by the Director by<br /> appointment, and that, when possible, at least two days’<br /> notice should be given.<br /> 6. That every attempt is made to deal with all communi-<br /> cations promptly. That stamps should, in all cases, be sent<br /> to defray postage,<br /> 7. That the Authors&#039; Syndicate does not invite MSS.<br /> without previous correspondence ; does not hold itself<br /> responsible for MSS. forwarded without notice; and that<br /> in all cases MSS. must be accompanied by stamps to defray<br /> postage.<br /> 8. That the Syndicate undertakes arrangements for<br /> lectures by some of the leading members of the Society;<br /> that it has a “Transfer Department&#039; for the sale and<br /> purchase of journals and periodicals; and that a “Register<br /> of Wants and Wanted” is open. Members are invited to<br /> communicate their requirements to the Manager.<br /> There is an Honorary Advisory Committee, whose services<br /> will be called upon in any case of dispute or difficulty. It<br /> is perhaps necessary to state that the members of the<br /> Advisory Committee have no pecuniary interest whatever in<br /> the Syndicate.<br /> - - -º<br /> NOTICES.<br /> HE Editor of the Awthor begs to remind members of the<br /> Society that, although the paper is sent to them free<br /> of charge, the cost of producing it would be a very<br /> heavy charge on the resources of the Society if a great<br /> many members did not forward to the Secretary the modest<br /> 6s. 6d. subscription for the year.<br /> The Editor is always glad to receive short papers and<br /> communications on all subjects connected with literature<br /> from members and others. Nothing can do more good to<br /> the Society than to make the Awthor complete, attractive,<br /> and interesting. Will those who are willing to aid in this<br /> work send their names and the special subjects on which<br /> they are willing to write P<br /> Communications for the Author should reach the Editor<br /> not later than the 21st of each month.<br /> All persons engaged in literary work of any kind, whether<br /> members of the Society or not, are invited to communicate<br /> o the Editor any points connected with their work which<br /> t would be advisable in the general interest to publish.<br /> Members and others who wish their MSS. read are<br /> requested not to send them to the Office without previously<br /> communicating with the Secretary. The utmost practicable<br /> despatch is aimed at, and MSS. are read in the order in<br /> which they are received. It must also be distinctly under-<br /> stood that the Society does not, under any circumstances,<br /> undertake the publication of MSS.<br /> The Authors’ Club is now open in its new premises, at<br /> 3, Whitehall-court, Charing Cross. Address the Secretary<br /> for information, rules of admission, &amp;c.<br /> Will members take the trouble to ascertain whether they<br /> have paid their subscriptions for the year P. If they will do<br /> this, and remit the amount, if still unpaid, or a banker’s<br /> order, it will greatly assist the Secretary, and save him the<br /> trouble of sending out a reminder.<br /> Members are most earnestly entreated to attend to the<br /> warning numbered (8). It is a most foolish and may be a<br /> most disastrous thing to enter into an agreement binding<br /> for a term of years. Let them ask themselves if they<br /> would give a solicitor the collection of their rents for five<br /> years to come, whatever his conduct, whether he was honest<br /> or dishonest ? Of course they would not. Why then<br /> hesitate for a moment when they are asked to sign them-<br /> selves into literary bondage for three or five years P<br /> Those who possess the “Cost of Production ” are<br /> requested to note that the cost of binding has advanced 15<br /> per cent. This means, for those who do not like the trouble<br /> <br /> <br /> ## p. (#357) ################################################<br /> <br /> THE AUTHOR. 3<br /> of “doing sums,” the addition of three shillings in the<br /> pound on this head. In other words, if the cost of binding<br /> is set down in our book at eight pounds, to this must now be<br /> added twenty-four shillings more, so that it now stands<br /> at £948. The figures in our book are as near the exact<br /> truth as can be procured; but a printer&#039;s, or a binder’s,<br /> bill is so elastic a thing that nothing more exact can be<br /> arrived at.<br /> Some remarks have been made upon the amount charged<br /> in the “Cost of Production” for advertising. Of course, we<br /> have not included any sums which may be charged for<br /> inserting advertisements in the publisher&#039;s own magazines,<br /> or in other magazines by exchange. As agreements too<br /> often go, there is nothing to prevent the publisher from<br /> sweeping the whole profits of a book into his own pocket,<br /> by inserting any number of advertisements in his own<br /> magazines, and by exchanging with others. Some there are<br /> who call this a form of fraud; it is not known what those<br /> who practise this method of swelling their own profits call it.<br /> *-- * ~ *<br /> g- ºr -ºs.<br /> LITERARY PROPERTY,<br /> I.—CANADIAN COPYRIGHT.<br /> HE following “case” has been drawn up for<br /> the committee by Mr. James Rolt, barrister-<br /> at law —<br /> “It is impossible to deal with the Canadian<br /> Copyright Act of 1889, or to estimate the effect<br /> it will produce if it is allowed to come into force,<br /> without in the first place, shortly referring to the<br /> present position of copyright (a) as an imperial<br /> question, and (b) as an international question.<br /> (I) International copyright.<br /> (i.) The principal countries of Europe, and, in<br /> fact, from a literary point of view, the principal<br /> countries of the world, with the exception of the<br /> United States, have at last, in the Berne Con-<br /> vention, recognised that the rights of an author<br /> in the fruits of his labour should be free from all<br /> conditions and restrictions whatever, except such<br /> as may be enforced by the laws of the country<br /> where it is first produced.<br /> (ii.) The United States unfortunately, owing<br /> to political and trade pressure, have not been<br /> able to allow authors their full and just rights.<br /> Foreign authors can, however, under the Act of<br /> 1891, obtain protection on the terms of printing<br /> their works in the States. The condition is<br /> unquestionably wrong and unfair in principle,<br /> but the recognition by the States of the rights of<br /> foreign authors is, even where subject to such a<br /> condition, of immense importance, especially to<br /> British authors.<br /> Acceptance of the terms imposed does not<br /> imply a recognition of their justice, and should<br /> not under any circumstances be allowed to be<br /> drawn into a precedent. On the other hand, we<br /> should be most careful to avoid doing anything<br /> which might imperil the recognition of the rights<br /> of British authors which has been so hardly won<br /> from the United States of America.<br /> The Canadian Act, if allowed to come into<br /> force, would, it is believed, lead to the with-<br /> drawal from British authors of the United States<br /> Act of 1891.<br /> (2) Imperial copyright.<br /> The foundation of imperial copyright as it at<br /> present exists is to be found in the Act of 1842,<br /> which gives protection throughout the British<br /> dominions to every work which is first published<br /> in the United Kingdom. The Colonies justly<br /> complained that under this Act a work which<br /> was published in a colony had no copyright in<br /> the United Kingdom or in any other colony, but<br /> this grievance has been removed by the Act of<br /> 1886; a work published in a colony now enjoys<br /> precisely the same protection as one first pub-<br /> lished in the United Kingdom,<br /> (3) Canadian copyright as it exists at present.<br /> It was a common complaint of the Colonies,<br /> especially of Canada, that owing to the operation<br /> of the Imperial Copyright Act they were unable<br /> to obtain a sufficient supply of English literature.<br /> In order to remove this ground of complaint the<br /> Foreign Reprints Act was passed, and under<br /> its provisions Canada has been allowed to import<br /> pirated copies of English works on the under-<br /> taking that a duty of 12% per cent. should be<br /> collected by the colony upon all such copies for<br /> the benefit of the author. As a matter of<br /> fact the duty has not been collected, nor has<br /> any serious attempt been made by Canada to<br /> comply with the undertaking.<br /> In 1875 an Act was passed in Canada giving<br /> copyright to foreign authors upon condition of<br /> their republishing in the colony either simul-<br /> taneously with or at any time after publication<br /> elsewhere. This Canadian Act was expressly<br /> authorised by an Act of the Imperial Legislature,<br /> and therefore the Canada printers and publishers<br /> contended that the Imperial Copyright Act was<br /> repealed so far as Canada was concerned, and that<br /> English authors could only obtain copyright in<br /> Canada upon complying with the conditions of<br /> the Canadian Act. This contention was, however,<br /> decisively negatived by the Canadian courts in the<br /> case of “Smiles v. Belford,” and the position<br /> therefore at present is that English authors are<br /> only obliged to republish in Canada if they wish<br /> to avoid the operation of the Foreign Reprints<br /> Act.<br /> (4) Canada’s present proposals.<br /> The Canadian Act, passed by Colonial Legisla-<br /> ture in 1889, but reserved for the sanction of the<br /> Imperial Government, provides that, in order to<br /> obtain copyright in Canada, works must be regis-<br /> tered with the Minister of Agriculture before<br /> <br /> <br /> ## p. (#358) ################################################<br /> <br /> 4. THE AUTHOR,<br /> or simultaneously with their first publication,<br /> wherever such publication takes place, and must<br /> be reprinted and republished in Canada within<br /> one month of their publication elsewhere; and (2)<br /> that if the author does not comply with these<br /> conditions the minister may grant licences for the<br /> publication of the work, the licensees paying a<br /> royalty of Io per cent. for the benefit of the<br /> author. This Act is promoted solely by and in the<br /> interests of the Canadian printers and publishers,<br /> who claim to have the right to make a profit out<br /> of the works of English authors.<br /> The following are some of the reasons why the<br /> Act should not be allowed to come into force :<br /> (I) It is reactionary, and contrary to the prin-<br /> ciples adopted by this country after full con-<br /> sideration in acceding to the Berne Convention.<br /> It would, of course, deprive the Canadian author<br /> of the benefit of that Convention.<br /> (2) It is an attempt to deprive authors of their<br /> recognised rights for the benefit of the Canadian<br /> printers and publishers.<br /> (3) It is (except from the view of the printer<br /> and publisher) entirely unnecessary. The Cana-<br /> dian reader is amply provided for under the<br /> Foreign Reprints Act.<br /> (4) It will involve the repeal, so far as British<br /> authors are concerned, of the United States Copy-<br /> right Act of 1891, and the revival of legalised<br /> piracy in that country.<br /> (5) If it should by any chance accomplish its<br /> object, the action of the Canadians will thus recoil<br /> on their own heads. Canada will again be flooded<br /> by pirated copies printed in the United States,<br /> and the last condition of the Canadian printers<br /> and publishers will be far worse than the first.<br /> The short-sightedness of the Canadian policy is<br /> almost incredible. It will involve the flooding of<br /> English and other markets with cheap reprints, to<br /> the great detriment of publishers who have to pay<br /> a fair price for the work they publish. It has<br /> been proved over and over again that legislation<br /> is powerless to prevent the importation of these<br /> cheap reprints.<br /> (6) Having regard to the entire failure of<br /> Canada to collect the duties under the Foreign<br /> Reprints Act, there is no security whatever that<br /> authors will receive even the Io per cent. royalty<br /> provided by the Act.<br /> A manifesto has been issued by the Canadian<br /> Copyright Association in support of the Act.<br /> The reasons given may be stated as follows:<br /> (1) Canada has the right to legislate fully on<br /> copyright. Canada&#039;s right to legislate on copy-<br /> right is confined to the case of Canadian authors.<br /> She has no right whatever to take away from<br /> British authors their rights under the Imperial<br /> Acts. This was expressly decided by her own<br /> courts in “Smiles v. Belford,” and is the reason<br /> why she is now seeking the advice of the Imperial<br /> Legislature.<br /> (2) Copyright is analogous to patent right, and<br /> the Imperial Government did not disallow the<br /> Canadian Patent Act. But, in the first place,<br /> copyright is not analogous to patent right. Copy-<br /> right is given to the form only, not to the thought<br /> expressed. It does not prevent another author<br /> dealing, with the same subject or idea. Patent<br /> right deprives the second inventor, who has<br /> independently arrived at the same result, of the<br /> profits of his labours. Patent right is a monopoly<br /> in restraint of other original inventions. Copy-<br /> right is not. Secondly, the Canadian Copyright<br /> Act is not in the least on the same lines as the<br /> Canadian Patent Act. The Patent Act allows<br /> twelve months for obtaining a patent in Canada,<br /> after one has been obtained in England, and a<br /> further twelve months for commencing to manu-<br /> facture. This gives time to ascertain whether the<br /> market will warrant the outlay.<br /> (3) That under the present conditions the<br /> Canadian rights of English authors are included<br /> in the sale to United States publishers, to the<br /> injury of the Canadian printers and publishers.<br /> Here we have the true and only reason for the<br /> proposed legislation.<br /> It is based on a fallacy. It is no injustice what-<br /> ever to Canadian printers and publishers that<br /> British authors should be able to choose for them-<br /> selves where and through whom they will print<br /> and publish their works. To be consistent, the<br /> Canadians should demand that no artists should<br /> have protection for their works except such as<br /> used paints and canvas made in Canada. And the<br /> remedy is simple. English authors have to reprint<br /> in the United States. English publishers do not<br /> therefore demand protection or set up imaginary<br /> rights, but meet the difficulty in a business-like<br /> way. They set up branches in New York and<br /> Boston. Let the Canadians do the same.<br /> English authors, other things being equal, would<br /> rather deal with a Canadian publisher than an<br /> American. And let the Canadians join with us<br /> in endeavouring to obtain the removal of the<br /> unjust restrictions imposed by U.S.A. legislation<br /> instead of endeavouring to perpetuate and extend<br /> them.<br /> The real interests of English authors and<br /> Canadian publishers and printers in this matter<br /> are the same, and the latter are pursuing a most<br /> short sighted and suicidal policy.<br /> In any case the English authors submit with<br /> some confidence that the Canadian proposals are<br /> not such as ought to receive the sanction or<br /> assistance of the Imperial Legislature.<br /> May 13, 1895. J. ROLT.”<br /> <br /> <br /> ## p. (#359) ################################################<br /> <br /> THE AUTHOR. s<br /> II.--THE LAW of CoPYRIGHT.<br /> Amongst the Bills proposed to be introduced<br /> during the ensuing session of Parliament is one to<br /> amend the law relating to the protection of copy-<br /> right against the importation of foreign reprints<br /> into this colony, and to the registration of books.<br /> The second clause provides that Act No. 4 of<br /> 1854, and so much of the seventh section of the<br /> Copyright Act, 1873, as entitles the proprietor<br /> of the copyright of any book to demand the<br /> delivery to him of all copies of foreign reprints of<br /> such books unlawfully imported under that Act,<br /> shall be repealed. Clause 3 will suspend the<br /> existing order prohibiting the importation of<br /> foreign reprints of British books, and give force<br /> and effect to every provision of Acts of the<br /> Imperial Parliament having regard to the<br /> prohibition against the importation of foreign<br /> reprints of British books into this colony.<br /> Clause 4 makes it illegal for any person not being<br /> the registered proprietor of the copyright, or some<br /> person authorised by him, to import into the<br /> colony any reprint of any book in which there<br /> shall be registered copyright under the provisions<br /> of the Copyright Act, 1873, as to which such<br /> proprietor shall have given to the Collector of<br /> Customs a notice, in writing, duly declared before<br /> a justice of the peace, that such copyright exists,<br /> such notice also stating when such copyright will<br /> expire. And if any unathorised person shall<br /> import or bring any such reprint into the colony,<br /> or shall knowingly sell, let, publish, or expose for<br /> sale or hire any such reprint, then every such<br /> reprint shall be forfeited, and shall be seized by<br /> any officer of customs, and shall be destroyed or<br /> disposed of in such manner as the Governor<br /> shall direct; and every person so offending, being<br /> duly convicted, shall also for every such offence<br /> forfeit the sum of £Io and double the value of<br /> every copy of such book which he shall so import<br /> into the colony, or shall knowingly sell, let,<br /> publish, or expose for sale or hire, or shall have<br /> in his possession for sale or hire; £5 of such<br /> penalty to the use of the officer of customs, and<br /> the remainder to the proprietor of the copyright.<br /> By clause 5 the proprietor of the copyright is<br /> reserved the right of action for damages for<br /> infringement of the Act. According to the<br /> seventh clause lists of all books in respect to<br /> which copyright shall be subsisting in the colony<br /> must be posted at the customs houses of Colonial<br /> ports.-Cape Times, April 6.<br /> III.-AMERICAN CoPYRIGHT LAw.—IMPORTANT<br /> DECISION.<br /> The Law Department of the United States<br /> gave an important decision yesterday bearing .<br /> upon the law of copyright. It says that the law<br /> in the United States as it at present stands does<br /> not prevent the sale in the States of American<br /> copyright books that have been printed in Canada.<br /> The point is one of such importance to United<br /> States authors that an agitation for their better<br /> protection will be started forthwith.-St. James’s<br /> Gazette, May 4.<br /> IV.-BoITON v. ALDIN AND OTHERs.<br /> (Queen&#039;s Bench Division.—Before Mr. Justice<br /> Grantham and a Common Jury).<br /> This was an action to recover damages for the<br /> infringement of copyright in a photograph by<br /> publishing it in the Sketch and in another publi-<br /> cation, and an injunction was asked for to<br /> restrain future publication. The representatives<br /> of the Illustrated London News, it was said, were<br /> ready to submit to an injunction going against<br /> them, and to pay costs up to a certain point; and<br /> they were therefore discharged from the action.<br /> Mr. Willes Chitty was for the plaintiff, and Mr.<br /> Kemp, Q.C., and Mr. Willis Bund for the remain-<br /> ing defendant.<br /> It was said that Mr. Gambier Bolton, the<br /> plaintiff, was a Fellow of the Zoological Society,<br /> and he had spent a large part of his life at the<br /> Zoological Gardens and in travelling in various<br /> parts of the world taking photographs of a great<br /> number of wild animals in various attitudes. He<br /> had a collection of 30OO of these photographs,<br /> which the authorities of the British Museum had<br /> framed and hung upon their walls for the benefit<br /> of future generations. This was very important,<br /> as many varieties of animals were fast becoming<br /> extinct, and, indeed, the plaintiff had in his<br /> possession photographs of two or three kinds of<br /> animals which were already extinct. The photo-<br /> graphs in the Museum would show to future<br /> generations the animals as they now exist. He<br /> had incurred great expense, and had run very<br /> great personal risk in getting the photographs.<br /> He had been in great danger on two or three<br /> occasions at the Zoological Gardens. Among<br /> others, he took at the Zoological Gardens a photo-<br /> graph of a tigress yawning. The difficulty in that<br /> particular case was that the tigress was asleep,<br /> and he had to wait for hours and hours until she<br /> should wake and yawn, and then there was great<br /> doubt as to whether the yawn could be caught at<br /> a proper attitude. He registered the photograph<br /> under the Copyright Act of 25 and 26 Vict. c. 68,<br /> in June, 1894, and it would be shown that the re-<br /> maining defendant made a sketch of this photo-<br /> graph and sold it for publication. It was pub-<br /> lished in the Sketch, and it was to stop a proceed-<br /> ing of that kind that the present action was<br /> brought. It was most important to the plaintiff<br /> <br /> <br /> ## p. (#360) ################################################<br /> <br /> 6 THE AUTHOR.<br /> that this should be accomplished, because artists<br /> of high standing were in the habit of using his<br /> photographs for studying wild animals in various<br /> positions, and his source of profit would be endan-<br /> gered if people were allowed to publish sketches<br /> of them.<br /> Evidence was given that the tigress in question<br /> had a cancerous mouth, and the tigress in the<br /> sketch had the same complaint. Mr. J. P. Nettle-<br /> ship, artist and animal painter, expressed his<br /> opinion that the published sketch was taken from<br /> the plaintiff’s photograph. It was admitted that<br /> the defendant’s sketch was sold for £3. There<br /> was other evidence that the publication of the<br /> sketch would be likely to seriously affect the sale<br /> of the plaintiff&#039;s photographs.<br /> Mr. Kemp, upon the conclusion of the evidence,<br /> submitted that the plaintiff had made out no<br /> case, and he quoted various decided cases in sup-<br /> port of his contention that what had happened<br /> was no infringement of copyright within the mean-<br /> ing of the Act.<br /> Mr. Justice Grantham had no doubt that the<br /> sketch was taken from the photograph, and that<br /> there was an infringement of copyright. He<br /> therefore gave judgment for the plaintiff for an<br /> injunction, and he awarded him one penalty of<br /> £IO and 34o damages.<br /> Judgment for the<br /> Observer, May 17.<br /> plaintiff with costs.-<br /> W.—MUSICAL COPYRIGHT.<br /> A telegram from America has been received by<br /> the plaintiffs in the musical copyright test case of<br /> Novello v. Ditson to say that the Appellate Court<br /> last Friday upheld the decision of the court below,<br /> in favour of the British publishers. The question<br /> referred to the so-called “manufacturing ” clauses<br /> of the American Copyright Act of 1891 ; or, in<br /> other words, the point raised was whether music,<br /> like books, must be printed from plates engraved<br /> or type-set in the United States in order to secure<br /> copyright at Washington. Both courts have now<br /> decided that music is exempt from the “manu-<br /> facturing ” clauses, and although it would perhaps<br /> be somewhat rash to consider the matter quite<br /> settled until the full text of the judgment is<br /> received a week hence, it nevertheless seems to<br /> have been held that music, unlike books, need not<br /> be reprinted in the United States in order to<br /> secure American copyright. The action was so<br /> far a friendly one in that the facts were agreed to<br /> by both parties; but the case was regularly<br /> fought out, the costs as we understand being<br /> defrayed by the members of the Music Publishers&#039;<br /> Association of England.—Daily News, April 30.<br /> *... a -º<br /> sº- w -<br /> THE PROBLEM OF PUBLISHING,<br /> I&quot; has been remarked by many of our members<br /> that the Society has never put forward a<br /> model agreement, or a series of model agree-<br /> ments. The reasons for not doing so are obvious.<br /> At the outset, while the facts were as yet only<br /> partly known, and the whole question was<br /> obscure, it would have been absurd to attempt a<br /> model agreement. For instance, no one had then<br /> ventured to demand the audit of accounts; no<br /> one had dared claim the right of learning the real<br /> facts as to the administration of his own estate;<br /> no one had even begun to understand that there<br /> is no risk whatever in the publication of a very<br /> large number of writers&#039; works; no one had as yet<br /> begun to understand that there ought to be any<br /> connection between the price paid when a work<br /> was bought and the sum it realised ; and, though<br /> the royalty system had been introduced, no one<br /> had even begun to ask what any royalty offered<br /> meant for the publisher as compared with the<br /> author.<br /> All this is now changed; we know what it<br /> actually costs to produce a book; we know what<br /> the publisher charges the retail bookseller; and<br /> we know what is meant by risk.<br /> The time may seem, therefore, convenient for<br /> some consideration of the problem from the<br /> author&#039;s point of view, with the increased light<br /> thrown upon it since the question first arose, now<br /> ten years ago.<br /> There are three methods of publishing:<br /> I. Those in which the author sells his work for<br /> what it will fetch ; or, which is another way of<br /> putting it, prefers to capitalise his royalties. In<br /> the case of a successful writer this method should<br /> only be adopted with the advice of an agent.<br /> 2. That in which a profit-sharing agreement is<br /> accepted.<br /> 3. That in which a royalty is accepted.<br /> There are sub-divisions in these three classes.<br /> As, for instance, when the profit-sharing agreement<br /> means a half or two-thirds to the author; and, in<br /> the third case, what amount of royalty is offered,<br /> and whether the royalty is deferred or to begin<br /> with the first copy.<br /> We will consider some of the relations of the<br /> publisher to the book he issues.<br /> I. He used to say that he took the risk. We<br /> do not hear so much about the risk of late. As<br /> regards successful writers, that is, two or three<br /> hundred writers at least, there is no risk, no<br /> risk at all. Not the least shadow of risk. The<br /> publisher knows very well beforehand that he is<br /> safe for a certain minimum of copies, and that<br /> this minimum will not only cover his expenditure<br /> but will leave a margin of profit. Outside this<br /> <br /> <br /> ## p. (#361) ################################################<br /> <br /> THE AUTHOR. 7<br /> circle of successful writers there may be, no doubt,<br /> risk; most publishers, however, in such a case<br /> make the author pay for production, or, at least,<br /> guarantee such a number of copies as will repay<br /> themselves, with a margin. The number of books<br /> thus paid for by the author is enormous ; there<br /> are small firms which do nothing else.<br /> 2. When there is risk, what is it P<br /> Of course we are not considering the starting<br /> of a magazine, or the production of great works<br /> like an encyclopædia, a dictionary of natural<br /> biography, or the like ; or a book elaborately and<br /> expensively illustrated; or an edition de lua.e; or<br /> technical books in small demand. The author in<br /> such a case must generally be considered as the<br /> employé of the publisher; he contributes his work;<br /> he is paid for his work; he is not concerned with<br /> the rest. In this place we are talking only of<br /> ordinary books—travel books, history, memoirs,<br /> and biography, essays, poetry, plays, fiction,<br /> theology, sermons, educational books, &amp;c.<br /> The risk is the difference between the number<br /> that the publisher can reckon on being taken by<br /> subscription, and the initial cost. Thus a book<br /> may cost £120 to produce and advertise, which<br /> the publisher will only subscribe at the outset<br /> for £1 12. The risk in that case is therefore 38.<br /> Most people talk as if the risk was the whole cost<br /> of production. On the other hand, those who pay<br /> for producing their own poetry and fiction will do<br /> well to remember that the risk will probably be<br /> represented to them as the whole cost of produc-<br /> tion. In some cases, where the book is worthless<br /> and ought not to be published, the risk really may<br /> be the whole cost of production. A case was<br /> brought to the Society the other day in which an<br /> author had paid for the production. The number<br /> of copies sold was nineteen<br /> 3. The use of money. Accounts are made up,<br /> as a rule, once a year, and payment is made three<br /> months afterwards. This means the use of all the<br /> money received, and since the first run of the book<br /> is by far the most important, the use for eight to<br /> twelve months. In the case of a highly suc-<br /> cessful book, say a 6s. book, of which 40,000<br /> copies go off in the first three months, the pub-<br /> lisher retains in his own hands for nearly a year<br /> the difference between the returns and the cost of<br /> production ; that is, he has the use of all the<br /> author&#039;s royalties, amounting in such a case to<br /> about £3000. This would mean to the author<br /> about £IOO interest, but to the publisher, as<br /> money used in his business, a sum which may be<br /> estimated at from IO to 20 per cent., i.e., from<br /> £300 to £600.<br /> extreme case, and very unusual. Quite so ; but<br /> we must always take an extreme case in order to<br /> test an agreement in publishing, just as in a<br /> WOL. VI.<br /> But, it will be said, this is an<br /> theory of mathematics. Take, however, another<br /> case, in which only 2000 copies are sold. Here the<br /> publisher holds in hand for a year royalties at, say,<br /> one shilling a copy, amounting to £IOO. He<br /> therefore pockets from £10 to £20 in addition to<br /> what the royalty leaves him. This extra profit is,<br /> it will be seen, a serious factor in the accounts of<br /> a book, and one which must be taken into con-<br /> sideration.<br /> 4. The agency for American rights. An author<br /> should be careful to retain these rights. A literary<br /> agent will take care of them for him at IO per<br /> cent. Several publishers’ letters have been<br /> received lately in which, while denouncing<br /> vigorously the extreme wickedness of the literary<br /> agent who takes IO per cent., the writer has<br /> kindly offered to undertake the American rights<br /> at 30 per cent. or 50 per cent.<br /> 5. The cost of production.<br /> It cannot be too strongly impressed upon<br /> authors that cost of production must be taken to<br /> mean actual cost — money actually paid and<br /> nothing else. There are st&#039;ll some people left who<br /> systematically falsify their accounts. Readers<br /> of the Author will remember that a case was<br /> submitted to counsel, whose opinion, published<br /> in tº e Author, was that no judge would<br /> uphold such falsification on any pretence what-<br /> ever. Whether such a case could be brought into<br /> the criminal courts remains to be seen. Perhaps<br /> this may be ascertained by experiment before<br /> long.<br /> Nothing, to repeat, must be charged that is<br /> not actually paid, e.g., not advertisements in a<br /> publisher&#039;s own organ ; not advertisements that<br /> are actually, or practically, exchanges. Discounts,<br /> which are sometimes very heavy, must be entered<br /> in the joint account.<br /> 6. There must be no secret profit of any kind.<br /> 7. The accounts must be open to inspection<br /> 8. The author must be told the whole of the<br /> facts about the production and the sale of his own<br /> book. -<br /> 9. Then comes the question of the “establish-<br /> ment expenses.”<br /> A charge for these expenses is sometimes made<br /> in the agreement. Should it be allowed P<br /> There are three persons connected with every<br /> book.<br /> I. The author, who creates the property. Has<br /> he no “establishment expenses P” One does<br /> not reckon his household expenses; but there are<br /> many other things, He has to pay his agent; his<br /> study is his office; he has probably a shorthand<br /> clerk; he employs people to copy things; he has<br /> to buy many books; he has sometimes to go<br /> many journeys; he has to spend large sums<br /> in acquiring his knowledge—surely these are<br /> C<br /> <br /> <br /> ## p. (#362) ################################################<br /> <br /> 8 THE AUTHOR.<br /> ‘&#039; establishment expenses.” Hitherto, however,<br /> he has not charged them.<br /> 2. There is the bookseller. He has a heavy<br /> rent to pay; he has taxes, assistants, and all the<br /> charges of a shop to defray before he touches<br /> anything at all for himself. These are his “esta-<br /> blishment expenses.” Hitherto he has not asked<br /> them to be allowed first, before his “profit”<br /> begins. The simple man continues to call the<br /> difference between the price he gets and the price<br /> he pays, his profit.<br /> 3. The publisher, alone of the three, demands<br /> a first charge of “establishment expenses.” But<br /> he is careful not to recognise the same claim in<br /> the case of the other two.<br /> Io. Then follows the question of the proportion<br /> that should be paid to the publisher.<br /> What are the services which he renders He<br /> lends his office and his servants; his clerks give<br /> out the book, they also collect the money. The<br /> publisher arranges with printer and binder; he<br /> decides on the amount that may be spent in<br /> advertising the book. As a rule it is per-<br /> fectly simple routine work. What should he<br /> receive P There must be a margin, of course,<br /> over and above the establishment expenses,<br /> for the publisher as well as for the author<br /> and the bookseller. How large should that<br /> margin be P<br /> A publisher has been complaining lately in the<br /> New Budget that all he could get for himself out<br /> of a certain book which had a very wide circulation<br /> was a paltry 6d. a copy. Note that with a very<br /> successful book—it is only a very successful book<br /> for which so large a royalty can be claimed—<br /> namely, 25 per cent.—with a book selling 40,000<br /> copies, the wretched 6d. over which this person<br /> whines means 29 Iood | This 6d. was reckoned<br /> after deducting sevenpence for alleged establish-<br /> ment expenses. Imagine the happiness of an<br /> agent who should be allowed to take £IOOO out<br /> of £5000 for himself, with his office expenses as<br /> well ! The case is highly instructive.<br /> II. The deferred royalty ought not to be, but<br /> too often is a trick of the very worst kind. It seems<br /> perfectly reasonable that the cost of production<br /> should be first defrayed before profits are declared.<br /> Thus, suppose an edition of 3OOO copies is printed<br /> —all that the publisher thinks will be sold.<br /> Suppose also that the publisher is nearly right.<br /> IIe sells 2500 copies. The book has cost him<br /> 216o. He sells it at 6s., i.e., 3s. 6d. It therefore<br /> takes him 920 copies to clear himself: every other<br /> copy is clear gain. What do we think then of<br /> publishers offering a miserable IO per cent. or<br /> 15 per cent. royalty to begin after a thousand<br /> copies? At the latter royalty, for instance, the<br /> author would receive about £70 and the publisher<br /> about £200. This can hardly be called a just<br /> share of profit for managing this little estate.<br /> What, then, ought the publisher to receive P<br /> Obviously, more in proportion for a book of<br /> small circulation than for one of wide circulation.<br /> With these facts before us let us endeavour to<br /> arrive at some kind of conclusion.<br /> A proportion actually based on principles of<br /> equity cannot be expected from the nature of the<br /> case. For who can decide what ought to be the pay-<br /> ment of an agent P One can only state the facts,<br /> and deduce from them some conclusion that will<br /> be accepted by honourable men on both sides.<br /> Sir Frederick Pollock, speaking at a public<br /> meeting of the society when he took over the<br /> chairmanship, said, very strongly, that it was<br /> simply impossible that honourable men should<br /> be unable to arrive at an agreement as to the<br /> rights of author and publisher respectively. It<br /> does seem impossible. Let us therefore make an<br /> attempt to arrive at a solution of the problem.<br /> The above are, roughly speaking, the data. If<br /> the members of the society will consider the<br /> problem, (I) for a book about which there can be<br /> no talk of risk, and (2) for a book which carries<br /> risk there may be found some way out of the<br /> difficulty.<br /> For my own part, I would suggest, as a small<br /> contribution towards clearing up this question,<br /> that we leave off talking about the author&#039;s royalty<br /> and begin to speak and think of the royalty<br /> granted by the author to the publisher. This<br /> will be a practical method of asserting the pro-<br /> prietor&#039;s rights in his own property.<br /> *~~<br /> * --<br /> NOTES FROM PARIS,<br /> \ LPHONSE DAUDET has no intention of<br /> writing his impressions about London.<br /> He emphatically said so this very<br /> morning. He said that he has se-n far too little<br /> of our great city to venture to express an opinion<br /> on it that it would be presumptuous,<br /> and so on. He will probably, however, use his<br /> experiences in some future novel.<br /> His stay on the whole has been a pleasant one,<br /> and he will leave England on Monday next, “not<br /> without regret.” He has been greatly interested<br /> in all he has seen, and has filled note-books with<br /> notes on the same. He says that the characte-<br /> ristic of the English race is pride, that the French<br /> have no such pride, and that it is a good thing.<br /> Our English habit of tea-drinking, on the other<br /> hand, he thinks a detestable thing. “Tea in the<br /> morning,” he says, “tea at noon, tea all day. I<br /> <br /> <br /> ## p. (#363) ################################################<br /> <br /> THE AUTHOR. 9<br /> gave it up in time. It was ruining my nerves.”<br /> He still suffers a great deal. “I feel as if my<br /> legs were being stabbed with knives, and as<br /> though there was a harrow going over my body.”<br /> However, he keeps in good spirits, and may often<br /> be heard singing. His favourite tune just now is<br /> that of “Her Golden Hair,” which, he says, is<br /> the Leit-Motiv of London.<br /> I say that his stay has been a pleasant one “on<br /> the whole”; that is to say, in spite of various<br /> annoyances from which, it would appear, no<br /> celebrity on a visit to London is exempted. The<br /> interviewers, to begin with, who by indiscreet<br /> statements have involved him—as thanks to him<br /> for placing himself at their disposal—in inter-<br /> minable controversies. Then the Leo-Hunters.<br /> Various people—including one or two noble ladies<br /> —treating him like an actor or curiosity on show<br /> —have written—strangers to him a stranger—to<br /> bid him to their houses, without taking the<br /> trouble of showing the preliminary courtesy of<br /> calling on him or of leaving cards. These have<br /> received lessons in savoir vivre which one hopes<br /> may profit them. Anonymous letters, many con-<br /> taining insults, have reached him by every post.<br /> Inventors have asked him to further their inven-<br /> tions, and needy Frenchmen have demanded<br /> funds where with to repatsiate themselves.<br /> I was present the other day at an interview<br /> between M. Daudet and a person who described<br /> himself as a French musician, who wanted a<br /> “few words in private.” Daudet told him to<br /> speak up, and he began speaking offensively<br /> about the English. However, seeing that Daudet<br /> by no means agreed with him in his comments<br /> on “ces Anglais,” he deftly turned his insults<br /> into compliments, and went on to say that he<br /> wanted the money to pay his fare back to Paris.<br /> Daudet said he had no money with him, but asked<br /> Léon, who was present, for his purse. Léon<br /> said that there was very little in it, and Daudet<br /> then told the man that he should have all there<br /> was, and emptied the purse on the table. The<br /> destitute musician went away, radiant, with<br /> about two pounds in his pocket. That was a<br /> week ago. To-day I saw him in the bar of a<br /> public-house in the Strand. He has not left for<br /> Paris yet.<br /> Léon Daudet has just finished correcting the<br /> proofs of his satirical novel “Les Kamcatka,”<br /> which will be published at the beginning of June<br /> by Charpentier, who expressed himself to me at<br /> the Wernissage of the New Salon as very sanguine<br /> about it. He will then start upon a work<br /> of imagination, to be called “Le Voyage de<br /> Shakespeare.” He imagines Shakespeare travel-<br /> ling in the North of Europe collecting the impres-<br /> sions from which “Hamlet” eventually springs.<br /> WOL. VI.<br /> It will be a difficult task, but, if successfully<br /> worked out, should make a very interesting book.<br /> I understand that George Hugo, who has been<br /> staying in London with the Daudets, will illustrate<br /> the work.<br /> I hear that of late many of the most dis-<br /> tinguished men of letters in France—the Daudets,<br /> the Rosnys, Pierre Loti, and others—have placed<br /> the management of their entire English and<br /> American business interests in the hands of Mr.<br /> A. P. Watt.<br /> Crockett writes me a charming letter from<br /> Bellagio. “Since I came to Italy,” he says, “I<br /> have been full of work. My book of ‘Cleg<br /> Relly, Arab of the City,” begins in the Cornhill<br /> for July, and this in addition to ‘The Grey<br /> Man’ for the Graphic, and other things. Then<br /> there have been incidentals to do, short things,<br /> which are neither here nor there, but which take<br /> time.”<br /> I have often thought that for writing a book<br /> for children a child would be one&#039;s best col-<br /> laborator. S. R. Crockett seems to share my<br /> opinion, for he tells me that he is writing a<br /> Christmas book in collaboration with his little<br /> daughter Maisie, the bonniest little child that<br /> God ever sent to earth. “It is a Christmas<br /> book about our travels,” he writes. “It will make<br /> the superior person very sick; but will please all<br /> children, big and little, or so I think. And I<br /> care little what the person who can’t write<br /> himself, but tells you how you must write, will<br /> say of the matter.”<br /> He is exemplary in his remarks on criticism.<br /> “I heard that I had been annihilated in some<br /> review by a gentleman whose name was un-<br /> familiar ; but I did not see the article, which<br /> must, I think, have been blank cartridge, since<br /> nobody was a penny piece the worse.” He also<br /> tells me that he hopes to be back in July,<br /> “when we are going to St. Andrews for the<br /> seaside, to dig in the sand—all of us.”<br /> Amongst the late Leconte de Lisle&#039;s papers<br /> was found a set of notes, in which the great poet<br /> summed up, in a few words devoted to each, his<br /> opinion on his comrades in the Muse. Of Lama -<br /> time he says: “An abundant imagination, an<br /> intelligence endowed rather with a thousand noble<br /> and ambitious desires than with real capacities.<br /> A nature d’élite, an incomplete artist, a great poet<br /> by chance. He has left behind him—as it were<br /> in expiation—a multitude of stillborn beings,<br /> with liquified brains and hearts of stone, the<br /> Wretched family of an illustrious father.” Alfred<br /> de Musset, in Leconte de Lisle&#039;s opinion, was a<br /> “mediocre poet, nil as an artist, a very witty<br /> writer of prose.” Victor Hugo was “the greatest<br /> known lyrical poet. Exaggerated in all things,<br /> C 2<br /> <br /> <br /> ## p. (#364) ################################################<br /> <br /> IO THE AUTHOR.<br /> puerile and yet sublime, with an inexhaustible<br /> reservoir of splendid and incoherent images, a<br /> marvellous dreamer, with extraordinary blanks in<br /> his intellect.”<br /> About Baudelaire he wrote: “Very intelligent<br /> and original, but of limited imagination, lacking<br /> in breadth. His art is too often clumsy. About<br /> Théodore de Banville: “Witty, amiable, good-<br /> natured, a skilful, brilliant, but superficial artist.”<br /> Alfred de Vigny, according to the great Parmas-<br /> sian, was “a great and noble artist, in spite of<br /> frequent laches of expression, who has always<br /> lived in retirement, poor and dignified, faithful<br /> to the end to his one creed—the beautiful.”<br /> Theophile Gautier : “An excellent poet, an<br /> excellent writer. Very unjustly neglected.” As<br /> to Béranger, he is of opinion : “His chansons de<br /> circonstance and his God of a cabaret philanthro-<br /> pique have all had their vogue ; and having all<br /> had their vogue, are now and for evermore dust<br /> and ashes.” One would like now to be able to<br /> have the opinions of Béranger, Theophile Gautier,<br /> Baudelaire, and the others on Leconte de Lisle.<br /> I hear that arrangements have already been<br /> made in London for the publication in serial form<br /> of Mr. Vizetelly&#039;s translation of Emile Zola&#039;s<br /> new novel “Rome.” That is to say, arrangements<br /> in anticipation, as but little of the book has been<br /> written. The story, apart from descriptions of<br /> Rome and Roman life, deals with a tragic love<br /> affair. Zola is working himself to death over it.<br /> I met him at the Wernissage, and asked him why<br /> he was looking so pale. “Le travail,” he said,<br /> “Le travail!” Work ought not to make one pale.<br /> It is absurd if it does.<br /> Why are literary men, who usually lead a<br /> very healthy life, almost invariably “sicklied o&#039;er<br /> with the pale cast of thought &quot; ? De Musset<br /> said their faces gave a reflection of the white<br /> paper which was always before them. But then<br /> the paper is not long white, and I, for my part,<br /> never saw an author turn negro from the reflec-<br /> tion of the written sheet. The doctors might<br /> explain the matter.<br /> I have seen it reported that Madame Sarah<br /> Bernhardt is engaged in writing her memoirs.<br /> This is not true, and the report was doubtless<br /> spread abroad with the kind intention of injuring<br /> a work which has been in preparation for some<br /> time. I saw the lady shortly before her depar-<br /> ture from Paris, and she said that she was in no<br /> wise so engaged. What leisure she enjoys is<br /> spent in her atelier on sculpture, in which art she<br /> has already achieved some success. A model<br /> attends her every day when she is at home in<br /> Paris. I do not know what she does when en<br /> voyage.<br /> I had a grotesque experience at her house in<br /> the Boulevard Pereire on the occasion referred<br /> to. We were talking about a very pathetic and<br /> tragic thing, and the great lady was wringing<br /> her hands and had tears in her eyes. She was<br /> sitting with her back to a cage in which was a<br /> large Senegalese monkey, and the whole time<br /> that she was speaking the ape was grimacing<br /> horribly, sticking out his tongue, blinking his<br /> eyes, and performing various gymnastic feats.<br /> The contrast was a striking one, and, heavy-<br /> hearted as I was, I could not master a laugh—a<br /> laugh of the Sardinian kind.<br /> I suppose that everybody is reading Mr.<br /> Roche’s masterly translation of the “Memoirs<br /> of Barras.” One wants to hear the other side<br /> about Napoleon, and Barras gives it, full and<br /> strong. Of course Barras, by reason of his<br /> jealousy about Josephine, was a prejudiced<br /> witness, but then most of the witnesses on the<br /> other side, from Ménéval downwards, were also<br /> prejudiced. Mr. Charles Roche is a very dis-<br /> tinguished journalist, of world-wide experience,<br /> of whom M. Daudet has expressed a very high<br /> opinion. He is connected by marriage with the<br /> family of Charles Dickens.<br /> May 23. ROBERT H. SHERARD.<br /> Authors’ Club, 3, Whitehall Court.<br /> * * ~ *<br /> a- - --e.<br /> NEW YORK LETTER,<br /> New York, May 18.<br /> ITH increasing experience of the diffi-<br /> W W culty of expression in black and white, I<br /> am coming more and more to be of the<br /> belief that it is absolutely impossible to say any-<br /> thing in print so that it cannot be misunder-<br /> stood. For example, there was a letter in the<br /> Author two or three months ago in which it was<br /> shown that a British series of books is pretty<br /> certain to find an American publisher, while an<br /> American series is very unlikely to find a British<br /> publisher ; and now comes Mr. Andrew Lang in<br /> the Illustrated London News and calls this plain<br /> statement of fact a complaint. Certainly it was<br /> not prompted by any feeling of grievance. It was<br /> prompted by a desire to fulfil the wishes of the<br /> editor of the Author, who requested me to<br /> explain any conditions in the American book<br /> market which the reader in England was not<br /> likely to know.<br /> Now, one of the conditions an English reader is<br /> not likely to suspect is that the American market<br /> is more freely opened to a British book of average<br /> merit than the British market is opened to an<br /> American book of average merit. This is a fact.<br /> To state it is not to make a complaint. -<br /> <br /> <br /> ## p. (#365) ################################################<br /> <br /> THE AUTHOR. I I<br /> To account for it is not easy, although the<br /> reason is probably to be found in the former<br /> colonial dependence of the United States toward<br /> Great Britain; the effect of which was to give the<br /> British a poor opinion of what came from<br /> America, and to give the Americans a high<br /> opinion of what came from England. Many<br /> American authors have noticed that there is still<br /> in the United States a lingering survival of<br /> colonial deference toward British authors.<br /> Curiously enough, this colonialism exists in<br /> America only in regard to literature. For<br /> example, British art, pictorial or plastic, is held<br /> in very low esteem, as the American painters and<br /> sculptors and architects look to France for their<br /> masters. In a recent essay on “Trade Winds in<br /> Literature,” Col. Higginson discussed the subject<br /> with his usual felicity of illustration.<br /> “The sailors of Columbus,” he began, “ in<br /> crossing the Atlantic were not alarmed by oppos-<br /> ing winds, but because the wind blew always in<br /> their favour. It was certain, they held, that such<br /> winds cut off all hope of return. In literature<br /> these same winds have blown ever since; the fame<br /> of an English author spreads rapidly to America,<br /> whereas that of an American, though it may<br /> ultimately reach Europe, goes far more slowly.<br /> Dr. Conan Doyle, who has thus far identified his<br /> name with but a single character in fiction,<br /> comes here and receives 500 dollars per lecture;<br /> whereas if Edgar Poe had gone to England, in<br /> his day, and had offered to lecture, he would<br /> have been fortunate if he had cleared a profit of<br /> 3s. 6d. Americans to whom the very names of<br /> Dr. Doyle and Mr. Christie Murray and Dean<br /> Hole were previously unknown, made haste to<br /> read some of their books in order to attend their<br /> lectures. It is impossible to see in this any-<br /> thing but a survival of that trade wind called<br /> Colonialism.”<br /> And after giving other instances, Col. Higgin-<br /> son declared that “The history of literature is,<br /> far more than we recognise, a series of vibrations<br /> of the pendulum for the two great branches of<br /> the English-speaking race; sometimes the one<br /> takes the lead, sometimes the other. Forty years<br /> ago no book produced in England compared in<br /> world-wide circulation with “Uncle Tom’s<br /> Cabin, and even to this day it is said to be<br /> found in English farmhouses more frequently,<br /> with ‘The Wide, Wide World,’ than any other<br /> book. Twenty years ago the travelling American<br /> rarely met an Englishman who was not familiar<br /> with Mark Twain, or an English woman who was<br /> not eager to hear anything about Longfellow. It<br /> is probable that Emerson had, and still has, on<br /> the minds of thoughtful Englishmen more direct<br /> influence than Carlyle had among Americans.<br /> It is only a few years since American magazines<br /> conquered London, which they still hold; and<br /> since it was generally admitted that Americans<br /> excelled their transatlantic cousins in short<br /> stories. This year there is a swing of the pendu-<br /> lum. In spite of Mr. Howells—who doubtless<br /> prophesied somewhat rashly—there is a reaction<br /> in favour of tales of historical romance, in which<br /> English writers have taken the unquestioned<br /> lead.”<br /> The fact is that England is the older country,<br /> and that, therefore, there is a certain prejudice in<br /> England against an American author ; while<br /> America is the younger country, and therefore<br /> there is a certain prejudice in America in favour<br /> of an English author. That is why an American<br /> publisher was readily found to issue Mr. Lang&#039;s<br /> series of volumes on “English Worthies,”<br /> although that series proved to be a financial<br /> failure, and was abandoned before two of the<br /> most interesting of its books appeared—Mr. Lang&#039;s<br /> own “Izaak Walton’’ and R. L. Stevenson’s<br /> “Wellington,” both of which remained unwritten.<br /> That is why the “Great Educators’” series, which<br /> was planned here in New York by Prof. Nicholas<br /> Murray Butler (who assigned the separate<br /> volumes to writers in America, in England, and<br /> in France), and which is printed here by Charles<br /> Scribner&#039;s Sons (who sell sheets to Mr. Heine-<br /> mann), is published in London with a new title-<br /> page, from which Prof. Butler&#039;s name is omitted<br /> —this new title-page being the only part of the<br /> so-called “Heinemann’s Great Educators’ Series&#039;’<br /> which is printed in England.<br /> It is pleasant to be able to record that books of<br /> solid merit have sales sometimes as large as those<br /> of the mere book of the hour. I was told not<br /> long ago that two thousand sets of the new edition<br /> of Mr. James Bryce&#039;s book on the “American<br /> Commonwealth” were placed with the trade here<br /> in the city of New York alone in a single day.<br /> By the publisher&#039;s advertisements I see that Mr.<br /> John Fiske’s “Discovery of America” is in its<br /> thirteenth thousand, while most of his other<br /> historical and philosophical works have reached<br /> at least a tenth edition.<br /> Macmillan and Co. will commence in May the<br /> publication of their “Miniature Series,” one<br /> number of which will appear each month. The<br /> little books will be bound in paper, and will be<br /> sold at 25 cents each. In shape and in size, and<br /> in neatness of typography, they resemble the<br /> pretty little collection of books by American<br /> authors issued by Mr. David Douglas, of Edin-<br /> burgh. The volumes announced for the coming<br /> year are: “Shakespeare&#039;s England,” by William<br /> Winter; “The Friendship of Nature,” by Mabel<br /> Osgood Wright; “A Trip to England, by Gold-<br /> <br /> <br /> ## p. (#366) ################################################<br /> <br /> I 2 THE AUTHOR.<br /> win Smith; “From a New England Hillside,” by<br /> William Potts; “The Pleasures of Life,” by Sir<br /> John Lubbock; “Old Shrines and Ivy,” by<br /> William Winter; “The Choice of Books,” by<br /> Frederick Harrison; “Gray Days and Gold,”<br /> by William Winter; “The Aims of Literary<br /> Study,” by Hiram Corson, LL.D. ; The Novel—<br /> What It Is,” by F. Marion Crawford; and<br /> “Amiel&#039;s Journal,” translated by Mrs. Humphry<br /> Ward. It is to be noticed that, although the<br /> publishers are a British house, only two of these<br /> eleven books are by residents of England.<br /> In the May number of the Book Buyer, the<br /> little monthly publication issued by Charles<br /> Scribner&#039;s Sons, appears the first instalment of a<br /> Bibliography of First Editions of John Greenleaf<br /> Whittier, compiled by Mr. Edward H. Bierstadt,<br /> of the Grolier Club. No detailed and descriptive<br /> bibliography of this writer has been published here-<br /> tofore, and the compiler has endeavoured to make<br /> his work complete, and as fully descriptive as is<br /> convenient in view of the undertaking. It is the<br /> purpose of the publishers of the Book Buyer in<br /> future to make contributions of literary study,<br /> which they believe will be found convenient<br /> standards of accurate information upon the<br /> subject. The Whittier Bibliography will be<br /> completed in four instalments. The publishers<br /> expect to follow it with bibliographies of James<br /> Russell Lowell, Nathaniel Hawthorn, Robert Louis<br /> Stevenson, and other authors whose works are<br /> of interest to collectors. The May number of the<br /> Book Buyer has for its frontispiece an engraving<br /> on wood of the latest portrait of Mr. Stedman.<br /> The editor of the new American edition of the<br /> Bookman—which now owes very little to its<br /> London namesake save the name—is one of the<br /> Columbia College Professors of Latin ; and<br /> it is therefore perhaps not unfair to credit him<br /> with the following adaptation, called “Titerary<br /> Log-rolling in Ancient Rome’’:—<br /> Hor. Epist. ii., 2, 87.<br /> Frater erat Romae consulti rhetor, ut alter<br /> Alterius sermone meros audiret honores,<br /> Gracchus ut hic illi, foret huic ut Mucius ille,<br /> Qui minus argutos vexat furor iste poétas P<br /> Carmina compono, hic elegos. “Mirabile visu<br /> Caelatumque movem Musis opus !” Adspice primum,<br /> Quanto cum fastu, quanto molimine circum-<br /> Spectemus vacuam Romanis vatibus aedem -<br /> Mox etiam, si forte vacas, sequere et procul audi,<br /> Quid ferat et quare sibi nectat utergue coronam.<br /> Caedimur et totidem plagis consumimus hostem<br /> Lento Samnites ad lumina prima duello.<br /> Discedo Alcaeus puncto illius ; ille meo quis P<br /> Quis nisi Callimachus P Si plus adposcere visus,<br /> Fit Mimnermus et optivo cognomine crescit.<br /> Multa ferout placem genus irritabile vatum,<br /> Cum scribo et supplex populi suffragia capto ;<br /> Idem, finitis studiis et mente recepta,<br /> Obturem patulas impune legentibus aures.<br /> [The same, Englished.]<br /> Two Romans, counsellor and pleader, went<br /> Through life on terms of mutual compliment;<br /> One called the other Gracchus, he supposed<br /> His brother Mucius ; so they praised and prosed.<br /> Our bards to-day the selfsame madness goads:<br /> My friend writes elegies, and I write odes.<br /> O how we puff each other “’Tis divine !<br /> The Muses had a hand in every line.”<br /> Remark our swagger as we pass the dome<br /> Built to receive the future bards of Rome;<br /> Then follow us and see the fame we make,<br /> How each by turn awards and takes the cake.<br /> Like Samnite fencers with elaborate art,<br /> We hit in tierce to be hit back in quart.<br /> I’m dubbed Alcaeus, and retire in force :<br /> And who is he P Callimachus of course !<br /> If this seem feeble, then I bid him rise<br /> Mimmermus, and he swells to twice his size.<br /> Writing myself, I’m tortured to appease<br /> Those wasp-like creatures, our poetic bees;<br /> But when my pen&#039;s laid down, my sense restored,<br /> I rest from boring and from being bored.<br /> The Paris correspondent of the Author voices<br /> M. Marcel Prevost’s protest against an unautho-<br /> rised American translation of his unspeakable<br /> Demi-Vierges.” The translation, it is true, is pub-<br /> lished in America, but the translator, Mr. Arthur<br /> Hornblow, is an Englishman. H. R.<br /> *– ~ --&gt;<br /> sº- ~~<br /> NOTES AND NEWS.<br /> THINK that I may very properly make this<br /> the place for a brief note concerning the<br /> distinction lately conferred upon me. It is,<br /> in fact, a national recognition of this Society and<br /> of its work in advancing the dignity and the inde-<br /> pendence of literature. The Earl of Rosebery in<br /> his letter to me expressly pointed out that this<br /> distinction was offered in recognition of services<br /> which, he kindly says, have been rendered by<br /> me to the dignity of literature. These humble<br /> services could only be effective through such an<br /> organisation as our own. It is, therefore, the<br /> Society itself which has, for the first time, received<br /> recognition.<br /> We have also to chronicle the same distinction<br /> conferred upon our chairman, Sir William Martin<br /> Conway. The fact that he is our chairman, in<br /> addition to the many achievements by which he<br /> has lifted himself above the heads of his fellows,<br /> may be taken as having had its weight.<br /> Last, but not least, is to be noted, as very<br /> suggestive of new departure, the same distinction<br /> bestowed upon a poet—Sir Lewis Morris.<br /> <br /> <br /> ## p. (#367) ################################################<br /> <br /> THE AUTHOR. I3<br /> In the lamented death of Lord Pembroke the<br /> Society has lost one of its strongest friends.<br /> Lord Pembroke was a member of our council; he<br /> attended the meetings of council—which are<br /> few ; he was present at several of our public<br /> meetings; he took the chair for us at one of our<br /> dinners; and he always showed the greatest<br /> interest in our work and aims.<br /> In a recent “interview,” which appeared in the<br /> Daily Chronicle, Mr. Hall Caine gave public<br /> utterance, for the first time, to a suggestion which<br /> has been in the minds of many, and is now being<br /> talked of freely. “The authors,” he said, “who<br /> have the hearts of the public would’—under<br /> certain circumstances—“ have to do as Ruskin<br /> did—create new publishers—or else attempt the<br /> perhaps not impossible task of doing without<br /> publishers altogether, and going direct to the<br /> booksellers.” This is what is whispered or spoken<br /> outright. What is to prevent, if authors choose,<br /> the opening of an office, with a manager paid on<br /> Commission, and not allowed to publish on his<br /> own account P The thing is perfectly plain and<br /> perfectly simple. For my own part I hope—<br /> though my hope is not, I confess, so strong as<br /> formerly—that the old machinery will continue,<br /> but adjusted to altered conditions. All that we<br /> demand as a preliminary to any serious attempt<br /> to settle the question is the recognition of four<br /> points which no honest man can, for very shame,<br /> refuse, viz.: -<br /> I. No secret profits—i.e., no falsifying of<br /> a CCOUnts.<br /> 2. No charge unless of money actually paid—as<br /> no charge for advertisements except those paid<br /> for ; all discounts to be entered in the books, &amp;c.<br /> 3. Open accounts—i.e., an author to see the<br /> account books which concern himself.<br /> 4. A clear understanding of what the agree-<br /> ment leaves to either party in the event of<br /> SUICCéSS.<br /> I have submitted these points to many business<br /> men. Their opinion has uniformly been the same.<br /> If anyone in the City, they say, should dare to<br /> object to any such conditions between himself and<br /> his partner or fellow venturer in any enterprise,<br /> he would be shown the door instantly.<br /> If, therefore, we find that a certain publisher is<br /> constantly vomiting charges of this and of that<br /> against the Society or any of its committee; if<br /> he further learns that this publisher is one of<br /> those who still falsify their accounts, keep the<br /> books dark, and persevere in the bad old ways of<br /> treating the author as their humble dependent, it<br /> is surely our plain and obvious duty at least to<br /> avoid that person; not to give him our books;<br /> and not to admit him to our society. Do we not<br /> owe so much—it is not much—to the cause of<br /> literature, as well as our own self-respect P. This<br /> is one of the points which we ought to cultivate—<br /> the absolute social boycotting of the dishonest<br /> and the tricky publisher.<br /> Here is a case, not of dishonesty, nor of tricki-<br /> ness, but one which exposes the way in which<br /> certain publishers have come to regard their own<br /> rights over a book. The man in question was<br /> interviewed by a certain paper, and he wept over<br /> the wickedness and the greediness of the un-<br /> speakable author. The case of wicked greed was<br /> this. He produced a book by a highly popular,<br /> though, perhaps, unspeakable, author. This<br /> author took a royalty of eighteenpence out of a<br /> nominal six shillings. How did the case stand P<br /> The figures are not to be denied. They are as<br /> follows:<br /> The average price of the book to the trade is<br /> s. 6d.<br /> 3 The cost, with advertising, is less than a shil-<br /> ling—say I I d.<br /> The author receives Is. 6d. for every copy sold.<br /> The publisher receives Is. Id.<br /> This man said that he must first subtract the<br /> “establishment expenses” and, these all deducted,<br /> he was left only sixpence. The “expenses”<br /> therefore amount to about as much—say 31250<br /> for the one book, which had a sale of about<br /> 50,000 copies, and is still going on. Really, when<br /> one looks at the modest exterior of this publisher&#039;s<br /> establishment, one is surprised that one book can<br /> cost so much merely to manage, without counting<br /> the production. Therefore, the publisher having<br /> had no risk whatever—having simply used the<br /> machinery of a small office, and ordered the<br /> advertisements—gets 31250 for himself by his<br /> own showing. And he goes on to say that<br /> things are coming to such a pass—i.e., when<br /> a publisher can make no more than £1250<br /> for himself out of one book—that “the successful<br /> author will find no publisher willing to undertake<br /> his books at the price he demands.” What? Not<br /> for twelve hundred and fifty pounds? Really<br /> Here is self sacrifice But is not this demanding<br /> almost too much of a credulous public P<br /> As for “establishment expenses,” the question<br /> will have to be argued out. For my own part,<br /> I should begin by arguing that the bookseller&#039;s<br /> and the author’s “establishment expenses” must<br /> be allowed as well as the publisher&#039;s. The former,<br /> clearly, has rent and assistants and taxes to pay :<br /> and he has also the very considerable risk of<br /> <br /> <br /> ## p. (#368) ################################################<br /> <br /> 14<br /> THE AUTHOR.<br /> unsold stock. The latter—the author—has at<br /> least the rent of his study, which is his office;<br /> his shorthand clerk; his agent; his typewriting;<br /> the books he must buy ; the journeys he must<br /> take. For instance, I once wrote a little book<br /> on Captain Cook. It was one of Macmillan&#039;s<br /> series, for which T received a hundred guineas.<br /> The price was, I dare say, quite as much as the<br /> book was worth, commercially. I do not complain<br /> at all about the price. I was very glad to write<br /> the book for other reasons apart from the small<br /> cheque. Now, this book took me down to York-<br /> shire twice; and once to a certain cathedral city<br /> to see a certain clergyman, who had information<br /> of a kind previously unpublished, and very useful<br /> for the book. I had to pay for the copying of a<br /> previously unpublished log. I had to get a good<br /> deal of typewriting done. All these were “esta-<br /> blishment expenses,” and they amounted, I<br /> reckoned up, to about £45. But it never entered<br /> my head to charge these expenses, although they<br /> swallowed up nearly half the little cheque. If,<br /> however, the practice of charging for “establish-<br /> ment expenses” is allowed to one of the three<br /> persons named, I shall argue that it must be<br /> allowed to all.<br /> It seems likely that we shall have a good deal<br /> of talk upon these subjects before long, perhaps<br /> with some results. The booksellers, whose case is<br /> really hard, seem waking up. One of them, Mr.<br /> Burleigh, wrote to the Times saying, with great<br /> bitterness, that authors and publishers between<br /> them are killing the bookseller. Sir William<br /> Conway pointed out in an able letter that authors,<br /> at least, are innocent of any such action or<br /> intention. As a matter of fact, the alleged<br /> Squeezing by agents, which has by no means as<br /> yet even reached the old half-profit system, is a<br /> thing of the last half dozen years, and no change<br /> whatever, as Mr. Burleigh must know very well,<br /> has been made of late in the relations of bookseller<br /> and publisher. The booksellers, in fact, if they only<br /> knew it, are the real masters of the situation. They<br /> should combine, but not to run up the prices of<br /> books. They should combine, leaving to each<br /> perfect freedom as to the price at which he would<br /> sell his books.<br /> upon me I will show him certain other objects for<br /> which booksellers could combine with very<br /> excellent results to themselves. But if he calls he<br /> must not begin by calling authors bad names:<br /> first, because I won’t allow it; next, because we<br /> don&#039;t deserve these bad names; and lastly, because<br /> calling names doesn’t advance matters.<br /> At the Authors’ Club on the 27th ult. Rider<br /> Haggard was the guest of the evening. If there<br /> And if Mr. Burleigh will call<br /> was wanted a proof that literary men are not,<br /> as a rule, devoured with jealousy and hatred<br /> towards each other, it was provided in the recep-<br /> tion which he met with at that dinner.<br /> A friend of many readers of this paper is dead.<br /> George Bentley died last week at the age of sixty-<br /> seven. He had long been suffering from asthma,<br /> which drove him every winter to take refuge at<br /> Tenby. Courtly, genial, kindly, he was the model<br /> of the old-fashioned publisher of the most honour-<br /> able kind. Nor was he without literary ability, as<br /> was shown by the occasional papers which he con-<br /> tributed to his own magazine, Temple Bar, of<br /> which he was for nearly thirty years the editor,<br /> These essays he collected into a little volume,<br /> which he published some years ago, with what<br /> success I know not. His magazine continues, I<br /> believe, to enjoy a wide and increasing circulation;<br /> and it has always been remarkable for its excel-<br /> lent novels, written chiefly by ladies, and for its<br /> biographical sketches. At this moment, that of<br /> going to press, it is impossible to do justice to<br /> the memory of George Bentley. In our next<br /> number I hope that one who knew him intimately<br /> will communicate to the Author a longer notice<br /> of this kindliest of publishers.<br /> I hear also at the same moment that James<br /> Dykes Campbell, the author of the “Life of<br /> Coleridge,” is dead. It was his one book, but it<br /> is the life of Coleridge. No other memoir of the<br /> philosopher-poet will be written, unless it is one<br /> based upon Campbell&#039;s. The author was for many<br /> years a partner in the house of Ireland, Fraser, and<br /> Co., in Mauritius; he was always, from boyhood.<br /> attracted towards literary pursuits; and when I<br /> first made his acquaintance, now thirty-two<br /> years ago, was already deeply interested in every-<br /> thing that concerned Coleridge and his friends.<br /> He was fortunate in being able to retire from<br /> business soon after forty with a moderate fortune,<br /> which enabled him to live as he pleased, and to<br /> take up in earnest the literary life without being<br /> shackled by the necessity of providing the daily<br /> bread. To this enviable independence we owe<br /> the “Life of Coleridge&quot;—a book which contains<br /> the research, the travels, and the patient labour<br /> of years. He died at a comparatively early age,<br /> but his life was happy, fortunate, and successful.<br /> To have written that one book, which will remain<br /> long after the perishable work of more popular<br /> writers, to be inseparably associated with the<br /> name of Coleridge, is an achievement which by<br /> itself makes a successful career.<br /> WALTER BESANT.<br /> <br /> <br /> ## p. (#369) ################################################<br /> <br /> THE AUTHOR. 15<br /> ANNUAL DINNER OF THE INCORPORATED<br /> SOCIETY OF AUTHORS,<br /> R. MOBERLY BELL presided last even-<br /> ing (May 23) at the Holborn Restaurant,<br /> over the annual dinner of this Society,<br /> at which about 180 ladies and gentlemen were<br /> present, including the American Ambassador, Sir<br /> F. and Lady Jeune, Mr. A. W. a Beckett, Mrs.<br /> Oscar Beringer, the Rev. Canon Bell, D.D., Mr.<br /> Mackenzie Bell, Mr. C. F. Clifford Borrer, Mr.<br /> J. Theodore Bent, Mrs. Brightwen, Mr. Walter<br /> Besant, Miss Marie Belloc, Mrs. Moberly Bell,<br /> Professor C. A. Buchheim, Mr. F. H. Balfour, yet I am not here to ask absolution, to plead<br /> Mrs. H. C. Black, Dr. Sutherland Black, Mr.<br /> Poulteney Bigelow, Miss Mathilde Blind, Mr.<br /> Henry Blackburn, Lieutenant-Colonel Campbell,<br /> Sir W. T. Charley, Q.C., Mr. Edward Clodd, Mr.<br /> W. Martin Conway, Mrs. Conway, Mr. Moncure<br /> T). Conway, Miss E. R. Chapman, Mr. A. Chatto,<br /> Mr. and Mrs. Horace Cox, Miss Beatrice<br /> Chambers, Mr. and Mrs. Hall Caine, Mr. Ralph<br /> Hall Caine, Major Seton Churchill, the Earl of<br /> Desart, Mrs. Gerard Ford, Miss L. Friswell, Sir<br /> William Fraser, Mr. Harry Furniss, Mr. Edmund<br /> Gosse, Mrs. Aylmer Gowing, Dr. R. Garnett,<br /> Mr. Upcott Gill, Mme. Sarah Grand, Mr.<br /> Anthony Hope Hawkins, Dr. G. Harley, F.R.S.,<br /> Mr. Holman Hunt, Mr. Isaac Henderson, Pre-<br /> bendary Harry Jones, Mr. C. F. Keary, Miss<br /> Florence Marryatt, Lord Monkswell, Mrs. Millie,<br /> Mr. S. B. G. M&#039;Kinney, the Rev. C. H. Middleton-<br /> Wake, Mr. Justin C. MacCartie, Mr. and Mrs.<br /> Henry Norman, Miss E. Pitcairn, Mr. W. H.<br /> Pollock, the President of the Royal College of<br /> Surgeons, the President of the Institute of<br /> Journalists, Lord Reay, Mr. W. Fraser Rae, Mr.<br /> John Rae, Mr. J. Morgan Richards, Mr. J. Ashby<br /> Sterry, Mr. A. M. M. Stedman, Mr. M. H. Spiel-<br /> mann, the Rev. Clementi-Smith, Mr. Douglas<br /> Sladen, Mrs. Burnett Smith, Dr. Burnett Smith,<br /> Miss Shaw, Mr. and Mrs. H. M. Stanley, Miss L.<br /> Shaw, Mr. and Mrs. G. W. Sheldon, Mr. Clement<br /> R. Shorter, Sir Henry Thompson, Mrs. Alec<br /> Tweedie, Mr. Andrew W. Tuer, Mr. G. Herbert<br /> Thring, Mrs. Thring, Miss Grace Toplis, Miss<br /> Tobin, Miss G. Traver, Mr. H. Townsend (New<br /> Pork Herald), Mr. Thomas Townend, Mr. William<br /> Tirebuck, Mr. P. Villars (Figaro), Mrs. Neville<br /> Walford, Mr. C. T. Hagberg Wright, Mr. Walter,<br /> Mr. Sydney F. Walker, Mr. Theodore Watts, and<br /> Mr. Wesselitsky.<br /> The following is a report of the speeches:—<br /> The CHAIRMAN.—Your Excellency, my Lords,<br /> Ladies, and Gentlemen: I ask you to drink<br /> to that toast which needs no words——“The<br /> Queen.”<br /> The CHAIRMAN.—Your Excellency, my Lords,<br /> Ladies, and Gentlemen : Before I propose the<br /> toast of the evening, I think it incumbent on me<br /> to offer some explanation of my apparent pre-<br /> sumption in venturing to address from this chair<br /> a Society of Authors. I am painfully conscious<br /> that I stand, as it were, in the footprints of men<br /> whose shoelatchets I am unworthy to unloose; that<br /> I address authors whose names are “household<br /> words,” and that to most of you to whom I am<br /> utterly unknown, except by name, if by that,<br /> I must seem to have rashly and unnecessarily<br /> placed myself amongst that vast majority of man-<br /> kind who “rush in where angels fear to tread.”<br /> guilty, nor even to urge extenuating circum-<br /> stances, for if on my own merits I have barely<br /> right to ask admission as a simple member of the<br /> Society of Authors—for I hold that the term<br /> “author’’ is not too lightly to be applied to<br /> every scribbler (hear, hear) — if I have still<br /> less the right to speak with the authority which<br /> befits your chairman, yet I ask you to see<br /> in this chair to-night not my own insignificant<br /> personality, but rather the representative, if an<br /> inadequate one, of that great author who, though<br /> anonymous, may yet in some respects claim to<br /> be the greatest author of all time, the Press.<br /> (Hear, hear.) I am deeply sensible that the<br /> Society of Authors, in asking me to take the chair<br /> to-night, have been anxious to pay a graceful and<br /> generous compliment not to myself, not to any<br /> section of the Press, but to the Press as a whole,<br /> to the Press in the widest acceptation of the term,<br /> to that power, great for good and evil—I trust<br /> greater for good than for evil—which owes its<br /> existence to a large extent to the co-operation of<br /> authors, and to which authors themselves some-<br /> times owe a little. (Hear, hear.) I speak of the<br /> Press as an author because I like to think of<br /> every portion in it as forming a part of one<br /> individual whole, animated by one common object,<br /> choosing, it must be, different ways of arriving at<br /> that object, quarrelling, it may be, within Our<br /> body corporate, but yet, if differing in our means,<br /> never differing in our end, and that end I take to<br /> be to voice without fear or favour, without bias<br /> or prejudice, above all without personal motive—<br /> (hear, hear)—that which we honestly believe to<br /> be the public intelligence and the public con-<br /> science. I call the Press a great author because<br /> to ninety-nine hundredths of readers authors are<br /> known not by their individuality, but by their<br /> Works, and I think that even in this distinguished<br /> assembly of authors it will hardly be denied that<br /> the Press, if not the greatest, is, at all events of<br /> all authors, the most prolific and the most<br /> voluminous. (Hear, hear, and laughter.) The<br /> <br /> <br /> ## p. (#370) ################################################<br /> <br /> I6 THE AUTHOR.<br /> most popular amongst you count your readers<br /> by thousands—we count ours by tens and<br /> hundreds of thousands. The most industrious<br /> amongst you can only write—well, ten or a dozen<br /> volumes in the course of a year. (Laughter.)<br /> We publish that every day. (Laughter.) The<br /> most versatile amongst you cannot claim to be a<br /> profound authority on more than three or four<br /> subjects. The author I represent is omniscient.<br /> (Laughter.) . He speaks with profound authority<br /> on every subject and at the very shortest notice.<br /> We write tragedy in our police courts, we write<br /> comedy in our Parliamentary reports, and fiction<br /> in our advertisements (laughter); but the Press,<br /> though it uses the first personal plural, is never<br /> egotistic, and our business to-night is with the<br /> Society of Authors. There are two societies of<br /> authors. To the greater it is given to but few<br /> in a generation, or even in a century to belong;<br /> but the long list of immortals, which begins,<br /> perhaps, with Homer and will not finish, with the<br /> names of your two presidents, the late Lord<br /> Tennyson and Mr. George Meredith. If few can<br /> attain all can aspire, and you and the world will<br /> be better for the aspiration, and I think it fitting<br /> in proposing the toast of what must be an<br /> ephemeral society of authors not to altogether<br /> omit mention of that great immortal Society, of<br /> whose works it was said more than four hundred<br /> years ago “they are the masters who instruct us<br /> without rods or ferrules, without harsh words<br /> or anger, without money or clothes. If you<br /> approach them they are not asleep. If inves-<br /> tigating you interrogate them they conceal<br /> nothing, if you mistake them they never<br /> grumble, if you are foolish they never laugh<br /> at you.” The other society of authors is<br /> Our noble selves. If we cannot illuminate all<br /> time we shed a very brilliant light upon the pre-<br /> sent generation. We are a most virtuous society,<br /> the most virtuous that ever existed. Imake that<br /> assertion on the unimpeachable authority of a<br /> committee of the society itself, for we have been<br /> informed in the public press that no member of<br /> this society is greedy—(laughter)—inordinately<br /> greedy. That remark was not made in reference<br /> to this banquet. It referred to the greed of<br /> pecuniary profit. I do not know that it is a<br /> serious charge to bring against anyone that he<br /> should be greedy of the full remuneration which<br /> he can honestly claim for his work (hear, hear),<br /> but, however that may be, we are devoid of even<br /> that, and therefore I am sure I am justified<br /> in saying that we are a peculiarly virtuous<br /> Society, that we have a strong sense of virtue<br /> —whether we have an equal sense of humour,<br /> that, as one of our Society hath said, is quite<br /> another story (laughter)—but we have great<br /> claims upon your goodwill. We have led a<br /> respectable, useful, and not utterly obscure<br /> existence, for more than eleven years. Originally<br /> started, I believe, for the protection of the<br /> unfledged authors from the wiles of those animals.<br /> —ferae naturae—who prowl in the field of litera-<br /> ture in the guise of the Profession we all honour<br /> and respect, the publisher, you now number<br /> twelve hundred members, all authors more or less.<br /> distinguished, more than half of whom have<br /> sought the assistance of the committee : and<br /> we have another claim—we are co-operative<br /> and self supporting. We do not send round the<br /> hat. (Laughter.) We ask nothing of our visitors,<br /> except to dine with us, and that which is,<br /> perhaps, I admit, already a severe tax, to listen.<br /> to our speeches, but even that is not compulsory.<br /> (Laughter.) I have spoken of your past and<br /> present. Allow me a few words as to your<br /> future. As a member of your Society, as one<br /> whom you have peculiarly honoured to-night, I<br /> naturally wish you a long and prosperous career,<br /> but I fear that my hopes are stronger than my<br /> faith. I am credibly informed that many of you<br /> neglect the latest gospel of labour. Some of you<br /> work more than eight hours a day, many of you<br /> have other professions, and are therefore out-<br /> siders; others, I am told, are so devoted to<br /> literature that they work without exacting a living<br /> wage, and then, worst of all, you do not each of<br /> you insist upon exactly the same payment—<br /> pounds, shillings, and pence, per word, or per<br /> page, or per week. (Laughter). Well, if these<br /> horrible charges are true, it is my duty to tell<br /> you that you are blacklegs, and that you must<br /> expect in a very short time that either the House<br /> of Commons or the London County Council, or<br /> one of those numerous institutions which exist<br /> to restore to us the beneficent socialism of the<br /> sixteenth century, will come down upon you, and<br /> they will, perhaps, establish a ministry or a<br /> department for the protection of the authors, and<br /> thus will destroy the reason of your existence.<br /> The department will collect statistics, they will be<br /> able to say that two, or possibly three, men are<br /> studying at the same time the same period of<br /> history, that possibly half a dozen young ladies<br /> are writing novels, in each case the motif<br /> of which may be the gentle passion, and it would<br /> be very easy for them to point out that this is an<br /> enormous waste of labour, that it could be done<br /> much more cheaply and much more expeditiously<br /> by a ministry of literature, with the help of<br /> assistant secretaries for prose, poetry, and so forth.<br /> This is not utterly irrelevant, because in the past<br /> you have fought the pseudo publisher, otherwise<br /> the pirate. For the future your object is to<br /> combat pseudo philanthropy, otherwise Socialism<br /> <br /> <br /> ## p. (#371) ################################################<br /> <br /> THE AUTHOR. 17<br /> —it is the only way by which you can keep the<br /> Society alive, and by which we in the Society can<br /> exist. I have to associate with this toast the<br /> name of your chairman, Mr. William Martin<br /> Conway, a gentleman who has climbed to dis-<br /> tinction on the Alps, the Apennines, and the<br /> Himalayas; who is equally prominent as an art<br /> lecturer, mountaineer, author, and who now<br /> desires to enter into that singular assembly con-<br /> sisting of commoners who desire to become peers,<br /> and peers who desire to become commoners. I<br /> am peculiarly unable to speak of Mr. Conway;<br /> luckily you know him better than I do. I am<br /> unable, because my opportunities have never led<br /> me much into the study of art, and my inclina-<br /> tions have never led me to mountaineering, except<br /> with the friendly help of a locomotive. But there<br /> is just one point for which Mr. Conway is very<br /> remarkable, and upon which I am able to speak<br /> with the highest authority. Mr. Conway is a man<br /> of a most extraordinarily good judgment, and ex-<br /> traordinary good taste. He has brought the<br /> proofs of that here to-night, and they sit on my<br /> left hand. (Laughter and hear, hear.) Ladies and<br /> gentlemen, I ask you to drink to the toast of the<br /> Incorporated Society of Authors, associated with<br /> the name of Mr. W. M. Conway.<br /> M.R. W. M. ConwAY.—Mr. Chairman, Your<br /> Excellency, My Lords, Ladies, and Gentlemen :<br /> I have often thought that this annual dinner of the<br /> Society of Authors might be made a very much<br /> more amusing function than it is. We un-<br /> fortunately meet only to dine. We don’t meet, I<br /> am thankful to say, to collect money, neither do<br /> we meet to sell the products of our labour. I<br /> have sometimes thought that if on these occasions<br /> every member of the Society of Authors attended<br /> with his manuscripts, and if we invited the<br /> publishers of London to dine with us, and if,<br /> after duly baptising the whole show in champagne,<br /> we held an auction, that the frolic would be some-<br /> thing worth attending. (Laughter.) However, you<br /> have drunk the health of the Society of Authors,<br /> and it is for me to attempt to justify that some-<br /> what rash act. Sir, the Society of Authors is at<br /> all events an active society—when it has nothing<br /> else to do it falls upon Mr. Gosse (laughter), we<br /> fill up odd moments by quarrelling amongst our-<br /> selves, and when we get a chance we fall upon a<br /> common enemy. Squabbling is said to be a sign<br /> of life, and I am sure that the Authors’ Society,<br /> throughout the whole course of its not too long<br /> existence, has been engaged in one successive<br /> series of squabbles. It was once my pleasure—at<br /> least, my duty—to be the secretary, or, rather, to<br /> run, a thing called the Art Congress for the three<br /> years of its chequered existence. During that<br /> time I attained a somewhat minute and peculiar<br /> dinner.<br /> acquaintance with the attitude of the artistic mind<br /> in the face of business. Since I have been intimately<br /> associated with the Society of Authors I have had<br /> proofs—derived from this former experience—I<br /> have had proofs that the author is really an artist.<br /> I find that in many matters of business the<br /> author approaches the situation with that kind<br /> of attitude which is distinctly characteristic of<br /> the artist who abuses everyone all round, but more<br /> especially his own attorney (laughter), and we<br /> who have sat for some time on the committee of<br /> this Society are now thoroughly accustomed to<br /> the artistic attitude of authors—we have become<br /> so accustomed to it that unless we are abused by<br /> the members we don’t consider that we can be<br /> possibly doing our duty. (Taughter.) There is<br /> my friend Mr. Besant, who at intervals boils with<br /> indignation. I say that this boiling with indig-<br /> nation on the part of our founder, Mr. Besant,<br /> is the great source and origin, and, I hold, the<br /> moving force, that has created and maintained<br /> this Society. (Applause and laughter.) Unfor-<br /> tunately for myself, I am unable so to boil when<br /> I hear that an author has entered into a ridiculous<br /> agreement. Mr. Besant does the boiling with<br /> indignation, and it is for me to advise him to<br /> carry out his contract. It seems to me that the<br /> first thing that an author who has played the<br /> perfect fool in the matter of the making of his<br /> agreement has to do is to suffer the penalty of<br /> his folly for the time being, and to afterwards go<br /> to the Society of Authors to guard him in the future<br /> against similar blunders. (Hear, hear.) Another<br /> member of the Society wrote to us the other day<br /> and said he would like to become a member of the<br /> Society, not because he intended to make any use<br /> of it, but because he wanted to have a guinea&#039;s<br /> worth of fighting for his money. We elected that<br /> gentleman immediately (laughter), being, I hope, a<br /> sporting committee, and we have since been sitting<br /> around waiting for the fray. (Laughter.) Un-<br /> fortunately the only sport we have been able to<br /> have out of him has been a letter communicated<br /> to the public press in which he abused us for<br /> dining here to-night. (Loud laughter.) Well,<br /> we have heard something of late about book-<br /> sellers, and I had a sort of idea of talking about<br /> them myself, but it occurred to me that it would<br /> lead to a disquisition on political economy which<br /> 1 feared would be rather a heavy morsel after<br /> So we will pass by the booksellers, and<br /> come to our other friends the publishers. Gentle-<br /> men, our relations with publishers—the relations,<br /> that is to say, with the main body of authors with<br /> whom we come in contact—appear at the present<br /> time to be highly satisfactory, for the number of<br /> disputes—most of them small ones — that has<br /> been brought to our notice of late has been ex-<br /> <br /> <br /> ## p. (#372) ################################################<br /> <br /> I 8 THE AUTHOR.<br /> tremely low, and I conclude that, through the<br /> medium of the Society of Authors, publishers<br /> and authors have come to understand each other<br /> a little better than before, and this common<br /> understanding has been brought about by the<br /> common recognition of each side of its own folly<br /> and its own interest, and I believe that hereafter<br /> we shall find that the Society, far from being a<br /> necessarily militant body, will be in friendly<br /> contact with that body of men who are really its<br /> partners, and should be its allies. I believe that<br /> in future we shall find that we are attaining<br /> more and more to a common understanding, and<br /> are able better and better to work to our common<br /> end. But at the present time we are united —<br /> we and the publishers are assuredly united in<br /> One common cause, for we are threatened by a<br /> common danger. I allude, of course, to the ques-<br /> tion of the Canadian copyright. (Hear, hear.)<br /> There, gentlemen, is a question which has arisen<br /> recently in an acute form, and which, if there had<br /> not been a Society of Authors to take it up, would<br /> assuredly have been settled in a manner that would<br /> have done the greatest possible injury to the<br /> interests of British authors. I trust that, owing<br /> to the vigorous ini iative that we have taken in<br /> this matter, no injurious decision will be come to;<br /> but there, at all events, is a matter which threatens<br /> authors and publishers alike, and in which both<br /> are equally and keenly interested. (Hear, hear.)<br /> Well, gentlemen, I think I have said enough, and<br /> more than enough, to justify in having drunk to<br /> the health of yourselves—to the Society of Authors<br /> —and I trust that in the coming year, until we<br /> meet here again, we shall go on along the lines<br /> we have adopted, and shall advance in the pro-<br /> motion of those just interests which the Society<br /> exists to promote. (Loud applause.)<br /> The RIGHT Hon. SIR FRANCIs H. JEUNE, P.C.,<br /> in proposing the toast of “Literature,” said—<br /> Mr. Moberly Bell, Your Excellency, My Lords,<br /> Ladies, and Gentlemen: I have the honour to<br /> propose to you the toast of “Literature,” asso-<br /> ciated with the name of Mr. Anthony Hope<br /> Hawkins. (Here a band, playing in a neigh-<br /> bouring room, opportunely interrupted with a<br /> startling burst of music, which, to the merriment<br /> of the company, seemed specially designed to<br /> pay honour to the toast and to the name of<br /> Mr. Anthony Hope Hawkins.) I could hardly<br /> imagine, sir, a more inspiriting incident, under<br /> what must be admitted to be circumstances of<br /> some difficulty, then the sound of that distant,<br /> but, I hope, not distressing band. (Laughter.)<br /> But I admit I do acquire some comfort and some<br /> consolation in entering upon the task which has<br /> devolved upon me, for I presume that I have<br /> been selected to propose this toast because I never<br /> wrote a book, and because my contributions to<br /> ephemeral literature have been so few as to be a<br /> negligable quantity, and I am quite content to be<br /> ranked in that large class of meritorious persons<br /> whose only business with newspapers is to read<br /> them, and whose only additional duty with regard<br /> to books is to buy them. (Laughter.) But, sir,<br /> I think it is not unfitting that a man whose life<br /> has been spent in the pursuit of a laborious pro-<br /> fession should make his acknowledgments to the<br /> charms of literature, because it is he, and persons<br /> such as he, who owe to literature the happiest<br /> relaxation of their lives, with an occupation that<br /> never wearies, and with pleasures that never pall.<br /> (Applause.) But, Sir, a prudent lawyer never<br /> makes an admission except for the purpose of<br /> avoiding an inconvenient inquiry, and I am not<br /> prepared on this occasion, especially after the<br /> speech of the chairman, to admit a complete dis-<br /> severence between literature and law. It is quite<br /> true, sir, that in those legal treatises in which we<br /> delight, or are supposed to delight, you cannot<br /> find those charms of literature other than such as<br /> may be obtained by clearness of style and lucidity<br /> of arrangement. It was not, Sir, always so. We<br /> have, I am afraid, in later days changed for the<br /> worse. Old writers allowed themselves greater<br /> license. Lord Coke, in commenting on a mis-<br /> taken and earlier author, after his observations<br /> proceeded to a sort of obituary notice of it, and<br /> said: “He lived without love, and died without<br /> pity, save that of those who thought the pity was<br /> that he had lived so long.” (Loud laughter.)<br /> Sir, I regret to say characterise the personal<br /> qualifications of our predecessors, however<br /> erroneous we may think their notions to have<br /> been. But, Sir, the connection between Litera-<br /> ture and Law is, I venture to think, a close one.<br /> I don’t claim that many have found their place on<br /> the roll of fame, and I do not forget that England<br /> contributed Lord Bacon, or that Sir Walter Scott<br /> hailed at once from the land of lawyers and the<br /> land of Scotland, but I admit that the roll of fame<br /> is short. But when we come to that branch of<br /> literature which your chairman represents, there,<br /> I venture to say, a wholly different position may<br /> be taken up. Your chairman has told you that<br /> every day some twelve volumes—I think it was—<br /> of ephemeral literature are produced. Well, Sir,<br /> I think that we lawyers contribute our full share<br /> to that. I believe that public speakers attain a<br /> length in the columns of the daily papers propor-<br /> tionate to their eminence—that the first-class man<br /> is allowed to say all he has said at full length,<br /> that the second class are those who are allowed to<br /> say a part of what they have said, and that the<br /> third class consists of those who have to content<br /> themselves with reading what they ought to have<br /> <br /> <br /> ## p. (#373) ################################################<br /> <br /> THE AUTHOR.<br /> IQ<br /> said. (Doud laughter.) Now, Sir, I think that<br /> we may claim the first of those places. I<br /> recollect a short time ago—well, a time ago—<br /> reading in the same day a judgment by a<br /> certain Lord Chancellor—whose name I decline<br /> to mention (laughter)—and a political speech<br /> by the same authority. The judgment, Sir,<br /> occupied two columns and a half — the<br /> speech occupied something less than half a<br /> column. I do not know whether the political<br /> and judicial utterances were of value in direct<br /> relation to their length, but I think it must be<br /> admitted that in his legal capacity the Chancellor<br /> made a larger contribution to journalism. than<br /> ever he could or did as a politician. (Laughter.)<br /> Well, your chairman has reminded you that there<br /> is another side where we may contribute largely,<br /> at least to daily literature. He has told you that<br /> the Courts produce at once tragedies and come-<br /> dies, that literature from the time of Shakespeare<br /> down to those of Molière, Trollope, and Dickens<br /> have been always ready to produce these scenes,<br /> and I am sorry to say they are chiefly charac-<br /> terised by a sense of humour rather at the ex-<br /> pense of the lawyers, or by some extremely bad<br /> law. (Laughter.) But, Sir, I am not altogether<br /> surprised, or at all surprised, that literature finds<br /> a field for its exertions in that direction. A trial<br /> combines many elements of interest. There is<br /> the continual display of gladiatorial skill. There<br /> is the constant revelation of incident, and there is<br /> the glorious uncertainty of result. A famous<br /> trial seems to combine the various attractions of<br /> an interesting cricket match with those of a suc-<br /> cessful drama. (Laughter.) I think, Sir, for<br /> these contributions journalism ought to be thank-<br /> ful. It may well be that there are some parts of<br /> these contributions which could be better spared,<br /> and I think this is no unfitting occasion,<br /> speaking as I do to an audience composed<br /> both of men and women, and to an audience<br /> highly capable of judging on such a subject, to<br /> express a respect for those journals which,<br /> exercising their independent judgment, have<br /> thought it right to refuse publication to matter<br /> which, in their opinion, ought to be suppressed.<br /> (Applause.) But, Sir, I am quite conscious that<br /> those journals who practise that abnegation do<br /> so at considerable loss to themselves, and they<br /> deserve respect because it may well be that they<br /> give advantages to less scrupulous rivals. I<br /> should be glad, Sir, if it were not so. I think it<br /> impossible that the proceedings in Courts of<br /> Justice should be held otherwise than in public,<br /> and from personal experience I have no reason<br /> whatever to complain of the proceedings of the<br /> public Press, but I am aware that there are some<br /> papers who cannot put a sufficient check upon<br /> themselves, and I confess I should be glad if it<br /> were possible to provide that some authority,<br /> responsible and cognisant in the matter, should<br /> be allowed to forbid the publication of that which<br /> ought not to be published. I think that would be<br /> for the interests of morality, and I believe it would<br /> be for the interests of journalism, because I think<br /> it would tend to raise the lower class of journals,<br /> perhaps against their will, but still to raise them<br /> to the standard of the highest (applause). Sir,<br /> I approach the task of saying something about<br /> literature—and it has fallen to my lot to do it<br /> more than once—with a somewhat uneasy feeling<br /> in one respect, and the presence of your chairman<br /> brings about that feeling. I was once in the<br /> chairman’s presence, and the presence of the<br /> American Minister reminds me of it, and I<br /> was once rash enough to say that journalism<br /> was “literature in a hurry,” and after I<br /> had said it I received so many remonstrances and<br /> read so much criticism in the papers that I<br /> almost began to think that my poor little obser-<br /> vation was original. (Laughter.) Mr. George<br /> Augustus Sala told me it was not true that all<br /> newspapers were produced in the small hours<br /> of the morning. An authority, Mr. Arthur<br /> Walter, in a judicious and even judicial spirit,<br /> said that a part of literature was so produced<br /> and part was not ; but, Sir, our chairman this<br /> evening has reinforced me because he has told me<br /> that it is the great merit of the Press to produce<br /> its matter at the smallest possible notice. There-<br /> fore I decline the white sheet, I am not prepared<br /> to do penance for the observation, and I still<br /> venture to maintain that journalism is literature<br /> in a hurry. (Taughter.) You attend the theatres<br /> on the first night, and you see the busy pencils<br /> all around you, and you read the criticism next<br /> morning. It is brilliant criticism, but is it not<br /> brilliant criticism in a hurry P (Laughter.) There<br /> is a story told of Mr. Delane, coming down late<br /> at night to his club full of the account he had<br /> heard of the illness of Mr. Disraeli. It was said<br /> that Mr. Disraeli was seriously ill—even danger-<br /> ously ill—and Mr. Delane&#039;s terror and regret<br /> were extreme. He said to everyone “Have you<br /> heard the terrible news, the awful news P” His<br /> friends heard him somewhat surprised, and<br /> someone said “No doubt it is very sad and<br /> very sudden, but I never knew you had such an<br /> admiration for Mr. Disraeli,” and Mr. Delane<br /> said “Oh no, it is not that at all, but here<br /> it is ten o’clock at night and I have not<br /> got a word written about him. (Laughter.)<br /> Now, sir, I daresay that if Mr. Disraeli had then<br /> died there would, after all, have appeared a<br /> brilliant and complete biography of him, but<br /> would it not have been biography in a hurry P<br /> <br /> <br /> ## p. (#374) ################################################<br /> <br /> 2O THE AUTHOR.<br /> Sir, I have the greatest possible respect for the<br /> leading articles of the Times; I think they are<br /> very full of good sense, of profundity and wisdom—<br /> and I nearly always agree with them. (Laughter.)<br /> But, sir, I have never heard that it was given to<br /> many men in the world, to quote Mr. Russell<br /> Lowell, “lifelong convictions to extemporise,” and<br /> when I have read these articles I have sometimes<br /> thought it is wisdom in a hurry. Well, sir, I<br /> hope I have justified that phrase.<br /> it is—as I trust it is not—disparaging to<br /> journalism, it is certainly not disparaging to<br /> literature. (Applause). I say all honour ought<br /> to be paid to the laborious student by whom our<br /> great works have, with toil and labour, been pro-<br /> duced; and, sir, what is more, the whole history<br /> of the literature of this country is the history of<br /> a literature that has not been in a hurry. The<br /> remarkable feature about it is that century after<br /> century the tree has put forth flowers ever new,<br /> although of varied beauty, and has produced fruits<br /> ever new, although of varied value. Well, sir, I<br /> think that is a great comfort to which we look. I<br /> am sorry to hear from Mr. Conway that authors<br /> have their domestic and external difficulties. They<br /> apparently have difficulties both with their home<br /> and foreign policy. (Laughter.) They apparently<br /> have difficulties with the publisher and with the<br /> |bookseller; and the trio of publishers, booksellers,<br /> and authors form a combination which does not<br /> altogether appear to be a happy family. I can-<br /> not, Sir, offer them the consolation of a lawyer,<br /> because I am afraid that the instinct of a lawyer<br /> is that where three people are quarrelling there<br /> must be something very substantial to be quarrel-<br /> ling about.<br /> consolation of the distressed agriculturist. The<br /> relations between them appear to be very much<br /> the same as those of landlord and farmer and the<br /> labourer, and I think it is true that whatever else<br /> has happened in these unfortunate difficulties<br /> which have arisen in that sphere of life, whatever<br /> else has happened it is not the labourer who has<br /> suffered. Sir, there may be other difficulties and<br /> dangers which beset the labourer. It may be<br /> that at the present time some clouds rest upon<br /> his prospects. It may be that writers such as<br /> Mr. Max Nordau, in pointing out degeneracy,<br /> apart from matters of great exaggeration, put<br /> their fingers upon some points of truth; it may<br /> be, sir, that in an age which apparently is unable<br /> to elect a Poet Laureate, that there is something<br /> wrong with the poets or with the age ; but if<br /> some of these matters tend to a foreboding I think<br /> we may look at the past of our literature, and<br /> take comfort in the fact that literature is the<br /> best antidote to pessimism ; and if it be true that<br /> literature, high, and pure, and national, filled the<br /> At any rate, if<br /> Perhaps, sir, I may offer them the<br /> “spacious times of great Elizabeth,” it is equally<br /> true that the sounds of that literature have often<br /> echoed since and echo still. Sir, I have great<br /> pleasure in connecting with this toast the name<br /> of my friend, Mr. Anthony Hope Hawkins. I<br /> had almost said my relative, because he is, I am<br /> glad to think, connected with my legal brother,<br /> the brilliant and distinguished Sir Henry<br /> Hawkins. At any rate, I am sure that in Mr.<br /> Anthony Hope Hawkins, not even Max Nordau<br /> himself, in his most scientific moments, could<br /> discover the stigma of degeneracy. It was no<br /> decadent, I think, that produced the weird and<br /> startling fiction of the “Prisoner of Zenda,” or<br /> the raillery of the “Dolly Dialogues,” or the<br /> easy sarcasm and startling incident of his last<br /> effort “The Man of Mark.” Mr. Hawkins has,<br /> I hope, himself made a mark upon the literature<br /> of the day, and I hope that he will gain for<br /> himself a notable place in the literature of the<br /> country. (Applause.)<br /> r. ANTHONY HoPE HAWKINs, replying to<br /> the toast, said—Mr. Chairman, Sir Francis Jeune,<br /> Your Excellency, My Lords, Ladies, and Gentle-<br /> men : I regret for some reasons that one who<br /> pursues the branch of literature that I do should<br /> have been called upon to reply to this toast.<br /> Almost the first remark that I heard when I<br /> came into this room was the question of why I<br /> should be selected to reply to this toast. Gentle-<br /> men, I am unable to answer the question, but I<br /> am, after all, glad that it is so, because it has given<br /> me the opportunity and the pleasure of listening<br /> to the kindly and generous words which Sir<br /> Francis Jeune has spoken of me, but I was afraid<br /> that it would foster that vanity to which novelists,<br /> I understand, are prone. Gentlemen, that is an<br /> unjust charge. We are very conscious of one<br /> another&#039;s defects. (Laughter.) And if you were<br /> aware of the dispassionate consideration, in a very<br /> limited amount of time, we bring to bear upon<br /> One another’s writings, you would not consider<br /> that we unduly exalted our branch of literature.<br /> The fact is that we authors are somewhat in the<br /> position of ladies, who, believing themselves sus-<br /> pected of beauty, take refuge in an exaggerated<br /> appreciation of the charms of others, to which<br /> they have not paid much attention. (Laughter.)<br /> Mr. Conway, as became his position, did not<br /> speak in terms of extravagant eulogy of the<br /> Organisation of which he is the active chief, but<br /> we who occupy less responsible positions may<br /> speak more freely of what we consider our merits<br /> and our mission. For my part, I look forward<br /> to a great mission for this Society, and I am<br /> prepared to endure as many jokes as the wit<br /> of our opponents may suggest for the price<br /> of taking it seriously. Our primary object is to<br /> <br /> <br /> ## p. (#375) ################################################<br /> <br /> THE AUTHOR. 2 I<br /> abolish Grub-street. (Hear, hear.) But I think<br /> there is another, and I think that the committee<br /> of this Society did well to think that there<br /> was another—and that is that in time, and<br /> as this Society justifies itself in the eyes of the<br /> world, it may establish not onlv a Court of<br /> Appeal for distressed authors, but also a court<br /> of honour for its own members. (Hear, hear.)<br /> If we look round at the other professions—I don’t<br /> need to say “learned professions,” for it needs<br /> no learning to write books (laughter)—you will<br /> See corporate bodies existing to which members<br /> of the profession willingly submit their disputes,<br /> and by whose decrees they willingly allow their<br /> conduct to be governed. Gentlemen, I believe<br /> that that reputation and position is not beyond<br /> the prospects of this Society. (Applause.) I<br /> think that the Society will live above criticism,<br /> and we shall see it come to occupy that position<br /> to which, in my opinion, it has a right to aspire.<br /> We don’t want this Society to be merely a society<br /> for the prevention of cruelty to children<br /> (laughter)—that is a very laudable and excellent<br /> function, and a function with which this Society<br /> is employed from day to day, but we also wish it to<br /> be a Society to which its own members and our<br /> friends the enemy—the publisher—can come with<br /> confidence, sure that a dispassionate judgment<br /> will be taken, and sure that the Society will be as<br /> Severe towards the faults of its own members as<br /> upon those with whom members come into con-<br /> tact in the course of business. (Hear, hear).<br /> I think there is one more word that I ought<br /> to say before I sit down, for I should not be<br /> doing my duty, having the honour to reply<br /> for literature, if I did not say one word<br /> about the great loss which literature has suffered<br /> in the year gone by in the death of Mr. Robert<br /> Louis Stevenson. The romantic school of English<br /> fiction was deprived by his death of its acknow-<br /> ledged king and chief, and a personality was lost<br /> of rare thought and distinction and sweetness.<br /> It is not possible for most of us—I may say<br /> safely without offence that it is not possible for<br /> any of us—to hope to emulate Mr. Stevenson’s<br /> achievements, or claim to share his gifts. (Hear,<br /> hear.) . But we are many of us able to<br /> remember the kindness which he invariably<br /> showed to younger and less distinguished<br /> Writers, and we are all able to learn some-<br /> thing from the example of his high ideal, and<br /> the untiring, unresting energy with which he<br /> pursued it. So, sir, although we cannot<br /> stand on his high level, we may feast our<br /> eyes upon the high mountains that it is not<br /> for our feet to tread, and, with a thousand un-<br /> satisfied aspirations, rest at least in the tranquility<br /> of the satisfaction of our own little piece of .<br /> work done as well as we could do it. (Loud<br /> applause.)<br /> Mr. WALTER BESANT then proposed the toast<br /> of “The Visitors” in the following terms: Mr.<br /> Chairman, your Excellency, my Lords, ladies<br /> and Gentlemen,_I have to propose the toast of<br /> “The Visitors.” I am sure that at this late hour<br /> of the evening you will not think it shows any<br /> disrespect to our visitors if I give you this toast in<br /> a very few words. We have always been particu-<br /> larly happy and fortunate at all our dinners in the<br /> visitors who have done us the honour to attend,<br /> and on this occasion I think we are more fortunate<br /> than usual. For, first of all, we have with us this<br /> evening the American Ambassador. Wherever<br /> English authors are gathered together, on the<br /> rare occasions that they do assemble, it is only fit<br /> and right that America should be represented in<br /> the most adequate form possible, because those of<br /> us here, or in America, who are able to contribute<br /> anything towards literature at all, are doing it<br /> not only for America, but for both countries, and<br /> for all that vast world which comprises the<br /> English-speaking race. We have next with us the<br /> President of the Institute of Journalists, and I am<br /> sure that no one is more fittingly here, because<br /> literature and journalism so closely overlap that<br /> no one knows where one begins and the other<br /> ends. We have also with us the President of the<br /> Royal College of Surgeons, whom I take to repre-<br /> sent the literature of surgery. Then we have<br /> next with us representatives of the chief London<br /> papers, and some of the provincial ones, and we<br /> also have representatives from France, Australia,<br /> America, Italy, and from Russia, all gathered<br /> together as Our guests on this occasion. Law is<br /> represented not only by our own members who<br /> are lawyers, of whom we have many, but also by<br /> one of our judges, to whom you have already<br /> had the pleasure of listening. India is repre-<br /> sented by one who has administered a province,<br /> and lastly Africa is represented by a most<br /> dist nguished traveller—perhaps the most dis-<br /> tinguished traveller of any time or any country.<br /> I have therefore the pleasure and the honour, in<br /> the name of the Society, to we&#039;come the visitors<br /> On this occasion, and I ask you to do honour to<br /> the toast, with which I couple the name of the<br /> American Ambassador. (Applause.)<br /> His Excellency the AMERICAN AMBAssADoR,<br /> replying to the toast, said: Mr. Chairman, My<br /> Lords, Ladies and Gentlemen, I am deeply sensi-<br /> tive to the cordiality of your welcome. I am asked<br /> to respond for the guests of the English authors.<br /> The paradise of politicians is supposed to lie in a<br /> majority, and were Ia politician I should find my-<br /> self in the largest majority that the most hopeful<br /> politician could expect, for if I speak for the<br /> <br /> <br /> ## p. (#376) ################################################<br /> <br /> 22 THE AUTHOR.<br /> guests of the authors it is not for the little repre-<br /> sentative handful that have gathered round this<br /> charming board to-night, but it is for the count-<br /> less army of the vast majority of civilised men and<br /> women who have fed so well and so long at the<br /> tables of the authors, and have enjoyed the fine<br /> fruits of the authors’ wit and fancy. In order to<br /> enlarge the scope of Literature, the phrase was<br /> invented, “The Republic of Letters,” and yet I<br /> am inclined to take a leaf from the book of one<br /> of my countrymen, and let the American sailor,<br /> Captain Mahan (applause) show the superiority<br /> of sea power over land power, to call to your mind<br /> how Nelson, with the sea power of England, made<br /> the safety of England possible under Wellington<br /> at Waterloo. It is therefore upon the high seas<br /> of authorship and literature that I would ask you<br /> to embark :<br /> Far as the breeze can bear the ocean’s foam,<br /> Behold your empire, and survey your home.<br /> I don’t think that the land can hold the mind<br /> of man—it must embark upon the sea, and it<br /> must be wafted as the gales may blow—freely,<br /> unhesitatingly. Wherever genius shall direct the<br /> course, there the human mind must follow it.<br /> And so authors must become seafaring folk—<br /> they have been so, they must be so, and, coming<br /> from a country kindred in literature and in feeling<br /> to this—(loud applause)—I feel that literature<br /> forms the strongest bond between the two nations.<br /> (Applause.) You are free to freight your ship<br /> with what you will—with learning, with poesy,<br /> with prose, with wit, with fancy, with philosophy<br /> —you may freight your ship with what you will,<br /> and you may choose your course. You are not<br /> confined by hard dry land, but on the high seas<br /> of human feeling and human relations you steer<br /> your bark to what course you will, and whatever<br /> port you find open to the good things with which<br /> your vessel is freighted. There can be no such<br /> thing to-day as exclusion of the human mind—<br /> there can be no such thing as a pent-up author.<br /> If he is pent-up, depend upon it the bonds and<br /> shackles are found within his own mind. I am<br /> disposed to think of this empire of authorship<br /> and literature that there is no thing into which<br /> it does not enter, and over which it does not<br /> exert a potential control. In these islands, and<br /> everywhere else almost, there is great agricultural<br /> depression, and the question might be asked<br /> “What have authors to do with the tilling of<br /> ground, and what has literature to do with agri-<br /> culture ?” Now, I would put it to any clear-<br /> minded Scotchman, and I would put it also<br /> to his hard-headed English brother, what effect<br /> upon the principles of real estate in Scotland<br /> and in England has the literature of Sir<br /> Walter Scott had P Subtract that influence and<br /> let the calculation be made—how much poorer<br /> on the whole score of money value, of houses<br /> and lands, would the kingdom of Great Britain<br /> be without the mind and the soul of that<br /> magician. (Applause.) Why, Gentlemen, I would<br /> ask my friend Sir Francis Jeune whether there<br /> was not lately tried in the court over which he<br /> presides, a suit to avoid a contract for real estate<br /> upon the ground that a ghost inhabited the<br /> house that had been purchased, and whether<br /> Amy Robsart was not brought into court, and<br /> his purchase sought to be avoided, because the<br /> man found that Sir Walter had killed Amy<br /> Robsart in the wrong place P (Laughter.) Now,<br /> Gentlemen, if the ghosts of literature can be<br /> brought into court and have their money value<br /> essayed, what are we to say of the realities of<br /> literature, and of the power of authorship in our<br /> daily transactions? So that I think we can<br /> expand, by very easy efforts of logical and<br /> rational deduction, the touch of authorship and<br /> literature to everything that affects the happiness<br /> of men, women, and children the civilised world<br /> over. Thus you see that in attempting to answer<br /> for a small portion of your guests, I speak in the<br /> tongue of my own land—and, I suppose, with a<br /> certain inflection (“No, no,”) I may also say I<br /> speak yours—and I thank you most sincerely for<br /> the pleasure that we have derived from the<br /> Society of Authors to-night, and for the pleasure<br /> that all derive from the work of authors every-<br /> where. (Applause.)<br /> Mr. H. M. STANLEY then proposed the last<br /> toast of the evening, that of “The Chairman.”<br /> He said: Your Excellency, my Lords, Ladies and<br /> Gentlemen,_-From what the American Minister<br /> has said just now, I gather that in behalf of the<br /> visitors here to-night he has expressed the feelings<br /> of pleasure of all your guests at being here this<br /> evening and I gather that they have enjoyed a<br /> great deal of pleasantness. To me this is a<br /> memorable evening, because it is the first time I<br /> have had the pleasure and honour of being at an<br /> Authors&#039; dinner. From what Mr. Conway has<br /> stated it appears that there is a great deal of un-<br /> happiness sometimes within the circle of Authors,<br /> but I never expected to see any disturbance at an<br /> Authors&#039; dinner; and if I were to express my own<br /> feelings I should describe them as being those<br /> of extreme felicity that I have the honour to sit<br /> at this table this evening. In fact, I am free to<br /> confess that, from what I have seen and heard<br /> of the party here present, a somewhat warmer<br /> feeling takes possession of me now than when I<br /> entered this hall, for you are all so modest and<br /> unassuming in manner—in fact this is the quietest<br /> public dinner I have ever been at ; but it seems<br /> to me that you do not carry in your bearing that<br /> <br /> <br /> ## p. (#377) ################################################<br /> <br /> THE AUTHOR.<br /> 23<br /> pride which we might have expected from children<br /> spoiled by the world’s applause. (Laughter). I<br /> have to propose the last toast of this evening.<br /> The fluency with which speeches have been deli-<br /> vered made me almost despair of being able to<br /> interest you at all, but I gather some confidence<br /> and comfort from the nature of my subject. You<br /> have heard your chairman—you have seen him<br /> for yourselves. You have heard a speech,<br /> weighted with good sense and humour, and you<br /> will take him, as I take him, to be more than a<br /> mere ornament for a banquet, and you may<br /> gauge his worth each one for yourselves. I do<br /> not think Mr. Moberly Bell has distinguished<br /> himself in the fields of fiction—of which there<br /> are so many representatives here this even-<br /> ing, ladies and gentlemen—but he has dis-<br /> tinguished himself in other fields of litera-<br /> ture. He has been away for many years in a<br /> distant land, as a narrator of facts, as a student of<br /> history, as an observer of political strategy, as an<br /> analyst of human motives. Week after week his<br /> letters have appeared in this country, and by<br /> them we were able to diagnose public feeling in<br /> that land. I dare say that he will submit to your<br /> superior &#039;gifts of divine imagination. He may<br /> not be able to raise a mortal to the skies, or bring<br /> an angel down to earth, like some of you can, but<br /> he can at least write most veracious political<br /> letters, and in his book “ Pharaohs and Fellahs &#039;’<br /> you will be able to find the keen discrimination<br /> and varied talents of a Plutarch. (Laughter.)<br /> I have known Mr. Moberly Bell for many years.<br /> Those who may only have been able to claim a<br /> slight acquaintance with him may be able to say<br /> that they would like to cultivate his acquaintance<br /> more closely, but I am sure those who are already<br /> possessed of his friendship can boast of a thing<br /> of which they are, and may well be proud. This<br /> is the gentleman to whose health I ask you to<br /> drink heartily—to his health and long life—and<br /> it is with all affection and sincerity that I give you<br /> “Our Chairman, Mr. Moberly Bell.” (Applause.)<br /> The CHAIRMAN.—Mr. Stanley, Your Excellency,<br /> My Lords, Ladies, and Gentlemen: I thought I<br /> had forgotten how to blush, but Mr. Stanley is<br /> an artist of the renaissance, and he has dis-<br /> covered the lost art. I never before heard myself<br /> compared with Plutarch, and I never knew half<br /> the great things I had done, but I attribute a<br /> great deal of what Mr. Stanley has said to an<br /> acquaintance of twenty-eight years, and I beg<br /> that you will take Mr. Stanley&#039;s remarks about<br /> myself in a very different way to what you would<br /> take his remarks upon other matters with which<br /> he is even more acquainted—that you will take it<br /> with a grain of salt. (Laughter.) As I was<br /> coming into this room I was told by a lady that<br /> the speech of the chairman in reply to his health<br /> was expected to be extremely witty. That would<br /> have appalled me—did appal me, until I sud-<br /> denly remembered what is the soul of wit. I<br /> therefore approach my task with that consolation<br /> in mind, and I have nothing more to do than to<br /> thank you very heartily for the support you have<br /> given me, for the way in which you have welcomed<br /> me, for the warmth with which you have drunk<br /> my health, and on behalf of the Society of<br /> Authors I thank everyone here for their presence<br /> to-night. (Applause.)<br /> The company then rose.<br /> ** * *<br /> g- ºr -se<br /> BOOK TALK.<br /> UTOBIOGRAPHICAL memoranda, were left<br /> by the late Lord Selborne, and are now in<br /> course of preparation for issue. The work<br /> will be published by Messrs. Macmillan.<br /> Mr. George Barlow has written a story of<br /> artistic life, styled “Woman Regained,” which<br /> will appear shortly from the Roxburghe Press.<br /> Two art works of importance are announced by<br /> Messrs. Geo. Bell and Sons for publication in the<br /> autumn. One is on the paintings of Velasquez,<br /> and is being brought out by Mr. R. A. M. Steven-<br /> son, the eminent art critic, who is also cousin of<br /> the late Robert Louis Stevenson. The other con-<br /> cerns Sir Frederick Leighton, and among the<br /> hundred reproductions of his pictures which it<br /> will contain will be that of “Cimabue,” by per-<br /> mission of Her Majesty. Mr. Ernest Rhys has<br /> written a biography of the P.R.A. for the work,<br /> while an appreciation of him as artist is from the<br /> pen of Mr. F. S. Stephens.<br /> A technical dictionary of sea terms, phrases,<br /> and words used in the English and French<br /> languages has been compiled by Mr. William<br /> Pirrie, and will be issued shortly from the house<br /> of Messrs. Crosby Tockwood and Son.<br /> M. Alphonse Daudet, who has, of course, been<br /> the centre of attraction for literary London during<br /> May, is writing the story of his youth—or, rather,<br /> he is telling it to his intimate friend, Mr. Robert H.<br /> Sherard, who will put it into form and write it.<br /> For “Premier Voyage—Premier Mensonge ’’ is<br /> to be published in English, and the work of<br /> collaboration has been begun.<br /> Works relating to the Far East come just now<br /> not singly but in battalions. Another book on<br /> Rorea has just been published under the title of<br /> “Quaint Korea,” the writer being Mrs. Louise<br /> Jordan Miln, who is known for her larger work<br /> <br /> <br /> ## p. (#378) ################################################<br /> <br /> 24 THE AUTHOR.<br /> “When We Were Strolling Players in the East;”<br /> Mr. Lafcadio Hearn will shortly make a further<br /> addition to the stock with “Out of the East :<br /> Reveries and Studies in New Japan,” with the<br /> same publishers, Osgood, McIlvaine, and Co.<br /> Japan is also the subject of a volume of letters<br /> by Amy Wilson-Carmichael, which Messrs.<br /> Marshall Brothers are bringing out under the<br /> style “From Sunrise Land.” Then Mr. J.<br /> Morris, who was many years in Tokio, in the<br /> service of the Board of Works, has written<br /> a work called “Advance Japan: A Nation<br /> Thoroughly in Earnest,” a feature of which will<br /> be the Japanese national anthem done into<br /> English by Sir Edward Arnold. It is in the<br /> press of Messrs. W. H. Allen and Co. “Old-<br /> World Japan,” by Mr. Frank Rinder, is a volume<br /> which Mr. George Allen will issue shortly. Mr.<br /> Henry Norman’s important and already well-<br /> known work, too, “The Peoples and Politics of<br /> the Far East,” has during the month entered its<br /> third edition.<br /> Two other works on subjects of contemporary<br /> political interest are “Five Years in Madagascar,”<br /> by Colonel Francis C. Maude (Messrs. Chapman<br /> and Hall), and a book on Nicaragua by Mr.<br /> Archibald Colquhoun, special corresponeent of<br /> the Times.<br /> Mr. Charles G. Leland has gone in among the<br /> people of Florence, and sought to know their<br /> world of legend, and his book of record is<br /> announced for early publication by Mr. Nutt,<br /> entitled “Legends of Florence.”<br /> Mr. Aubyn Trevor-Battye&#039;s adventures in the<br /> Arctic regions are embodied in “Icebound on<br /> Rolguev,” which Messrs. Archibald Constable<br /> and Co. will publish for him very soon.<br /> Mr. Lionel Johnson and Mr. Le Gallienne have<br /> written the letterpress of “Bits of Old Chelsea,”<br /> which Messrs. Kegan Paul will issue in an artist’s<br /> proof edition, Mr. Walter Burgess having drawn<br /> for it about forty etchings. Few subjects could<br /> be more interesting, associated as Chelsea is with<br /> the great names of Carlyle, Turner, Rossetti, and<br /> Leigh Hunt — to mention only these. One<br /> notable sketch is of “A Corner in Sir Thomas<br /> More&#039;s Garden.” Only a hundred copies will<br /> make up the edition, and the price is Io guineas.<br /> An association has been formed among the<br /> prominent houses which do business in foreign<br /> books, with the object of keeping a look-out upon<br /> questions concerning the improvemant of their<br /> trade, and generally to live in harmony and<br /> defend their interests. The society is called<br /> “The Association of Foreign Booksellers in<br /> London.” Mr. H. Kleinan, of Messrs. Hatchette<br /> and Co., is president, and Mr. Kohn, of Messrs.<br /> Asher and Co., hon. Secretary.<br /> Mr. D. Christie Murray will publish, in the<br /> course of a week, through Messrs. Smith, Elder,<br /> and Co., his new novel in one volume, “The<br /> Martyred Fool.”<br /> The story “Lochinvar,” which Mr. S. R.<br /> Crockett is writing, deals with the life of a High-<br /> lander exiled in Holland. Messrs. Methuen will<br /> publish it. A new romance by Mr. Gilbert<br /> Parker, entitled “When Walmond came to<br /> Pontiac; the Story of a Lost Napoleon’’ is due<br /> from Methuen&#039;s press to-day.<br /> The Hon. Denis Arthur Bingham will shortly<br /> issue, through Chapman and Hall, a volume of<br /> “Recollections of Paris.” He is the author of<br /> “A Journal of the Siege of Paris” and “The<br /> Marriages of the Buonapartes.” French life is also<br /> the subject of a book by Mr. Albert D. Vandam,<br /> which the same publishers have in hand, entitled<br /> “French Men and French Manners.”<br /> A new series of short novels by well-known<br /> writers will be commenced towards the end of the<br /> month by Messrs. Smith, Elder, and Co. The<br /> first volume is to be “The Story of Bessie<br /> Cottrell,” by Mrs. Humphry Ward, which is<br /> appearing serially in Cornhill and Scribner&#039;s.<br /> Messrs. Routledge and Sons also announce a new<br /> fiction series at 3s. 6d., of which the first will<br /> be “Two Women and a Fool,” by H. Chatfield<br /> Taylor.” Another is to be produced by Messrs.<br /> Archd. Constable and Co., who in it will make no<br /> distinction of names, but regard simply the merit<br /> of a story.<br /> Mr. Lang edits a new edition of “The Death<br /> Wake,” the poem by Thomas Tod Stoddart,<br /> which first appeared in 1831, and is now ex-<br /> tremely rare. It will be issued from the Bodley<br /> Head.<br /> Two works of history which are to appear<br /> shortly are “The Model Republic,” in which Mr.<br /> Grenfell Baker traces the evolution of Switzer-<br /> land; and a history of the Australasian Colonies,<br /> from their foundation to the ye, r 1893, by Pro-<br /> fessor E. Jenks, of University College, Liverpool.<br /> The latter will be the next volume in the Cam-<br /> bridge Historical Series, edited by Professor<br /> Prothero; while Mr. Baker&#039;s book will be pub-<br /> lished by Messrs. H. S. Nichols and Co.<br /> Mr. Grant Allen (who is dramatising his recent<br /> much-debated novel, “The Woman Who Did,”<br /> assisted by a theatrical collaborator in the person<br /> of Mr. Dyce Scott) is one of several leading<br /> authors who will contribute to a new series of<br /> complete stories to be published by Messrs. Tillot-<br /> son and Son, of Bolton. Mr. Crockett is of the<br /> <br /> <br /> ## p. (#379) ################################################<br /> <br /> THE AUTHOR. 25<br /> number, with a tale called “The Enlistment of a<br /> Cameronian; ” and Miss Corelli contributes “The<br /> Withering of a Rose.” -<br /> Chief among the books published during May<br /> was “The Life and Letters of Edward A. Free-<br /> man, D.C.L., LL.D.,” by the Dean of Winchester<br /> (W. R. W. Stephens, B.D.), which Messrs.<br /> Macmillan issued in two volumes. It is interest-<br /> ing to note that the great historian had an<br /> “ insuperable repugnance to reading or writing<br /> in a public library.” “As if,” he said once, “to<br /> take the lowest ground, money were not better<br /> and more cheaply spent in buying one&#039;s own<br /> books, than in buying railway tickets to go read<br /> other men&#039;s books a long way off.” From the<br /> same publishing house early in the month came<br /> the first volume of a notable work, “A History of<br /> English Poetry,” by Mr. W. J. Courthope. The<br /> definition of English poetry given by Mr. Court-<br /> hope is metrical compositions in the language<br /> “from the period at which it becomes fairly<br /> intelligible to readers of the present day.” The<br /> author anticipates his work will be completed<br /> before the end of the century. The first two<br /> volumes of the “Memoirs of Barras, Member<br /> of the Directorate,” were published by Messrs.<br /> Osgood, McIlvaine, and Co. Mr. George Duruy<br /> edits the work, and in his introduction defends<br /> Napoleon from the attacks of Barras, and gene-<br /> rally exhibits the latter as a scoundrel.<br /> Mr. H. S. Hoole Waylen has compiled a selec-<br /> tion of “Thoughts from the Writings of Richard<br /> Jefferies,” which Messrs. Longmans will publish<br /> immediately. The same firm will send out Sir<br /> Edward Arnold’s new book of verse, called “The<br /> Tenth Muse, and Other Poems; ” and a volume of<br /> “Russian Rambles,” by Isabel F. Hapgood, who<br /> relates inter alia a visit to Count Tolstoy in his<br /> home.<br /> What is likely to be an excellent catalogue of<br /> the manuscripts in the Fitzwilliam Museum has<br /> been prepared by the director, Dr. M. R. James,<br /> and will come from the Cambridge University<br /> Press on an early day. Twenty pages of photo-<br /> graphic reproductions of important manuscripts<br /> are given. The work is priced net at 25s.<br /> “The Rise and Growth of the English Nation,<br /> with special reference to Epochs and Crises,” by<br /> Dr. W. H. S. Aubrey, is announced for publication<br /> by Mr. Elliott Stock. It will be completed in<br /> three volumes, the first being published early in<br /> May and the rest at short intervals.<br /> The June number of the Antiquary will con-<br /> tain an interesting illustrated paper on “Some of<br /> the Round Towers of France;” also an article on<br /> the R. A. Exhibition under the title “The Anti-<br /> quary among the Pictures.”<br /> The London Library has added 40,000 volumes<br /> to its shelves since 1888, when the present catalogue<br /> was published, and the census of January showed<br /> that the stock has grown to a total of 167,000.<br /> While the accommodation is thus severely taxed,<br /> the income also increases steadily—there are<br /> 2279 members—and at the general meeting on<br /> the 13th inst, a proposal will come up for the<br /> appointment of a professional auditor. A new<br /> catalogue will be ready three or four years hence.<br /> Mr. J. F. Hogan, M.P. has written “The Sister<br /> Dominions,” in which he gives the impressions<br /> Canada and Australia made upon him during a<br /> recent tour. As he is secretary of the Colonial<br /> party in the House of Commons, the author had<br /> special means of receiving the opinions of public<br /> men in the colonies. The book will be published<br /> soon by Messrs. Ward and Downey. Australian<br /> life (along with that of Scotland) is also the<br /> concern of a novel called “By Adverse Winds,”<br /> which Mr. Oliphant Smeaton, editor of the<br /> Liberal, has written, and Messrs. Oliphant,<br /> Anderson, and Ferrier will publish.<br /> The produce of the past month in the depart-<br /> ment of periodicals includes a new monthly, on<br /> general lines, edited by Mr. William Graham, and<br /> called the Twentieth Century, devoted to articles<br /> on subjects of the day, but containing also fiction<br /> and verse; and a new quarterly of the same price<br /> as the Yellow Book and, like it, concerned with<br /> literature and art. This latter is the Evergreen,<br /> “a northern seasonal,” published in Edinburgh<br /> by Patrick Geddes and Colleagues, and in London<br /> by Mr. Fisher Unwin. The contents of each issue<br /> are to correspond with the season of the year it<br /> appears in.<br /> Mrs. Emma Marshall will shortly add to the<br /> series of her historical romances a story entitled<br /> “The White King&#039;s Daughter. Messrs. Seeley<br /> and Co. are the publishers of these stories, of<br /> which “Under Salisbury Spire’ and “Ken-<br /> sington Palace ’’ are amongst the most popular.<br /> “Roughly Told Stories,” is a book apparently<br /> by a new hand, named John Ingold. He aims<br /> at originality and epigram. He is also a cynic.<br /> One sketch in the volume at least is noticeable<br /> —that called “The Tramp.” (The Leadenhall<br /> Press.)<br /> The authorship of “A Superfluous Woman”<br /> has at length become public. That it was from<br /> a practised hand every one knew, but there was<br /> some doubt as to the sex of the writer. The book<br /> was quite one of the successes of 1894, and ran<br /> through several editions. Another novel by the<br /> same author, Miss Emma Brooke, entitled “Tran-<br /> sition,” has just been published. Let us wish it<br /> as large a success.<br /> <br /> <br /> ## p. (#380) ################################################<br /> <br /> 26 THE AUTHOR.<br /> A prettily bound book, with its silver and<br /> grey, is Mathilde Blind’s “Birds of Passage.”<br /> It is a book of songs—“Songs of the Orient”—<br /> “Songs of the Occident’” — “Shakespeare<br /> Sonnets”—and miscellaneous poems. Let the<br /> poet speak for herself in one of her Shakesperian<br /> Sonnets, that called “Cleve Woods: ”<br /> Sweet Avon glides where clinging rushes seem<br /> To stay his course, and, in his flattering glass,<br /> Meadows and hills and mellow woodlands pass,<br /> A fairer world as imaged in a dream.<br /> And sometimes, in a visionary gleam,<br /> From out the secret covert&#039;s tangled mass,<br /> The fisher-bird starts from the rustling grass,<br /> A jewelled shuttle shot along the stream.<br /> Even here methinks where moon-lapped shallows smiled<br /> Eound isles no bigger than a baby cot,<br /> Titania found a glowworm-lighted child,<br /> Led far astray, and, with anointing hand<br /> Sprinkling clear dew from a forget-me-not,<br /> Hailed him the Laureate of her Fairyland.<br /> “A Life&#039;s Mistake” is a story told by Charles<br /> Garvice, and published in New York by “George<br /> Munro’s Son’s.” Mr. Garvice writes like one<br /> who has a future before him. But he should<br /> compress. A story ought to be very good indeed<br /> to be continued for 35o long pages of closely<br /> packed type. -<br /> “Creation’s Hope” (Baker and Son, Clifton)<br /> is a religious poem whose aim and scope are indi-<br /> cated by the title. It is by the Rev. Marcus<br /> S. C. Rickards, M.A. The following is an<br /> extract :<br /> In this fair life scene, over everything<br /> There hangs a chilling fear—as the bright Noon<br /> Is spoilt by haze, or as the smiling Spring<br /> Is marred by blight—a fear, that late or soon<br /> Tempers all bliss, and clouds each native boon.<br /> Close as an ever-brooding presence sits<br /> That fear of death, which now makes Nature swoon,<br /> Now braces her for what this clime befits,<br /> Which Ignorance alone for a brief spell outwits.<br /> The warbler flitting on from spray to spray<br /> Fears not the gun that compasses its doom :<br /> The schoolboy stealing up to cap his prey<br /> Starts not the shy moth settling on the bloom ;<br /> The sunny May-fly scorns eve&#039;s pending gloom :<br /> The feasting grub recks not that ampler size<br /> Yields the hid foe within more food and room :<br /> The gleaming trout darts at the summer flies,<br /> Nor shuns the murderous hook arrayed in kindred guise.<br /> But we know we must die, and can but wait:<br /> We lounge &#039;mid flowers and shine while distant claps<br /> From gathering thunder-clouds forebode our fate;<br /> Large rain-drops fall, and inky gloom enwraps,<br /> Tho&#039; Sunbeams linger on awhile perhaps.<br /> We roam life’s strand, and eye the nearing tide,<br /> Which gains on each, and all at length entraps :<br /> We gather shells, we strut with childish pride,<br /> We play about while Death creeps on with fatal stride.<br /> The Rev. Atherton Knowles has produced a<br /> little book which ought to become widely popular,<br /> for its subject alone. Most of us are interested<br /> in Anglican Service Music, its history and de-<br /> velopment. It is a contribution not only to the<br /> history of religion but also to that of social<br /> manners and customs in which churchgoing<br /> occupies so large a place. (Elliot Stock.)<br /> “Poems,” by Louis H. Victory, is published by<br /> Elliot Stock. Here is one of them : *<br /> I walk the world in thought-engendered grief:<br /> I grieve for all the pain that taints the years;<br /> I grieve for wrongs that rend the soul of seers<br /> Who find no power to bring the world relief.<br /> I grieve for kings whose golden-sorrowed leaf<br /> Of life&#039;s brief book is filled with kingly fears;<br /> I grieve for beggars starving through their years,<br /> Whose consolation dwells in sweet Belief.<br /> If I could weep for all the wrongs I see<br /> I would be blest with some relief from woe,<br /> But my dim eyes will never yield the flow<br /> My wearied heart one moment to set free.<br /> And as I wander down the path of years,<br /> I pray to God for His good gift of tears.<br /> “A Japanese Marriage” (A. &amp; C. Black), by<br /> Douglas Sladen. Here is a novel laid in that<br /> enchanted land of colour and sunshine which is<br /> now being talked about by everybody. The<br /> setting is strange, and the characters move about<br /> under new conditions among an Anglo-Japanese<br /> life which is new and delightful. It should be as<br /> popular as Loti’s “Chrysanthème.” -<br /> A new and cheaper edition of “A Prince of<br /> Como,” by Mrs. E. M. Davy has just been issued by<br /> the authoress’s publishers, Messrs. Jarrold and<br /> Sons. We are glad to see this solid recognition<br /> of the work of a young author. . It will be<br /> followed, we venture to hope, by many other<br /> editions.<br /> Miss Eleanor Holmes has completed a new<br /> novel entitled “To-day and To-morrow.” It will<br /> be issued shortly in 3 vols. by Messrs. Hurst and<br /> blackett.<br /> A completed edition of the “Works of the late<br /> Griffith Edwards,” consisting mainly of local<br /> histories in Wales, will be produced shortly<br /> (Elliot Stock). A number of the author&#039;s<br /> poems, both in Welsh and English, are added to<br /> the work, which is edited by Mr. Elias Owen, and<br /> is fully illustrated.<br /> Mrs. Stevenson has just had another story<br /> published. It is in Messrs. Hutchinson’s “Home-<br /> spun Series,” both in cloth and paper covers. It<br /> is called “Woodrup&#039;s Dinah,” and is a tale of<br /> Nidderdale, the beautiful Yorks Valley, lying<br /> between Great Whernside and Knaresbro&#039; and<br /> Harrogate. One who knows the dale says: “It<br /> simply makes me live there again, and the dialect,<br /> customs, and habits come back with more vivid-<br /> <br /> <br /> ## p. (#381) ################################################<br /> <br /> THE AUTHOR. 27<br /> ness than I could have believed possible after<br /> twenty years.”<br /> The author of “Ernest England,” mentioned in<br /> “Book Talk” of last month, is not “J. A.<br /> Tucker” but “J. A. Parker,” to whom an apology<br /> is due for the mistake.<br /> It was also in error that Mr. Harry Furniss<br /> was stated to “ have accepted control of the art<br /> section ” of the New Budget. He is the<br /> originator, chief proprietor, editor, and manager<br /> of the New Budget.<br /> The March edition of 2000 copies of “A Maid<br /> of the Manse,” by Mrs. E. Rentoul Esler, being<br /> exhausted, Messrs. Sampson Low, Marston, and<br /> Co. are preparing a larger edition for immediate<br /> ISSUl€.<br /> Messrs. Bliss, Sands, and Foster have just<br /> published a novel by Miss H. P. Redden, entitled<br /> “McClellan of McClellan.” The book is illus-<br /> trated by the author. Price 6s.<br /> *-- ~ -º<br /> CORRESPONDENCE,<br /> I.—MUSIC AND WoRDs.<br /> N reading Miss Helen Marion Burnside&#039;s<br /> reasonable letter regarding the lot of minor<br /> poets, I would take exception to one remark<br /> only.<br /> #he poet should certainly have a share in the<br /> performing rights of a larger musical work, but<br /> in a song these rights are practically worth<br /> nothing, they having completely lapsed from<br /> force of circumstances. Unless they were recog-<br /> nised universally insistence upon them would<br /> kill the song. I should suggest that the poet&#039;s<br /> initial remuneration should cover the sale of a<br /> certain number of hundreds of copies, and upon<br /> the sale exceeding this amount a royalty should<br /> be given by the publisher to the poet.<br /> MRs. MARY A. C. SALMond.<br /> 21, St. Leonard’s-terrace, Royal Chelsea<br /> Hospital, May 24.<br /> II.-DREAM POEMs.<br /> May I add to the number of dream-poems?<br /> Many a time I have wakened with metre and<br /> rhyme on my lips; but of only three such in-<br /> spirations have I kept a record. Once I dreamed<br /> that I was pouring out tea for a large party, and,<br /> growing tired, made the following remark:<br /> It is not fair<br /> To make poor little me,<br /> Who am small and spare,<br /> Pour out all the tea.<br /> The word spare must have been used for sake<br /> of the rhyme, as it does not at all describe my<br /> figure | Another night I dreamed a whole long<br /> poem, describing, as if for children, the career of<br /> a good little boy. I woke with the following<br /> couplet:<br /> To follow this goodly example he’s bound,<br /> And he’s sure to be happy wherever he&#039;s found.<br /> My third example is an excerpt from a serious<br /> poem, all of which is lost except these lines:<br /> Faces we have not seen for years,<br /> And some which last we saw in tears.<br /> They struck me as rather pathetic.<br /> F. BAYFor D HARRISON.<br /> TTI.-PERSONAL.<br /> The American journalist who, in the Mail and<br /> Eapress (New York), has seen fit, on what he<br /> terms “internal evidence,” to formulate the<br /> charges categorically denied by Mr. John Bloun-<br /> delle-Burton in the following letter, appears to<br /> have indulged in an outbreak of abuse that is not<br /> common even on the other side of the Atlantic.<br /> What that abuse and those charges are will be<br /> plainly seen by Mr. Bloundelle-Burton’s plain and<br /> convincing denial of them :<br /> Constitutional Club, London.<br /> May 13, 1895.<br /> The Editor, the New York Mail and Ea&#039;press,<br /> New York.<br /> SIR,-A cutting from your paper, published last month,<br /> has been shown me, in which, under the heading “Mr.<br /> Safe,” you state that there is an edition of my novel “The<br /> Hispaniola Plate,” published in America by the Castle Pub-<br /> lishing Company,” and that in this edition there is a bio-<br /> graphy of me which “bears internal evidence of having been<br /> written by the author.”<br /> Permit me to show you, therefore, what such “internal<br /> evidence” is worth.<br /> |Until I read the column so headed in your paper, I was<br /> totally unaware that any arrangements had been made by<br /> the publishers of “The Hispaniola Plate ’’ (Cassell and Co.,<br /> London) for reproduction by any firm in the United States,<br /> and, consequently, did not know that the edition from<br /> which you are undoubtedly quoting was in existence. Con-<br /> sequently, also, I know nothing of the biography to which<br /> you refer as “bearing internal evidence ’’ of having been<br /> written by me. And, “internal evidence ’’ notwithstand-<br /> ing, the statement that I wrote the biography is false. I<br /> have never seen it yet, since naturally it is not in the<br /> London edition; I repeat that I know nothing whatever<br /> about it, except that which I can glean from your article,<br /> and, moreover, no biography of me has ever been written or<br /> suggested by myself. I gather also, from what you say,<br /> that comparison favourable to me has been made in this<br /> production between myself and Mr. , a piece of<br /> vulgarity which—in this country at least !—would have<br /> been quite sufficient to prove to any critic (as I imagine the<br /> writer of your article considers himself to be) that it could<br /> not possibly emanate from any author claiming to possess<br /> the slightest feelings of self-respect.<br /> But, since the discussion of such a claim as this is,<br /> <br /> <br /> ## p. (#382) ################################################<br /> <br /> 28<br /> THE AUTHOR.<br /> perhaps, superfluous in my refutation of your writer&#039;s ideas<br /> and statements, I desire simply to inform you that this part<br /> of the so-called “biography” was no more written by me,<br /> or known by me, than was any other portion of it, and also<br /> that, until doing so at this present moment, I have never<br /> written Mr. — &#039;s name.<br /> In conclusion, I ask you to give this denial as much pub-<br /> licity as you have given the statement,<br /> And I remain, Sir,<br /> Your obedient servant,<br /> (Signed) JOHN BLOUNDELLE-BURTON.<br /> IV.-DISCOUNT.<br /> Here is a case for the consideration of pub-<br /> lishers. A firm offers a 7s. 6d. book for 5s. 9d.,<br /> and to encourage the publishers we order the<br /> work. It arrives by Carter, Paterson, and we<br /> have to pay 4d. carriage.<br /> If we order the book of Bickers, or Bumpus,<br /> we obtain it for 5s. 7#d. or 5s. 8d., and it is<br /> delivered free of charge.<br /> Does the arrangement profit the author more<br /> in case I than in case 2 P And if not, why should<br /> we pay 4d. to oblige the publisher, and put a few<br /> extra pence in his pocket P S.<br /> [The author has nothing at all to do with it.—<br /> ED.]<br /> W.—ENCOURAGEMENT v. DISCOURAGEMENT.<br /> My vicissitudes as an author may be of inte-<br /> rest as somewhat remarkable. My first novel,<br /> published anonymously, was accepted by a leading<br /> firm, had excellent reviews in first-class papers,<br /> was pirated in America most successfully. The<br /> second, in my maiden name, brought out in first-<br /> class style by the same firm, had still better<br /> reviews. However, it attracted no attention. I<br /> was asked by my publishers if I were not disap-<br /> pointed, They had expected much from it; but<br /> the subject was painful—that of a woman&#039;s<br /> intemperance, and its telling was “too graphic,<br /> too clever, to get the second reading it deserved,”<br /> so they said. A master in fiction has since said<br /> “It was a book for a second edition.” Then<br /> came my third. The same approbation from the<br /> reviews, but I verily believe it was killed by one<br /> that breathed the word “psychological.” Hard<br /> for it was not so. I would not insult the Spirit of<br /> the Times by crediting it with time or digestion for<br /> such subtlety. This hurrying age adds to its fever<br /> by demanding incident in fiction on a par with<br /> that which society and travel endeavour to secure<br /> for it. The terse and pungent are in favour, no<br /> longer the discursive which takes you by pleasant<br /> bye-paths off the high road of the story into touch<br /> with the writer&#039;s personal thoughts and opinions,<br /> out of broad sunshine into restful shade. What<br /> is there in the modern novel to make you close it<br /> with a careful thumb as your marker, and look<br /> out of the window and reflect with the writer?<br /> Nothing. Tife is hard facts, and so are latter-<br /> day books. I thing it is Mr. Hall Caine who says<br /> a writer has no right to digress to his own<br /> opinions and observations; one must be kept at<br /> full strain after the characters. But “The Golden<br /> Butterfly ’’ is in a sixpenny edition, and there are<br /> readers who hail digressions such as we find in it<br /> as milestones where one may pause and meditate.<br /> Well, my third novel died before its best reviews<br /> —Guardian, Athenæum, and Academy—were<br /> out; the former foretold great things for me.<br /> On the strength of my book the C.E.T.S asked<br /> me to write a story for them. I did so, in a fort-<br /> night. It come out in their Chronicle, and both<br /> paper and cloth editions—a stroke of success.<br /> My last story is just out, both in paper and cloth<br /> too, a large edition in a well-known series. I<br /> am venturing on another three-decker, and have<br /> another short one in the market. But my<br /> reviews warrant me in expecting far greater<br /> success. Is the reviewing system at fault some-<br /> where P A book is often reviewed when it is either<br /> everywhere or virtually dead. All my books have<br /> been called powerful and realistic. In my temper-<br /> ance story, it was almost suggested in the columns<br /> of a paper that my facts must be personal—I hope<br /> not from myself as an inebriate | These terms<br /> are fashionable praise, but I have not been the<br /> fashion. Shorter stories, however, seem to be<br /> “getting me forwarder.” But how tantalising is<br /> the buffeting between intensely appreciative<br /> reviews bearing out a publisher&#039;s confidence and<br /> public indifference I have been warranted in<br /> nourishing great expectations of a full tide, and<br /> found myself stranded high and dry on the beach.<br /> I have been likened, to my own astonishment, to<br /> Mr. Thos. Hardy and Mr. Geo. Meredith. But<br /> the public remain stolid. My “pathos, humour,<br /> picturesqueness and power” are not for their<br /> enthusiasms. Yet I must write. I believe as<br /> firmly as Mr. Crockett in the gift being God-<br /> given, to be used. I live greatly with imaginary<br /> people; when they live with me I must put pen<br /> to paper and oust one set to make room for<br /> another. But I am not now working up to my<br /> powers—deliberately. I have found it exhaust-<br /> ing to do so, realising my emotional and dramatic<br /> situations too strongly ; so am lowering my<br /> standard. Was I born under an unlucky star,<br /> and is it my fate to have to be most discouraged<br /> by encouragements P Where are the powers that<br /> will adjust the balance by making recognition<br /> consistent with reviewing P I don’t grudge<br /> labour, but I yearn for its just reward. Mean-<br /> while I hear my case is a rare one, so I chronicle<br /> it. M. E. S.	https://historysoa.com/files/original/5/278/1895-06-01-The-Author-6-1.pdf	publications, The Author