most books. They are far better educated, for the most part,
than our men, and their tastes, if not their minds, are more
cultivated. Our men read the newspapers, but our women read the
books; the more refined among them read the magazines. If they
do not always know what is good, they do know what pleases them,
and it is useless to quarrel with their decisions, for there is
no appeal from them. To go from them to the men would be going
from a higher to a lower court, which would be honestly surprised
and bewildered, if the thing were possible. As I say, the author
of light literature, and often the author of solid literature,
must resign himself to obscurity unless the ladies choose to
recognize him. Yet it would be impossible to forecast their
favor for this kind or that. Who could prophesy it for another,
who guess it for himself? We must strive blindly for it, and
hope somehow that our best will also be our prettiest; but we
must remember at the same time that it is not the ladies' man who
is the favorite of the ladies.

There are of course a few, a very few, of our greatest authors,
who have striven forward to the first place in our Valhalla
without the help of the largest reading-class among us; but I
should say that these were chiefly the humorists, for whom women
are said nowhere to have any warm liking, and who have generally
with us come up through the newspapers, and have never lost the
favor of the newspaper readers. They have become literary men,
as it were, without the newspapers' readers knowing it; but those
who have approached literature from another direction, have won
fame in it chiefly by grace of the women, who first read them,
and then made their husbands and fathers read them. Perhaps,
then, and as a matter of business, it would be well for a serious