III.
MY CHILD WHEN WE WERE CHILDREN.
(FROM THE GERMAN OF HEINE.)
My child when we were children,
Two children small and gay,
We crept into the hen-house
And hid us under the hay.
We crowed, as do the cockerels,
When people passed the road,
"Kikeriki!" and they fancied
It was the cock that crowed.
The chests which lay in the court-yard,
We papered them so fair,
Making a house right famous,
And dwelt together there.
The old cat of our neighbor,
Came oft to make a call;
We made her bows and courtesies,
And compliments and all.
We asked with friendly question,
How her health was getting on:
To many an ancient pussy
The same we since have done.
In sensible discoursing
We sat like aged men,
And told how in our young days
All things had better been.
That Truth, Love and Religion
From the earth are vanished quite—
And now so dear is coffee,
And money is so tight!
But gone are childish gambols,
And all things fleeting prove—
Money, the world, our young days,
Religion, Truth and Love.
PAID FOR BY THE PAGE.
BY EDWARD S. GOULD.
The labourer is worthy of his hire. A man who produces an available "article" for a newspaper or a periodical, is as properly entitled to a pecuniary recompense, as a doctor, or a lawyer, or a clergy-man, for professional services; or, as a merchant or a mechanic for his transferable property. This is a simple proposition, which nobody disputes. The rate of such compensation must be a matter of agreement. As between author and publisher, custom seems to have fixed on what an arithmetician would call "square measure," as the basis of the bargain; and the question of adjustment is simplified down to "how much by the column, or the page?"
This system has its advantages in a business point of view; because, when the price, or rate, is agreed on, nothing remains but to count the pages. Whether the publisher or the writer is benefited by this plan of computation, in a literary point of view, may, however, be doubted.
A man who is paid by the page for his literary labour, has every inducement but one to expand lines into sentences, sentences into paragraphs, and paragraphs into extravagant dimensions. An idea, to him, is a thing to be manufactured into words, each of which has a money value; and if he can, by that simplest of all processes—a verbal dilution—give to one idea the expansive power of twelve; if he can manage to spread over six pages what would be much better said in half a page, he gains twelve prices for his commodity, instead of one; and he sacrifices nothing but the quality of his commodity—and that is no sacrifice, so long as his publisher and his readers do not detect it.
When a man writes for reputation, he has a very different task before him; for no one will gain high and permanent rank as an author, unless his ideas bear some tolerable proportion to his words. He who aims to write well, will avoid diffuseness. Multum in parvo will be his first consideration; and if he achieves that, he will have secured one of the prime requisites of literary fame.
In the earlier days of our republic, a discussion was held by several of the prominent statesmen of the period, on the expediency of extending the right of suffrage to others than freeholders. Some of the debaters made long speeches; others made short ones. At length, Mr. Jay was called on for his views of the matter. His brief response was: "Gentlemen, in my opinion, those who own the country ought to rule it." If that distinguished patriot had been writing for the bleeding Kansas Quarterly, at the rate of a dollar a page, he would probably have expanded this remark. He might have written thus:
"Every man is born free and independent; or, if he is not, he ought to be. E pluribus unum. He is, moreover, the natural proprietor of the soil; for the soil, without him, is nothing worth. He came from the soil; he lives on the soil; and he must return to the soil. De gustibus, non est disputandum. So much for man in his natural state, breathing his natural air, surrounded by his natural horizon, and luxuriating in his natural prerogatives. But this is a very limited view of the question. Man is expansive, aggressive, acquisitive. Vox populi, vox Dei. Having acquired, he wills to acquire. Acquisition suggests acquisition. Conquest promotes conquest. And, speaking of conquests, the greatest of all conquests is that which a man obtains over himself—provided always that he does obtain it. This secured, he may consider himself up to anything. Arma virumque cano. Owning the soil by right of possession; owning himself by right of conquest; and, being about to establish a form of government conformable to his own views of right and wrong; let him protect the right, confound the wrong, and make his own selection of subordinate officers. Mus cucurrit plenum sed."
This, by way of illustration. The Jay style sounds the best: the dollar-a-page style pays the best. But the dollar-a-page system is a very bad one for the well-being of our newspaper and periodical literature, simply because the chief inducement is on the wrong side. If an author receives twice as much pay for a page as for half a page, he will write a page as a matter of course; and, as a matter of course, the quality of what he writes will be depreciated in geometrical proportion. For the same thing, said in few words, is ten times more effectual than when said in many words.
No doubt, different subjects require different handling, and more space is needed for some than for others. An essay is not necessarily too long because it fills five columns, or fifty pages; but periodical and newspaper writing demands compactness, conciseness, concentration; and the fact of being paid by measurement, is a writer's ever-present temptation to disregard this demand.
The conceit of estimating the value of an article by its length and rating the longest at the highest price, is about as wise as to estimate a man by his inches instead of his intellect.
Certain names there are in the literary world, which carry great weight in a reader's regard, independently of the quality of the contributions. If a Sir Walter Scott were to write for the North American Review, he would temporarily elevate the reputation of the Review, however carelessly he might throw his sentences together. But, theoretically, the articles in our periodical literature are anonymous; and, practically, they stand on their intrinsic merits. And it is out of the question that a system which offers a money premium for the worst fault in periodical writing—to wit, prolixity—should not deteriorate the character of such writing.
Much more might be said on this subject; but, to the wise, a word is sufficient. And it would ill become one who is endeavouring to recommend conciseness, to disfigure that very endeavour by diffuseness.