sort of fiction which corresponds to the circus and the variety
theatre in the show-business seems essential to the spiritual
health of the masses, but the most cultivated of the classes can
get on, from time to time, without an artistic novel. This is a
great pity, and I should be very willing that readers might feel
something like the pangs of hunger and cold, when deprived of
their finer fiction; but apparently they never do. Their dumb
and passive need is apt only to manifest itself negatively, or in
the form of weariness of this author or that. The publisher of
books can ascertain the fact through the declining sales of a
writer; but the editor of a magazine, who is the best customer of
the best writers, must feel the market with a much more delicate
touch. Sometimes it may be years before he can satisfy himself
that his readers are sick of Smith, and are pining for Jones;
even then he cannot know how long their mood will last, and he is
by no means safe in cutting down Smith's price and putting up
Jones's. With the best will in the world to pay justly, he
cannot. Smith, who has been boring his readers to death for a
year, may write to- morrow a thing that will please them so much
that he will at once be a prime favorite again; and Jones, whom
they have been asking for, may do something so uncharacteristic
and alien that it will be a flat failure in the magazine. The
only thing that gives either writer positive value is his
acceptance with the reader; but the acceptance is from month to
month wholly uncertain. Authors are largely matters of fashion,
like this style of bonnet, or that shape of gown. Last spring
the dresses were all made with lace berthas, and Smith was read;
this year the butterfly capes are worn, and Jones is the favorite
author. Who shall forecast the fall and winter modes?