done pretty well in that kind, for there was already a great
demand for the short story in the magazines; but the syndicate of
Sunday editions particularly cultivated it, and made it very
paying. I have heard that some short-story writers made the
syndicate pay more for their wares than they got from the
magazines for them, considering that the magazine publication
could enhance their reputation, but the Sunday edition could do
nothing for it. They may have been right or not in this; I will
not undertake to say, but that was the business view of the case
with them.

In spite of the fact that short stories when gathered into a
volume and republished would not sell so well as a novel, the
short story flourished, and its success in the periodicals began
to be felt in the book trade: volumes of short stories suddenly
began to sell. But now again, it is said the bottom has dropped
out, and they do not sell, and their adversity in book form
threatens to affect them in the magazines; an editor told me the
other day that he had more short stories than he knew what to do
with; and I was not offering him a short story of my own, either.

A permanent decline in the market for a kind of literary art
which we have excelled in, or if we have not excelled, have done
some of our most exquisite work, would be a pity.

There are other sorts of light literature once greatly in demand,
but now apparently no longer desired by editors, who ought to
know what their readers desire. Among these is the travel
sketch, to me a very agreeable kind, and really to be regretted
in its decline. There are some reasons for its decline besides a