its knowledge.

It would not be easy to fix the limit in this vast country to the
circulation of a good book if it were properly kept before the public.
Day by day, year by year, new readers are coming forward with curiosity
and intellectual wants. The generation that now is should not be deprived
of the best in the last generation. Nay more, one publication, in any
form, reaches only a comparatively small portion of the public that would
be interested in it. A novel, for instance, may have a large circulation
in a magazine; it may then appear in a book; it may reach other readers
serially again in the columns of a newspaper; it may be offered again in
all the by-ways by subscription, and yet not nearly exhaust its
legitimate running power. This is not a supposition but a fact proved by
trial. Nor is it to be wondered at, when we consider that we have an
unequaled homogeneous population with a similar common-school education.
In looking over publishers' lists I am constantly coming across good
books out of print, which are practically unknown to this generation, and
yet are more profitable, truer to life and character, more entertaining
and amusing, than most of those fresh from the press month by month.

Of the effect upon the literary product of writing to order, in obedience
to a merely commercial instinct, I need not enlarge to a company of
authors, any more than to a company of artists I need to enlarge upon the
effect of a like commercial instinct upon art.

I am aware that the evolution of literature or art in any period, in
relation to the literature and art of the world, cannot be accurately
judged by contemporaries and participants, nor can it be predicted. But I
have great expectations of the product of both in this country, and I am
sure that both will be affected by the conduct of persons now living. It