The question, then, is, which sort of knowledge is more likely to enable a man to form a just estimate of the female character? Personally, I think the bachelor has all the best of it. And, Sir, if none of these arguments has weight with you, there remains one supreme argument which proves that the bachelor knows more of women than the married man, and that, Sir, is the simple fact that he is a bachelor, as
I am, Sir,
Fortunatas Freeman.
N. B. The editor disclaims all responsibility for the sentiments expressed in the above communication.
ON PENSIONING WRITERS
To the Editor of The Idler.
Dear Sir: I observe by the daily press that the English government has just issued a list in full of such authors as have been selected for the receipt of a pension. In this list I find the names of a number of widows and orphans of authors as well as the names of living authors, and this is no doubt as it should be. I have heard certain hypercritical persons object to the late project of the “Dickens stamp” upon the ground that no man is entitled to anything which he has not earned and that literary heirs are entitled to no more consideration than monetary heirs. Now, personally, I can not understand what is so objectionable about the inheritance of money. It seems to me that a man’s heirs are quite as much entitled to receive the benefits of his fortune or the fruits of his industry after his death as they are during his life; and no one has yet gone so far as to say that a man may not, with perfect propriety, bestow upon his heirs and relatives such pecuniary gifts and benefits as he may see fit during his lifetime. It seems to me that the heirs of an author inherit as great an interest in his work as the heirs of a banker or broker. But, however this may be, there is one feature about this pensioning of authors which convinces me that the British government has gone about the matter in a very wrong fashion.
I find in looking over the list that pensions have been granted because of writings upon ornithology, Elizabethan literature, poetry, socialism, philosophy and so on. While I must confess that I am unfamiliar with the majority of the names which appear upon the list, I assume from the manner in which they have been selected that the British government considers their work to have been of really great value, although not popular. The British government, in fact, appears to be offering encouragement, in the shape of pensions, to such writers as can not hope to please the general public with their work. The government is supplying a pension in lieu of popular appreciation.
Now, this is all very well if the government is merely going into the business of being philanthropic and is willing to extend its system of pensions to include worthy shoemakers who have been unable to secure a sufficient custom to keep them in food and clothing because of the inroads made upon the cobbler’s trade by the manufacturers of machine-made shoes; lawyers who are learned in the law, but who have been unable to secure the business of the great corporations; doctors who are efficient, but who chance to live in unusually healthy neighborhoods; ministers of the Gospel who are unfortunately assigned to meager or irreligious parishes; music teachers who are excellent instructors, but who find formidable foes to business in the automatic piano and the phonograph. If the British government is bent upon making up for public indifference to such authors as are willing to benefit mankind, but who can not make mankind take note of their efforts in that direction, then, I say, the British government shows a kindly and courteous disposition, but it should not stop with authors; it should carry on the good work in every walk of life.
But if, as I suspect to be the case, the British government is establishing this system of pensions in the hope that the system will result in more and better books, then I must say I think the system is more likely to fail than to succeed.