VI.

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 contemporanies; I have
sometimes thought they were. 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 drygoods,
groceries, drugs, stocks, real estate, railroads, and the like.