Life — February 3, 1898 — page 6: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

Evicted. AME burst the door of a poor man's heart And ordered Love My friend Not room for us both to stay.” out one day. "he said, “we two must part— 1 by, and the ha: ks out through th y see him yet if you know thi Still waiting for Love to rd face The Effort of Criticism To Be Severe. recently written in uintry about the of critics; and there seems be a pretty general agreement that eriti- has become either the direct expression publisher's views about his owt books, or al and indise nw-eraftsman ailing attitud minate appreciatio In an era of universal ¥ NOW THAT YOU ARE LEADING A poUBLE 1 MY DEAR, 1 CERTAINLY AM NOT LEADIN good-will, when anything that is mediocre can tind a publisher, everybody wants to help along everybody else, so that there msy be a good market ready for mediocrity. In other words, the very quantity of books necessarily pub- lished by respectable houses in order to keep their big machinery in motion, has lowered the standard of approval to cover much that may be harmless, and is surely worthless Books are not published for fun, and every means is used to make them sell. “Tits the same old complaint of * com mercialism" that bas been burled at all the learned professions in the past decade, and which bas been notoriously rampant in jour- nalism. The only wonder is that literature bas escaped it as long as ithas, When the lawyer, or and minister began to build fine houses. and fre samptuously every day, the author awoke to the fact that he seemed to be missing his share of the spoils of life. As James C. Carter said at a recent banquet, defending the wyer from a charge of taking extortionate fees—the general standard of living has ad vanced very much in the past decade, and the lawyer has simply tried to get his fair share. The “literary ageut” is a product of this de- sire for pelf. He is the “drummer” of litera ture. Any factory that wants to sticceed must have drummers to put its works before the Lire.” 2A SINGLE ONE. jobbers: und men who rug fiction factories have learned the trick. The drummer is not aMlicted with modesty in praising his goods, and he does not hesitate to play intending buyers aguinst each other if a Look is worth competing for. And when the price is run upon the pub- Isher he must, of course, do his best to get it back from the sale, Hence the preliminary and simultaneous devices to pique curiosity and color public opinion TH is the sort of thing that has led toa demand for a kind of criticism that is free from the personal element, and knows something of other kinds of literature than the books « Allof wh tude of mi Unfortu praised without discrimination will take this advice as a cue for indiscriminate censure. If good-navure isa blot on criticism he will give the public a sample of the other thing. The snarling, slashing, underhand thrusts of «mall feminine minds, epigrammatic smartness with a sting in it, are showing themselves in all those quarters that like to be thought entirely up with-the-procession in liverary affairs. And wiseacres shake their heads and say that “a healthful reaction has set in,” Asa matter of