In view of this fact, so humiliating to an author in the presence
of a nation of business men like ours, I do not know that I can
establish the man of letters in the popular esteem as very much
of a business man after all. He must still have a low rank among
practical people; and he will be regarded by the great mass of
Americans as perhaps a little off, a little funny, a little soft!

Perhaps not; and yet I would rather not have a consensus of
public opinion on the question; I think I am more comfortable
without it.


IV.

There is this to be said in defence of men of letters on the
business side, that literature is still an infant industry with
us, and so far from having been protected by our laws it was
exposed for ninety years after the foundation of the republic to
the vicious competition of stolen goods. It is true that we now
have the international copyright law at last, and we can at least
begin to forget our shame; but literary property has only
forty-two years of life under our unjust statutes, and if it is
attacked by robbers the law does not seek out the aggressors and
punish them, as it would seek out and punish the trespassers upon
any other kind of property; but it leaves the aggrieved owner to
bring suit against them, and recover damages, if he can. This
may be right enough in itself; but I think, then, that all
property should be defended by civil suit, and should become
public after forty-two years of private tenure. The Constitution
guarantees us all equality before the law, but the law-makers