Chambers's Journal of Popular Literature, Science, and Art, Fifth Series, No. 109, Vol. III, January 30, 1886

No. 109.—Vol. III.
Price 1½ d.
SATURDAY, JANUARY 30, 1886.
A recent writer remarks that ‘the practice of letters is miserably harassing to the mind. To find the right word is so doubtful a success, and lies so near to failure, that there is no satisfaction in a year of it.’ A cynical warning, indeed; but there is, we think, no danger of a scarcity of literary effort in the immediate future, whatever the appreciable results of it may be. There will always be a host of aspirants for literary honours, and the reason of this may perhaps lie, to a certain extent, in that very uncertainty which attends the pursuit of letters as an avocation; the brilliant rewards which have been earned and the underlying risk of failure, present together the very conditions of enterprise most powerfully attractive to many minds. For it must be remembered that there is no fixedness in the canon either of public opinion or of criticism in literature; that which fails to win attention to-day, may attract to-morrow; and success, especially that form of it which results from passing popularity, is in many cases very much dependent on the proverbial fickleness of the reading public. It would be difficult, we think, on other grounds than that of this attractiveness of the chances and prizes of the literary occupation, to account for the active competition which is so observable in the profession. That the pure literary faculty, as a stimulus, does not form a distinguishing characteristic of all aspirants, is plain enough. No doubt, a great impetus has been given to literary endeavour by the periodical press, which, by popularising ephemeral literature among the masses, and by its own requirements of supply, has thus increased its production. And the same is true of the newspaper press also, with its opportunities for the contribution of correspondence, which, though frequently a humble enough opening for talent, has often sufficed to originate and foster the habit of more ambitious composition.