poet as Mr. Whitcomb Riley, has paid its expenses, not to speak
of any profit to the author? Of course, it would be rather more
offensive and ridiculous that it should do so than that any other
form of literary art should do so; and yet there is no more
provision in our economic system for the support of the poet
apart from his poems, than there is for the support of the
novelist apart from his novel. One could not make any more money
by writing poetry than by writing history, but it is a curious
fact that while the historians have usually been rich men, and
able to afford the luxury of writing history, the poets have
usually been poor men, with no pecuniary justification in their
devotion to a calling which is so seldom an election.

To be sure, it can be said for them that it costs far less to set
up poet than to set up historian. There is no outlay for copying
documents, or visiting libraries, or buying books. In fact,
except as historian, the man of letters, in whatever walk, has
not only none of the expenses of other men of business, but none
of the expenses of other artists. He has no such outlay to make
for materials, or models, or studio rent as the painter or the
sculptor has, and his income, such as it is, is immediate. If he
strikes the fancy of the editor with the first thing he offers,
as he very well may, it is as well with him as with other men
after long years of apprenticeship. Although he will always be
the better for an apprenticeship, and the longer apprenticeship
the better, he may practically need none at all. Such are the
strange conditions of his acceptance with the public, that he may
please better without it than with it. An author's first book is
too often not only his luckiest, but really his best; it has a
brightness that dies out under the school he puts himself to, but