V.

Under the ‘regime’ of the great literary periodicals the prosperity of

literary men would be much greater than it actually is if the magazines

were altogether literary. But they are not, and this is one reason why

literature is still the hungriest of the professions. Two-thirds of the

magazines are made up of material which, however excellent, is without

literary quality. Very probably this is because even the highest class

of readers, who are the magazine readers, have small love of pure

literature, which seems to have been growing less and less in all

classes. I say seems, because there are really no means of ascertaining

the fact, and it may be that the editors are mistaken in making their

periodicals two-thirds popular science, politics, economics, and the

timely topics which I will call contemporanics. But, however that may

be, their efforts in this direction have narrowed the field of literary

industry, and darkened the hope of literary prosperity kindled by the

unexampled prosperity of their periodicals. They pay very well indeed

for literature; they pay from five or six dollars a thousand words for

the work of the unknown writer to a hundred and fifty dollars a thousand

words for that of the most famous, or the most popular, if there is a

difference between fame and popularity; but they do not, altogether, want

enough literature to justify the best business talent in devoting itself

to belles-lettres, to fiction, or poetry, or humorous sketches of travel,

or light essays; business talent can do far better in dry goods,

groceries, drugs, stocks, real estate, railroads, and the like. I do not

think there is any danger of a ruinous competition from it in the field

which, though narrow, seems so rich to us poor fellows, whose business

talent is small, at the best.

The most of the material contributed to the magazines is the subject of

agreement between the editor and the author; it is either suggested by

the author or is the fruit of some suggestion from the editor; in any

case the price is stipulated beforehand, and it is no longer the custom

for a well-known contributor to leave the payment to the justice or the

generosity of the publisher; that was never a fair thing to either, nor

ever a wise thing. Usually, the price is so much a thousand words, a

truly odious method of computing literary value, and one well calculated

to make the author feel keenly the hatefulness of selling his art at all.

It is as if a painter sold his picture at so much a square inch, or a

sculptor bargained away a group of statuary by the pound. But it is a

custom that you cannot always successfully quarrel with, and most writers

gladly consent to it, if only the price a thousand words is large enough.

The sale to the editor means the sale of the serial rights only, but if

the publisher of the magazine is also a publisher of books, the

republication of the material is supposed to be his right, unless there

is an understanding to the contrary; the terms for this are another

affair. Formerly something more could be got for the author by the

simultaneous appearance of his work in an English magazine; but now the

great American magazines, which pay far higher prices than any others in

the world, have a circulation in England so much exceeding that of any

English periodical that the simultaneous publication can no longer be

arranged for from this side, though I believe it is still done here from

the other side.