fact that Literature is Business as well as Art, and almost as
soon. At present business is the only human solidarity; we are
all bound together with that chain, whatever interests and tastes
and principles separate us, and I feel quite sure that in writing
of the Man of Letters as a Man of Business, I shall attract far
more readers than I should in writing of him as an Artist.
Besides, as an artist he has been done a great deal already; and
a commercial state like ours has really more concern in him as a
business man. Perhaps it may sometimes be different; I do not
believe it will till the conditions are different, and that is a
long way off.


III.

In the meantime I confidently appeal to the reader's imagination
with the fact that there are several men of letters among us who
are such good men of business that they can command a hundred
dollars a thousand words for all they write; and at least one
woman of letters who gets a hundred and fifty dollars a thousand
words. It is easy to write a thousand words a day, and supposing
one of these authors to work steadily, it can be seen that his
net earnings during the year would come to some such sum as the
President of the United States gets for doing far less work of a
much more perishable sort. If the man of letters were wholly a
business man this is what would happen; he would make his forty
or fifty thousand dollars a year, and be able to consort with
bank presidents, and railroad officials, and rich tradesmen, and
other flowers of our plutocracy on equal terms. But,
unfortunately, from a business point of view, he is also an