“And as I am in no sense a lecturer …”—Mr. Chesterton.
Seemingly the knowledge of one’s limitations as a public entertainer does not preclude one from accepting a fee five or ten times larger than one would receive in London. We are languidly curieux de savoir how far the American equivalent would get in the English capital.
[p 291]
]You cannot “make Chicago literary” by moving the magazine market to that city. Authors lay the scenes of their stories in New York rather than in Chicago, because readers prefer to have the scene New York, just as English readers prefer London to Manchester or Liverpool. If a story is unusually interesting it is of no consequence where the scene is laid, but most stories are only so-so and have to borrow interest from geography.
THANKS TO MISS MONROE’S MAGAZINE.
Only a little while ago
The pallid poet had no show—
No gallery that he could use
To hang the product of his muse.
But now his sketches deck the walls
Of many hospitable halls,