may prompt. They shun metaphor, assonance, alliteration, rhythm— all natural as quickening impulses are to high and passionate thought. They have an innate reverence for the AngoSaxon Chronicle. True, an author should be judged by his success in achieving his own aim. Zola, Howells, Turgénieff, undertake photography with delightful success: photographs may be excellent and pleasing, yet they are rarely elevating, ennobling; they lack the power of highest art to "free, arouse, dilate."

Let us examine several selections in order to ⚫see how prose, in becoming more adequate to render the beautiful, encroaches more and more upon the domain of verse. I select from "The Lady of the Aroostook one of the most vivid and beautiful descriptions to be found in the novels of Mr. Howells:

"The red sunset light rose slowly from the hulls and lower spars of the shipping, and kindled the tips of the high-shooting masts with a quickly fading splendor. A delicate flush responded in the east, and rose to meet the denser crimson of the west; a few clouds, incomparably light and diaphanous, bathed themselves in the glow."

Here vividness is obtained by the use of rapid movement and poetic epithet. Now, contrast a few verses on a like theme - Juan and Haidee on the evening sands:

"They looked up to the sky, whose floating glow Spread like a rosy ocean, vast and bright; They gazed upon the glittering sea below,

Whence the broad moon rose circling into sight' Equally direct and unadorned, but what a difference is produced by rhyme and rhythm. In the following short passage from Ruskin we have prose, unimpassioned, but made more picturesque and beautiful than that of Mr. Howells, by a more poetic choice of epithets, and the introduction of assonance and alliteration :

"An evening in spring, when the south rain has ceased at sunset, and through the lulled and golden air the confused and fantastic mists float up along the hollows of the mountains, white and pure,— while the blue, level night advances along the sea, and the surging breakers leap up to catch the last light from the path of the sunset."

With this picture of a spring evening com

pare a famous quatrain of Swinburne's, calling into play most of the resources of verse, and concentrating into four short lines all the new life and freshness of a March day:

"When the hounds of spring are on winter's traces,
And the mother of months in meadow and plain
Fills the shadows and windy places

With lisp of leaves and ripple of rain." That color, that atmosphere, that movement, are forever above the reach of prose. From the work of F. J. Stimson I select a beautiful passage. Besides the alliteration and the assonance, notice how the sentiment induces a rhythm not the regular rhythm of verse, but a rhythm, pliant and changing, that adapts itself to the undulation of the hills and the movement of the mists: :

"And all things did live, nothing was dead; the smooth broad meadows were alive, and the dark hills bending to the lighter sky. Ah, the fair world!

"So he walked, dreaming, through his favorite path, and as he came around the brow of some low hill, there, before him, lay a sea a sea of silver mist, and all the world was silvern, still and silvern; silvern in the white light, rimmed with the purple of the hills and sky; a deep black-purple, where the silver points of stars shone through. All below him and around him lay the moonlit mist, filling all the valley meadows, sifting softly through the little woody hollows, where great black shapes of trees loomed up, and higher hills pent up the fleecy cloud, and through it came the rifts of evening winds."

Compare a stanza of Shelley's breathing a like sentiment in a like atmosphere : —

"The cloud shadows of midnight possess their own repose, For the weary winds are silent, or the moon is in the deep; Some respite to its turbulence unresting ocean knows; Whatever moves, or toils, or grieves, hath its appointed sleep.

I in the grave shall rest yet till the phantoms flee Which that house and heath and garden made dear to me ere while,

My remembrance, and repentance, and deep musings, are not free

From the music of two voices, and the light of one sweet smile."

Lastly, look at this sunset piece by George Meredith unsurpassingly vivid, matchless in prose. It lacks only a regular metre to make it

the most poetic of verse; and yet it is not verse; it is intense, but legitimate, prose. "Golden lie the meadows, golden run the streams; red gold is on the pine stems. The sun is coming down to earth, and walks the fields and the waters.

"The sun is coming down to earth, and the fields and the waters shout to him golden shouts. He comes, and his heralds run before him, and touch the leaves of the oaks, and planes, and beeches lucid green, and the pine stems redder gold.... The tide of color has ebbed from the upper sky. In the west the sea of sunken fire draws back; and the stars leap forth, and tremble, and retire before the advancing moon, who slips the silver train of clouds from her shoulders, and, with her foot upon the pine tops, surveys heaven." It is Shakesperian in its energy; it recalls the sonnet beginning :

"Full many a glorious morning have I seen

Flatter the mountain tops with sovereign eye, Kissing with golden face the meadows green, Gilding pale streams with heavenly alchemy." All this is not to prove,- for a proof is un

necessary, but to emphasize, the fact that prose, in becoming a more adequate art-medium, makes greater and greater use of all the strongest resources of language, up to a certain limit, not defined, but apparent to the literary sense.

If our age has chosen prose for a medium of literary art, then let it be art, and not science — not dead and desiccated, but living, red-blooded, passionate. Why do most novelists reject all the vivifying, strengthening, intensifying resources of language? Why do they prefer the level of the vapid chronicle to the power and beauty that they might attain? Should prose be forbidden to rise into passion and music? Should the glory, the changing moods of water, and wood, and sky be expressed, or merely named? Why may not the novel approach the exquisite pathos and loveliness of a Tennysonian idyl, or the irresistible, uplifting power of a Shakespearian tragedy?

AUBURNDALE, Mass.

Russell Patterson Jacobus.

A startling idea occurred to me the other day. I was tempted to wonder if advertising would be an efficacious remedy for the ills that writers are heir to. If other people have made themselves millionaires by judicious advertising, might authors eke out their slender substance by similar methods? This is the idea that launched itself upon my inner consciousness, and demanded to be heard, to be, pondered, to be passed on to others. I do not endorse it. I simply make myself its medium, and enter into a series of suppositions regarding it.

Suppose Frank Stockton, for instance, were to keep secret his literary labors, and then advertise them in the Critic, Book News, THE WRITER, etc., would it be considered a stupen

dous joke, or would a brisk correspondence ensue between him and the various publishers, to his and their advantage? Suppose others, not as well known, were to do likewise, and suppose it were to become the custom of writers everywhere to do so. If other people increase their business, and thereby their property, by such means, does it prove that the author, pursuing the same roads, might arrive at the same ends; or is it best for him to remain to be sought, or to send out his wares stealthily, burning his bridges behind him, in the way of former rejec tions of his manuscripts, while looking for returns, more or less satisfactory? The chronic super-sensitiveness of most authors, and their lack of business instincts, are well understood,

out a neatly-printed circular worded like this:

MANUSCRIPTS FOR SALE.

Mr. Albert Atherton, author of "Moods and Fancies," has just returned from his summer vacation with poems, sketches, and stories, which he desires to place at once.

Terms, $10 per 1,000 words.

Mr. Atherton is well known to the readers of the Atlantic Magazine and Boston Journalist. Mr. Howlet says of "Moods and Fancies ": "Not a line but has some beauty of its own. It is exquisite in detail, and as a whole is to be commended."

Correspondence solicited.

Half the fun would be gone from the world if people should always say just what they mean. Here are a handful of ambiguities and absurdities, offered as specimens of the capabilities of the human mind:

Edward W. Bok is the authority for the somewhat startling statement that "most magazines will return manuscripts if stamps are enclosed." And in the same line the New York Ledger announces: "All prepaid manuscripts received and examined, and returned if stamps are enclosed to prepay postage." The logical inference is that if the aspiring author wishes his manuscript to be accepted, he would do better not to enclose stamps.

Notice in the toilet-room of a railway-station : "Ladies can be furnished with fresh towels." Now this is generosity carried to an extreme. Ladies are always in demand, and the place

where they can be furnished is so sure of pat“ ronage that to throw in towels as an extra inducement seems quite superfluous.

"He has a small head, a long neck, and a pretty face, all the expression of which is in his dark brown eyes, large hands and feet." It is true that hands and feet are often expressive, but who would have expected to find them features of a face?

Ministers are cheap nowadays, or is it that Calvinism is at a discount just now? The Presbyterian, after a lengthy advertisement of its own virtues, adds in an aside: "Ministers, $1.50 per

annum.

Students and missionaries, it seems, come cheaper, being advertised at only a dollar. Question: "Who were that man and woman who went by with a baby and two cows led behind?" Poor baby! Alice L. Anderson.

WINDHAM, N. H.

THE WRITER.

WM. H. HILLS, . . EDITOR AND PUBLISHER.

The Writer is published the first day of every month. It will be sent, post-paid, ONE YEAR for ONE DOLLAR.

All drafts and money orders should be made payable to William H. Hills. Stamps, or local checks, should not be sent in payment for subscriptions.

*THE WRITER will be sent only to those who have paid for it in advance. Accounts cannot be opened for subscriptions, and names will not be entered on the list unless the subscription order is accompanied by a remittance. When subscriptions expire the names of subscribers will be taken off the list unless an order for renewal, accompanied by remittance, is received. Due notice will be given to every subscriber of the expiration of his subscription.

No sample copies of THE WRITER will be sent free.

The American News Company, of New York, and the New England News Company, of Boston, are wholesale agents for THE WRITER. It may be ordered from any newsdealer, or directly, by mail, from the publisher.

THE WRITER is kept on sale by Damrell & Upham (Old Corner Bookstore), Boston; Brentano Bros., New York, Washington, and Chicago; George F. Wharton, New Orleans; John Wanamaker, Philadelphia; and the principal newsdealers in other cities.

Everything printed in the magazine will be written expressly for it.

Not one line of paid advertisement will be printed in THE WRITER Outside of the advertising pages.

Advertising rates will be sent on request. Contributions not used will be returned, if a stamped and addressed envelope is enclosed.

This letter from Wolcott Balestier, written shortly before his death, shows his interest in the movement for the reduction of postage on MSS:

2 DEAN'S YARD,
WESTMINSTER ABBEY, S. W.,

November 7, 1891. To the Editor of THE WRITER: DEAR SIR, -- I gather from a recent issue of the New York Tribune that you are making an effort to help forward a movement looking to the reduction of postage on authors' MSS. within the limits of the United States.

Permit me to offer my small mite of applause. It is a reform which I have long wished to see; and though it causes me, for the moment, no personal inconvenience, the mistake and wrong of the present system is the concern of everybody. One is particularly struck by the anomaly if one is in the habit of using the admirable English book post. The rate of postage upon MS.

within the limits of Great Britain, as no doubt you know, is 4d. per pound; and one may send a MS. from here to the United States at the same rate. Very truly yours,

* **

WOLCOTT BALESTIER.

Not every writer can afford to buy a typewriting machine, although any writer who can manage to pay the price of one cannot afford to do without it, but every one who writes can afford to acquire a clear, legible handwriting, since only time and care need be expended to secure it. In these days, when so many typewritten manuscripts are offered to pampered editors, penwritten mar uscripts are at a serious disadvantage, even when they are clearly writ:en. The editor, like other people, seeks to get what he wants with the least expenditure of time and trouble, and an editor who, with a pile of manuscripts before him and only so much space to fill, would deliberately read the penwritten contributions first must be a very

strange animal indeed. Typewritten manu.

scripts are sure to be read before others, and if, as is more than probable, the editor finds what he needs among them, the penwritten manuscripts are likely to be returned unread, or after only a hasty inspection - enough to give some idea of their general character. There is no reason in the world why an editor should as inexperienced writers think he must read every manuscript that is offered to him for publication. He needs just so much matter every month, and when he has accepted enough for present needs, it is necessary for him to examine subsequent contributions only to avoid the possibility of passing by some manuscript of such especial fitness for his purpose that he would accept it even if for present use no more manuscripts should be required. A very brief examination enables an editor to judge whether a given manuscript is one of that kind or not; and as nearly every editor is habitually well supplied with articles for present use, he is not likely to put himself to much trouble purely for the benefit of his contributors, and the writer who offers him a typewritten manuscript, or, in default of that, a legible penwritten manuscript, is sure to get the best and quickest hearing. A good typewriter costs $100; a good clear handwriting may be ac

quired in a few weeks at an expense of only time and labor. The writer who cannot spend the $100 can usually spend the time and labor, if he will; and the expenditure will repay him well.

This inequality of supply and demand in the manuscript market is the chief cause of all the ill-treatment by editors of which so many writers have complained. The ordinary writer approaches the editor in a certain sense as a suppliant, offering for sale a commodity with which the editor is usually well supplied. Of course, there is always a chance that the new contribution may possess such wonderful merit as to make the editor grateful to the contributor for giving him an opportunity to buy it; but sad experience has taught editors that this is not usually the case. Not one of all the periodicals published in the United States would stop if not an unsolicited contribution were received for the next twelve months, and probably not one of them would show a falling off in merit. The unsolicited contributor is spected in editorial offices, because there is always the chance that he may supply an idea or an article of exceptional value; but he is not essential, and he is not so well treated as he would be if editors had to depend upon his contributions to fill their pages. Editors have just as much human nature in their composition as young writers are apt to leave out of their compositions; and although there are benevolent exceptions, they are likely to be selfish in their treatment of contributors—just as the ordinary contributor is selfish in his treatment of them.

re

The law of supply and demand governs the relations between editors and contributors, just as it governs the relations between buyer and seller in the potato market. The editor who habitually has plenty of sufficiently good manuscripts available after a while gets to regard the great army of unsolicited contributors as a crowd of self-seeking aspirants who make him a good deal of disagreeable work, and only occasionally furnish him with something which he wants. He recognizes the necessity of examining to some

extent everything they send in, for fear of missing the gem that may be covered up somewhere in the mass of rubbish ; but he grumbles because he has to work so much to get so little, and it is too much to expect that he should show a gratitude which he does not feel. Considering the amount of unprofitable labor imposed upon editors by contributors who do not know what the editors want, it is remarkable that writers are treated as well as they are. The biggest publications, which bear the heaviest burden, but are able to bear it best, treat writers best, because they can afford to pay the salaries of as many editors and clerks as are needed to do the work. The smallest publications, which are least able to be courteous, because they cannot afford to pay what courtesy costs, treat contributors as well as they can, because, as a rule, they are not over-supplied with manuscripts, and unsolicited contributions are useful. Periodicals of the great middle class, including most of those on which writers must depend, are the ones that give writers most cause to complain of ill treatment. They do not need the unasked contributor, and they treat him accordingly. They cannot afford to employ a large staff of editors and manuscript clerks, and delays and losses of manuscript in their offices are unavoidable. Most of them do the best they can, and many of them treat contributors with a courtesy that is extraordinary under the circumstances; but still writers have frequent occasion to complain. They will have such occasion, moreover, until the conditions of the manuscript market shall change, and the excess of supply over demand shall make editors suppliants to authors, instead of the authors being suppliants to editors, as they are now.

The lack of system in the handling of manuscripts in many editorial offices is deplorable, especially since in most cases the fault might be easily corrected. The system followed in the office of one magazine is so good that it seems advisable to outline it here as a suggestion to the editors of other periodicals. In the office referred to when a manuscript is received it is opened by the mail clerk, who takes from it the stamps enclosed and writes on the letter ac