LITERATURE.
In speaking of the literature of any country we are, I think, too
much inclined to regard the question as one appertaining exclusively
to the writers of books,--not acknowledging, as we should do, that
the literary character of a people will depend much more upon what
it reads than what it writes. If we can suppose any people to have
an intimate acquaintance with the best literary efforts of other
countries, we should hardly be correct in saying that such a people
had no literary history of their own because it had itself produced
nothing in literature. And, with reference to those countries which
have been most fertile in the production of good books, I doubt
whether their literary histories would not have more to tell of those
ages in which much has been read than of those in which much has been
written.
The United States have been by no means barren in the production
of literature. The truth is so far from this that their literary
triumphs are perhaps those which of all their triumphs are the most
honourable to them, and which, considering their position as a young
nation, are the most permanently satisfactory. But though they
have done much in writing, they have done much more in reading. As
producers they are more than respectable, but as consumers they are
the most conspicuous people on the earth. It is impossible to speak
of the subject of literature in America without thinking of the
readers rather than of the writers. In this matter their position is
different from that of any other great people, seeing that they share
the advantages of our language. An American will perhaps consider
himself to be as little like an Englishman as he is like a Frenchman.
But he reads Shakespeare through the medium of his own vernacular,
and has to undergo the penance of a foreign tongue before he can
understand Molière. He separates himself from England in politics and
perhaps in affection; but he cannot separate himself from England in
mental culture. It may be suggested that an Englishman has the same
advantages as regards America; and it is true that he is obtaining
much of such advantage. Irving, Prescott, and Longfellow are the same
to England as though she herself had produced them. But the balance
of advantage must be greatly in favour of America. We have given her
the work of four hundred years, and have received back in return the
work of fifty.
And of this advantage the Americans have not been slow to avail
themselves. As consumers of literature they are certainly the most
conspicuous people on the earth. Where an English publisher contents
himself with thousands of copies an American publisher deals with
ten thousands. The sale of a new book, which in numbers would amount
to a considerable success with us, would with them be a lamentable
failure. This of course is accounted for, as regards the author
and the publisher, by the difference of price at which the book is
produced. One thousand in England will give perhaps as good a return
as the ten thousand in America. But as regards the readers there can
be no such equalization. The thousand copies cannot spread themselves
as do the ten thousand. The one book at a guinea cannot multiply
itself, let Mr. Mudie do what he will, as do the ten books at a
dollar. Ultimately there remain the ten books against the one; and
if there be not the ten readers against the one, there are five,
or four, or three. Everybody in the States has books about his
house. "And so has everybody in England," will say my English
reader, mindful of the libraries, or book-rooms, or book-crowded
drawing-rooms of his friends and acquaintances. But has my English
reader who so replies examined the libraries of many English cabmen,
of ticket porters, of warehousemen, and of agricultural labourers?
I cannot take upon myself to say that I have done so with any close
search in the States. But when it has been in my power I have done
so, and I have always found books in such houses as I have entered.
The amount of printed matter which is poured forth in streams from
the printing-presses of the great American publishers is, however, a
better proof of the truth of what I say than anything that I can have
seen myself.
But of what class are the books that are so read? There are many
who think that reading in itself is not good unless the matter
read be excellent. I do not myself quite agree with this, thinking
that almost any reading is better than none; but I will of course
admit that good matter is better than bad matter. The bulk of the
literature consumed in the States is no doubt composed of novels,--as
it is also, now-a-days, in this country. Whether or no an unlimited
supply of novels for young people is or is not advantageous, I will
not here pretend to say. The general opinion with ourselves I take it
is, that novels are bad reading if they be bad of their kind. Novels
that are not bad are now-a-days accepted generally as indispensable
to our households. Whatever may be the weakness of the American
literary taste in this respect, it is, I think, a weakness which we
share. There are more novel readers among them than with us, but
only, I think, in the proportion that there are more readers.
I have no hesitation in saying, that works by English authors are
more popular in the States than those written by themselves; and,
among English authors of the present day, they by no means confine
themselves to the novelists. The English names of whom I heard
most during my sojourn in the States were perhaps those of Dickens,
Tennyson, Buckle, Tom Hughes, Martin Tupper, and Thackeray. As the
owners of all these names are still living, I am not going to take
upon myself the delicate task of criticising the American taste.
I may not perhaps coincide with them in every respect. But if I be
right as to the names which I have given, such a selection shows that
they do get beyond novels. I have little doubt but that many more
copies of Dickens's novels have been sold during the last three
years, than of the works either of Tennyson or of Buckle; but such
also has been the case in England. It will probably be admitted
that one copy of the "Civilization" should be held as being equal
to five-and-twenty of "Nicholas Nickleby," and that a single "In
Memoriam" may fairly weigh down half-a-dozen "Pickwicks." Men and
women after their day's work are not always up to the "Civilization."
As a rule they are generally up to "Proverbial Philosophy," and this,
perhaps, may have had something to do with the great popularity of
that very popular work.
I would not have it supposed that American readers despise their own
authors. The Americans are very proud of having a literature of their
own. Among the literary names which they honour, there are none, I
think, more honourable than those of Cooper and Irving. They like to
know that their modern historians are acknowledged as great authors,
and as regards their own poets will sometimes demand your admiration
for strains with which you hardly find yourself to be familiar. But
English books are, I think, the better loved;--even the English books
of the present day. And even beyond this,--with those who choose
to indulge in the costly luxuries of literature,--books printed in
England are more popular than those which are printed in their own
country; and yet the manner in which the American publishers put
out their work is very good. The book sold there at a dollar, or a
dollar and a quarter, quite equals our ordinary five shilling volume.
Nevertheless English books are preferred,--almost as strongly as are
French bonnets. Of books absolutely printed and produced in England
the supply in the States is of course small. They must necessarily be
costly, and as regards new books, are always subjected to the rivalry
of a cheaper American copy. But of the reprinted works of English
authors the supply is unlimited, and the sale very great. Almost
everything is reprinted; certainly everything which can be said to
attain any home popularity. I do not know how far English authors
may be aware of the fact; but it is undoubtedly a fact that their
influence as authors is greater on the other side of the Atlantic
than on this. It is there that they have their most numerous school
of pupils. It is there that they are recognized as teachers by
hundreds of thousands. It is of those thirty millions that they
should think, at any rate in part, when they discuss within their
own hearts that question which all authors do discuss, whether that
which they write shall in itself be good or bad,--be true or false.
A writer in England may not, perhaps, think very much of this with
reference to some trifle of which his English publisher proposes to
sell some seven or eight hundred copies. But he begins to feel that
he should have thought of it when he learns that twenty or thirty
thousand copies of the same have been scattered through the length
and breadth of the United States. The English author should feel that
he writes for the widest circle of readers ever yet obtained by the
literature of any country. He provides not only for his own country
and for the States, but for the readers who are rising by millions
in the British colonies. Canada is supplied chiefly from the presses
of Boston, New York, and Philadelphia, but she is supplied with
the works of the mother country. India, as I take it, gets all her
books direct from London, as do the West Indies. Whether or no the
Australian colonies have as yet learned to reprint our books I do not
know, but I presume that they cannot do so as cheaply as they can
import them. London with us, and the three cities which I have named
on the other side of the Atlantic, are the places at which this
literature is manufactured; but the demand in the western hemisphere
is becoming more brisk than that which the old world creates. There
is, I have no doubt, more literary matter printed in London than in
all America put together. A greater extent of letter-press is put up
in London than in the three publishing cities of the States. But the
number of copies issued by the American publishers is so much greater
than those which ours put forth, that the greater bulk of literature
is with them. If this be so, the demand with them is of course
greater than it is with us.
I have spoken here of the privilege which an English author enjoys
by reason of the ever widening circle of readers to whom he writes.
I speak of the privilege of an English author as distinguished from
that of an American author. I profess my belief that in the United
States an English author has an advantage over one of that country
merely in the fact of his being English, as a French milliner has
undoubtedly an advantage in her nationality let her merits or
demerits as a milliner be what they may. I think that English books
are better liked because they are English. But I do not know that
there is any feeling with us either for or against an author because
he is American. I believe that Longfellow stands in our judgment
exactly where he would have stood had he been a tutor at a college in
Oxford instead of a Professor at Cambridge in Massachusetts. Prescott
is read among us as an historian without any reference as to his
nationality, and by many, as I take it, in absolute ignorance of
his nationality. Hawthorne, the novelist, is quite as well known in
England as he is in his own country. But I do not know that to either
of these three is awarded any favour or is denied any justice because
he is an American. Washington Irving published many of his works in
this country, receiving very large sums for them from Mr. Murray, and
I fancy that in dealing with his publisher he found neither advantage
nor disadvantage in his nationality;--that is, of course, advantage
or disadvantage in reference to the light in which his works would be
regarded. It must be admitted that there is no jealousy in the States
against English authors. I think that there is a feeling in their
favour, but no one can at any rate allege that there is a feeling
against them. I think I may also assert on the part of my own country
that there is no jealousy here against American authors. As regards
the tastes of the people, the works of each country flow freely
through the other. That is as it should be. But when we come to the
mode of supply, things are not exactly as they should be; and I do
not believe that any one will contradict me when I say that the fault
is with the Americans.
I presume that all my readers know the meaning of the word copyright.
A man's copyright, or right in his copy, is that amount of legal
possession in the production of his brains which has been secured to
him by the laws of his own country and by the laws of others. Unless
an author were secured by such laws, his writings would be of but
little pecuniary value to him, as the right of printing and selling
them would be open to all the world. In England and in America, and
as I conceive in all countries possessing a literature, there is such
a law securing to authors and to their heirs for a term of years the
exclusive right over their own productions. That this should be so
in England as regards English authors is so much a matter of course,
that the copyright of an author would seem to be as naturally his
own as a gentleman's deposit at his bank or his little investment in
the three per cents. The right of an author to the value of his own
productions in other countries than his own is not so much a matter
of course; but nevertheless, if such productions have any value in
other countries, that value should belong to him. This has been felt
to be the case between England and France, and treaties have been
made securing his own property to the author in each country. The
fact that the languages of England and France are different makes the
matter one of comparatively small moment. But it has been found to be
for the honour and profit of the two countries, that there should be
such a law, and an international copyright does exist. But if such
an arrangement be needed between two such countries as France and
England,--between two countries which do not speak the same language
or share the same literature,--how much more necessary must it be
between England and the United States? The literature of the one
country is the literature of the other. The poem that is popular
in London will certainly be popular in New York. The novel that is
effective among American ladies will be equally so with those of
England. There can be no doubt as to the importance of having a
law of copyright between the two countries. The only question can
be as to the expediency and the justice. At present there is no
international copyright between England and the United States, and
there is none because the States have declined to sanction any such
law. It is known by all who are concerned in the matter on either
side of the water that as far as Great Britain is concerned such a
law would meet with no impediment.
Therefore it is to be presumed that the legislators of the States
think it expedient and just to dispense with any such law. I have
said that there can be no doubt as to the importance of the question,
seeing that the price of English literature in the States must be
most materially affected by it. Without such a law the Americans are
enabled to import English literature without paying for it. It is
open to any American publisher to reprint any work from an English
copy, and to sell his reprints without any permission obtained from
the English author or from the English publisher. The absolute
material which the American publisher sells, he takes, or can take,
for nothing. The paper, ink, and composition he supplies in the
ordinary way of business; but of the very matter which he professes
to sell,--of the book which is the object of his trade, he is enabled
to possess himself for nothing. If you, my reader, be a popular
author, an American publisher will take the choicest work of your
brain and make dollars out of it, selling thousands of copies of it
in his country, whereas you can, perhaps, only sell hundreds of it
in your own; and will either give you nothing for that he takes,--or
else will explain to you that he need give you nothing, and that in
paying you anything he subjects himself to the danger of seeing the
property which he has bought taken again from him by other persons.
If this be so that question whether or no there shall be a law
of international copyright between the two countries cannot be
unimportant.
But it may be inexpedient that there shall be such a law. It may be
considered well, that as the influx of English books into America
is much greater than the out-flux of American books back to England,
the right of obtaining such books for nothing should be reserved,
although the country in doing so robs its own authors of the
advantage which should accrue to them from the English market. It
might perhaps be thought anything but smart to surrender such an
advantage by the passing of an international copyright bill. There
are not many trades in which the tradesman can get the chief of his
goods for nothing; and it may be thought, that the advantage arising
to the States from such an arrangement of circumstances should not
be abandoned. But how then about the justice? It would seem that
the less said upon that subject the better. I have heard no one say
that an author's property in his own works should not, in accordance
with justice, be insured to him in the one country as well as in the
other. I have seen no defence of the present position of affairs,
on the score of justice. The price of books would be enhanced by an
international copyright law, and it is well that books should be
cheap. That is the only argument used. So would mutton be cheap, if
it could be taken out of a butcher's shop for nothing!
But I absolutely deny the expediency of the present position of the
matter, looking simply to the material advantage of the American
people in the matter, and throwing aside altogether that question
of justice. I must here, however, explain that I bring no charge
whatsoever against the American publishers. The English author is
a victim in their hands, but it is by no means their fault that he
is so. As a rule, they are willing to pay for the works of popular
English writers, but in arranging as to what payments they can make,
they must of course bear in mind the fact that they have no exclusive
right whatsoever in the things which they purchase. It is natural,
also, that they should bear in mind when making their purchases,
and arranging their prices, that they can have the very thing they
are buying without any payment at all, if the price asked do not
suit them. It is not of the publishers that I complain, or of any
advantage which they take; but of the legislators of the country, and
of the advantage which accrues, or is thought by them to accrue to
the American people from the absence of an international copyright
law. It is mean on their part to take such advantage if it existed;
and it is foolish in them to suppose that any such advantage can
accrue. The absence of any law of copyright no doubt gives to the
American publisher the power of reprinting the works of English
authors without paying for them,--seeing that the English author is
undefended. But the American publisher who brings out such a reprint
is equally undefended in his property. When he shall have produced
his book, his rival in the next street may immediately reprint it
from him, and destroy the value of his property by underselling him.
It is probable that the first American publisher will have made some
payment to the English author for the privilege of publishing the
book honestly,--of publishing it without recurrence to piracy,--and
in arranging his price with his customers he will be, of course,
obliged to debit the book with the amount so paid. If the author
receive ten cents a copy on every copy sold, the publisher must add
that ten cents to the price he charges for it. But he cannot do this
with security, because the book can be immediately reprinted, and
sold without any such addition to the price. The only security which
the American publisher has against the injury which may be so done to
him, is the power of doing other injury in return. The men who stand
high in the trade, and who are powerful because of the largeness of
their dealings, can in a certain measure secure themselves in this
way. Such a firm would have the power of crushing a small tradesman
who should interfere with him. But if the large firm commits any
such act of injustice, the little men in the trade have no power of
setting themselves right by counter injustice. I need hardly point
out what must be the effect of such a state of things upon the whole
publishing trade; nor need I say more to prove that some law which
shall regulate property in foreign copyrights would be as expedient
with reference to America, as it would be just towards England. But
the wrong done by America to herself does not rest here. It is true
that more English books are read in the States than American books
in England, but it is equally true that the literature of America is
daily gaining readers among us. That injury to which English authors
are subjected from the want of protection in the States, American
authors suffer from the want of protection here. One can hardly
believe that the legislators of the States would willingly place the
brightest of their own fellow countrymen in this position, because in
the event of a copyright bill being passed, the balance of advantage
would seem to accrue to England!
Of the literature of the United States, speaking of literature in its
ordinary sense, I do not know that I need say much more. I regard
the literature of a country as its highest produce, believing it to
be more powerful in its general effect, and more beneficial in its
results, than either statesmanship, professional ability, religious
teaching, or commerce. And in no part of its national career have
the United States been so successful as in this. I need hardly
explain that I should commit a monstrous injustice were I to make a
comparison in this matter between England and America. Literature is
the child of leisure and wealth. It is the produce of minds which by
a happy combination of circumstances have been enabled to dispense
with the ordinary cares of the world. It can hardly be expected to
come from a young country, or from a new and still struggling people.
Looking around at our own magnificent colonies I hardly remember
a considerable name which they have produced, except that of my
excellent old friend, Sam Slick. Nothing, therefore, I think, shows
the settled greatness of the people of the States more significantly
than their firm establishment of a national literature. This
literature runs over all subjects. American authors have excelled in
poetry, in science, in history, in metaphysics, in law, in theology,
and in fiction. They have attempted all, and failed in none. What
Englishman has devoted a room to books, and devoted no portion of
that room to the productions of America?
But I must say a word of literature in which I shall not speak of it
in its ordinary sense, and shall yet speak of it in that sense which
of all perhaps, in the present day, should be considered the most
ordinary. I mean the every-day periodical literature of the press.
Most of those who can read, it is to be hoped, read books; but all
who can read do read newspapers. Newspapers in this country are so
general that men cannot well live without them; but to men, and to
women also, in the United States they may be said to be the one chief
necessary of life. And yet in the whole length and breadth of the
United States there is not published a single newspaper which seems
to me to be worthy of praise.
A really good newspaper,--one excellent at all points,--would indeed
be a triumph of honesty and of art! Not only is such a publication
much to be desired in America, but it is still to be desired in
Great Britain also. I used, in my younger days, to think of such
a newspaper as a possible publication, and in a certain degree I
then looked for it. Now I expect it only in my dreams. It should be
powerful without tyranny, popular without triumph, political without
party passion, critical without personal feeling, right in its
statements and just in its judgments, but right and just without
pride. It should be all but omniscient, but not conscious of its
omniscience; it should be moral, but not strait-laced; it should be
well-assured, but yet modest; though never humble, it should be free
from boasting. Above all these things it should be readable; and
above that again it should be true. I used to think that such a
newspaper might be produced, but I now sadly acknowledge to myself
the fact that humanity is not capable of any work so divine.
The newspapers of the States generally may not only be said to have
reached none of the virtues here named, but to have fallen into
all the opposite vices. In the first place they are never true. In
requiring truth from a newspaper the public should not be anxious to
strain at gnats. A statement setting forth that a certain gooseberry
was five inches in circumference, whereas in truth its girth was only
two and a half, would give me no offence. Nor would I be offended at
being told that Lord Derby was appointed to the premiership, while in
truth the Queen had only sent for his lordship, having as yet come to
no definite arrangement. The demand for truth which may reasonably be
made upon a newspaper amounts to this,--that nothing should be stated
not believed to be true, and that nothing should be stated as to
which the truth is important, without adequate ground for such
belief. If a newspaper accuse me of swindling, it is not sufficient
that the writer believe me to be a swindler. He should have ample
and sufficient ground for such belief;--otherwise in making such a
statement he will write falsely. In our private life we all recognize
the fact that this is so. It is understood that a man is not a
whit the less a slanderer because he believes the slander which
he promulgates. But it seems to me that this is not sufficiently
recognized by many who write for the public press. Evil things are
said, and are probably believed by the writers; they are said with
that special skill for which newspaper writers have in our days
become so conspicuous, defying alike redress by law or redress by
argument; but they are too often said falsely. The words are not
measured when they are written, and they are allowed to go forth
without any sufficient inquiry into their truth. But if there be any
ground for such complaint here in England, that ground is multiplied
ten times--twenty times--in the States. This is not only shown in
the abuse of individuals, in abuse which is as violent as it is
perpetual, but in the treatment of every subject which is handled.
All idea of truth has been thrown overboard. It seems to be admitted
that the only object is to produce a sensation, and that it is
admitted by both writer and reader that sensation and veracity are
incompatible. Falsehood has become so much a matter of course with
American newspapers that it has almost ceased to be falsehood. Nobody
thinks me a liar because I deny that I am at home when I am in my
study. The nature of the arrangement is generally understood. So also
is it with the American newspapers.
But American newspapers are also unreadable. It is very bad that
they should be false, but it is very surprising that they should
be dull. Looking at the general intelligence of the people, one
would have thought that a readable newspaper, put out with all
pleasant appurtenances of clear type, good paper, and good internal
arrangement, would have been a thing specially within their reach.
But they have failed in every detail. Though their papers are always
loaded with sensation headings, there are seldom sensation paragraphs
to follow. The paragraphs do not fit the headings. Either they cannot
be found, or if found they seem to have escaped from their proper
column to some distant and remote portion of the sheet. One is led to
presume that no American editor has any plan in the composition of
his newspaper. I never know whether I have as yet got to the very
heart's core of the daily journal, or whether I am still to go on
searching for that heart's core. Alas, it too often happens that
there is no heart's core! The whole thing seems to have been put
out at hap-hazard. And then the very writing is in itself below
mediocrity;--as though a power of expression in properly arranged
language was not required by a newspaper editor, either as regards
himself or as regards his subordinates. One is driven to suppose that
the writers for the daily press are not chosen with any view to such
capability. A man ambitious of being on the staff of an American
newspaper should be capable of much work, should be satisfied with
small pay, should be indifferent to the world's good usage, should
be rough, ready, and of long sufferance; but, above all, he should
be smart. The type of almost all American newspapers is wretched--I
think I may say of all;--so wretched that that alone forbids one to
hope for pleasure in reading them. They are ill-written, ill-printed,
ill-arranged, and in fact are not readable. They are bought, glanced
at, and thrown away.
They are full of boastings,--not boastings simply as to their
country, their town, or their party,--but of boastings as to
themselves. And yet they possess no self-assurance. It is always
evident that they neither trust themselves, nor expect to be trusted.
They have made no approach to that omniscience which constitutes the
great marvel of our own daily press; but finding it necessary to
write as though they possessed it, they fall into blunders which
are almost as marvellous. Justice and right judgment are out of
the question with them. A political party end is always in view,
and political party warfare in America admits of any weapons. No
newspaper in America is really powerful or popular; and yet they are
tyrannical and overbearing. The "New York Herald" has, I believe, the
largest sale of any daily newspaper; but it is absolutely without
political power, and in these times of war has truckled to the
Government more basely than any other paper. It has an enormous sale,
but so far is it from having achieved popularity, that no man on any
side ever speaks a good word for it. All American newspapers deal in
politics as a matter of course; but their politics have ever regard
to men and never to measures. Vituperation is their natural political
weapon; but since the President's ministers have assumed the power
of stopping newspapers which are offensive to them, they have shown
that they can descend to a course of eulogy which is even below
vituperation.
I shall be accused of using very strong language against the
newspaper press of America. I can only say that I do not know how to
make that language too strong. Of course there are newspapers as to
which the editors and writers may justly feel that my remarks, if
applied to them, are unmerited. In writing on such a subject, I can
only deal with the whole as a whole. During my stay in the country,
I did my best to make myself acquainted with the nature of its
newspapers, knowing in how great a degree its population depends on
them for its daily store of information. Newspapers in the States of
America have a much wider, or rather closer circulation, than they
do with us. Every man and almost every woman sees a newspaper daily.
They are very cheap, and are brought to every man's hand without
trouble to himself, at every turn that he takes in his day's work. It
would be much for the advantage of the country, that they should be
good of their kind; but, if I am able to form a correct judgment on
the matter, they are not good.