case, disguised as the Memoirs of Josephine, and let them haul me upstairs before I revealed I was not. But they turn those cases upside down and every which way-it would be as bad as going over Niagara.

If there must be a test imposed on everyone who enters a library, make it a brain test that will keep out all readers who are weak in the head. No matter how good their legs are, if they haven't enough brains, keep 'em out. But, instead, we impose a leg test, every day of the year, on all comers, which lets in the brainless without any examination at all, and shuts out the most scholarly persons unless they have legs like an antelope's.

It is the same at the Metropolitan Museum, and at most of our clubs. Why, they are even beginning to build steps in front of our great railway stations, in order to make it that much more difficult for people to travel, and to discourage them and turn them back if possible at the start of their journey. And all this is done in the name of art. Why can't art be more practical?

The remedy is simple. No architect who had trouble with his own legs would be so inconsiderate. His trouble is, unfortunately, at the other end. Very well, break his legs. Whenever we citizens engage a new architect to put up a building, let it be stipulated in the contract that the Board of Aldermen shall break his legs first. The only objection I can think of is that his legs would soon get well. In that case, elect some more aldermen and break them again.

pointed author, had become an extinct animal. But this is far from being the case. He is still with us, sour and supercilious as of old, and he is still of the opinion that the whole publishing business is an organized conspiracy against the recognition of his genius. For those "best sellers" which, confessedly, he has never condescended to examine, he has the same old high-souled contempt, and every kind of literary success, whether it take the form of royalties or merely favorable reviews, he regards as a personal insult. It is all a matter of collusion between critics and publishers, "pull" with newspapers, or the logrolling of mutually admiring coteries. That this is literally true, his own unpublished masterpieces are sufficient evidence. They have been offered to twenty publishers, and the honor of introducing them to the world has been declined by all. Singularly enough, the author's conclusion from this experience is that they are too good-not too bad for the present conditions of the literary market. The taste of publishers and public alike is too low to appreciate their merits. He has, therefore, come to the decision-which can scarcely be regarded as a choice-to keep them to himself, in their virginal seclusion, or to print them in a private, strictly limited edition, the cost of which he will, if possible, defray by energetically boring his unfortunate acquaintances into taking subscriptions. In most cases, his acquaintances prefer doing this to the dread alternative of hearing him read them aloud, and, should this resource even fail him, and the audience, fit though few, flee at his approach, he finally intrenches himself behind a sullen and atrabilious egoism which grows in proportion as it finds nothing to feed on but itself. He hugs the "neglect of his genius" as its surest testimonial. It has been so, he says, with all greatness-of course it hasn't-and, after all, to have won the publishers and the public would actually have been the most disgraceful form of failure. So he bitterly "bides

his time," abuses the publishing "trust," and sneers, with the aloof superiority of the esoteric "artist," at every new writer who is vulgar enough to catch the attention of the reading world. Has not his own experience taught him that nothing good can get published? Therefore nothing that gets published can be good.

Of course all the facts of literary history are against him. Doubtless certain difficult or delicate masterpieces have encountered slowness of recognition, as was to be expected, and their authors have been occasionally subject to the stupidity alike of publishers and public. But this has not been the rule. The good thing has seldom waited long for its discovery, and it has usually found its reward. It is highly improbable that any literature of importance has ever been lost to the world. Publishers may have dealt unfairly by its authors-that is another story-but, however good writers have fared, good books have seldom gone a-begging. If this is true of the past, as I believe it to be, how much more true is it of the present time. For a good book to escape publication nowadays it would have to be kept a profound secret, kept as no secret has ever yet been kept, hidden with as much precaution as contraband alcohol, or immured in some desert island like buried treasure.

Never was there so singular a superstition as this of the publisher's supposed indifference to literature. It is like saying that a man has gone into a business for the purpose of doing no business. A publisher is primarily a business man, whose business is to publish and sell books. Unless he sells them they can hardly be said to be published. Nor can he continue publishing them, even technically, unless he can sell them as well. Therefore he is obliged, in dealing with a manuscript, to take into consideration not merely its literary quality, but the chances of its attracting his customer, the public. All the books he publishes cannot be "lit

erature," for, apart from the fact that "literature" is not produced every five minutes, even those who love it are not always in the mood for the highest. All kinds of books are needed to make a world, and the majority of them must, quite properly, be ephemeral in their nature and appeal. It is the publisher's business to provide the best he can find of all kinds, in accordance with the demands of the hour, and the tastes of the various publics that patronize the bookshops. For, more and more, that vague entity, the reading public, is becoming differentiated into classes, with special needs, and, while some publishers attempt to supply them all, there has recently been an interesting evolution of the specialized publisher, devoting himself to the particular tastes of one sort of reader. But of publishers in general, whether they take all forms of literature for their province or confine themselves to special fields, it must be remembered that, their business being with books, they are something more than mere tradesmen in the usual sense of the word, and, as one would expect, and has a right even to demand, they are not so indifferent to the ideal responsibilities of their calling as their detractors assume. They must be "business men" to carry on their business, but, in most cases, they remember that the nature of their business implies a certain noblesse oblige.

So, whatever the disappointed author may think to the contrary, they do really prefer to publish good books when they can get them, and are constantly-even wistfully on the lookout for them in every direction. Too many good books would, it is to be feared, spoil a business; and publishers, indeed, are so far from being indifferent to "literature" that an honorable list could be made of publishers who during the last twenty years have come to grief by too much love of loving good literature, and publishing it, in idealistic disregard of the economic law of supply and demand. For the success of his business it behooves a pub

lisher to love literature wisely, but not too well. Without a certain percentage of idealism a publishing business loses touch with the times, loses, too, the necessary tone of distinction, and, however superficially prosperous, is in danger of dry rot; but that percentage of idealism is not to be overstepped without 'peril. It is a matter of instinct, too, rather than calculation, and the possession of that instinct marks the publisher who is at once successful and distinguished. No man is more barometrically sensitive to the spiritual and intellectual atmosphere of the times than such a publisher. There are notable examples of such men emerging in the publishing world during the last decade or two, and, when one considers, too, the rejuvenescence of certain "classical" publishing houses, their skilful purging themselves of conservatism, and their accessibility to new tendencies, it is apparent that the chances of any kind of good book being overlooked have been reduced to a minimum. In every direction every kind of publisher has his dragnets out in the oceanic tides of manuscripts, and any form of literary life that gets thrown back into those seething prolific waters must be the very refuse or infusoria of the waste-paper basket. It may well be thought that, in their anxiety to miss nothing good, publishers are all too hospitable to the near-good, judging by the multitude of books of all kinds that are published, which have something, but scarcely enough, in them-gleams and snatches of talent and no more, books too hastily produced, too little meditated, and plainly in need of longer incubation. However, this may be regarded as a fault that leans to virtue's side, and, at all events, points to the fact that the alleged neglect of "struggling genius" by the modern publisher is entirely unfounded and unjust.

Take the matter of poetry. Heretofore it has, doubtless, been true that publishers have fought shy of investing their capital in volumes of poems. And what sensible person can blame them?

Unless poetry bears some great acknowledged name, or unless it should be new work of manifest power or beauty, the publisher is not so much taking a risk in publishing it, as indulging in the certainty of throwing away his money. "Minor poetry"-as we seem to have stopped calling it, every new poet apparently belonging to the "dii majores"

good as it may have been, has usually commanded but a minor audience. So it has been, at all events, up till lately. Perhaps this sad fact is no longer so much of a fact as it was. Certainly it would seem so from the number of volumes of verse that have of late literally poured from the press. That these volumes attain a remarkably high average of excellence cannot be denied, and it may be that there is a larger public for poetry, even of the "minor" variety, than there used to be. So it would appear, for otherwise a vast amount of good money must have been wasted during the last ten years. But, be that as it may, it is idle for any modern poet of even moderate talent to complain that he finds any difficulty in bringing his wares before the world. For him to fail in finding a publisher is next to an impossibility, and, once published, there is a chorus of critics awaiting him, ready not merely to discover the good in him, but, too often, ridiculously to overpraise it. In the present inflation of literary values he is far more in danger from too much appreciation than too little, and, while one may be glad that he should thus be born into this "golden clime" of encouragement, one regrets for his own sake, for the future development of his talent, that he is no longer subjected to the salutary discipline of a sterner criticism-frequently good for him, even when unfair.

Generally speaking, the writer who cannot find a publisher to-day either does not know how to write or has nothing to say that anyone cares to hear. The day of the disappointed author is gone forever. To-day is too often the day of the disappointed publisher.

THE SPIRIT OF OUR AGE

WE

BY S. E. KISER

E frequently hear it said that the generation now inhabiting the earth is living in the most eventful period, the most important era, which history is ever likely to record; but are we justified in accepting such statements without question, without wondering whether they may not be misleading?

It is to be hoped that no future age may be darkened by as great a war as our war was, and it is not improbable that some of the ages to come will fail to surpass this age in the importance of their scientific achievements. We live in the age which has produced the birdman, the wireless telegraph, and the selfstarting cigarette torch. These triumphs, it is fair to assume, will be duly noted and properly estimated by the historians who shall speak with authority in the centuries to come. There are many reasons, however, for believing that they may dwindle into comparative insignificance when Posterity begins to question itself concerning the name by which the present age shall be designated.

We speak of the Homeric Age, the Days of the Cæsars, the Dark Ages, the Age of Chivalry, the Reformation, the Elizabethan Age, the Napoleonic Era, and the Victorian Age. In the history of our own country we find the Colonial Period, the Revolutionary Era, the Days of the Free-Soil Movement, the Time of the Rebellion, and the Period of Reconstruction. Is it probable that the age in which we are living will be known as the Electric Age, the Flying Age, the Gasolene Age, or the Wireless Age? One may doubt that any such flattering title will be bestowed upon it. Does it not seem more likely that Posterity will decide, after making a careful study of the conditions most characteristic of our time, to refer to this as the Muttenjeff Age?

Occasionally some man attracts momentary attention by investing his for

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tune in manuscripts left behind by a poet who starved to death, but such pursuits of literature are not typical of the age in which we continue the pursuit of happiness; they will not cause people who become fretful over living conditions in the year 2500 A.D. to speak of this as the Age of Poesy. Nor is it reasonable to hope that, because of certain recent noble efforts to ameliorate and simplify the struggle for existence, the cycle which we enliven may be known as the Age of Overalls. The overall movement is, indeed, merely a manifestation of the muttenjeff motif.

This motif is disclosed wherever we turn with discriminating attention. We see it in the "outlaw" strike; we find it in the flamboyant announcements of the surgeon who gives youthful vigor to an octogenarian by equipping him with a set of glands which formerly contributed to the self-esteem of a goat; we may discover it in the methods pursued by those who have assumed the task of enforcing the provisions of the Eighteenth Amendment to our Constitution.

There is no escape from the conviction that the muttenjeff idea connotes the present level of public intelligence and taste. It manifests itself in business, in politics, in art, in our amusements, and in the homes of the people.

Gentlemen who possess "master minds" organize syndicates for the purpose of acquiring bonds in million-dollar bundles, and then engage in extensive negotiations with the police, the transactions generally being looked upon as delectable jokes.

Capital and Labor meet in conventions and endeavor to establish amity by hissing and cat-calling.

Men who represent the people in the various legislative halls arise with propositions to make it unlawful to be redheaded, to exhibit or read books with red covers, or to plant trees which may bring forth red blossoms.

In the jazz and the shimmy the public finds surcease from sorrow and discovers