WHY BE AN AUTHOR?
“Of making many books there is no end; and much study is a weariness of the flesh.”
Ecclesiastes xii., 12.
The connecting of the making of books with study is an old world idea that it is difficult for a latter-day reader to understand. A modern world recognises that book-making in all its branches is a natural pursuit for those of the unemployed who honestly strive to live by their wits. But if the making of books was allowed to be a national nuisance in the days of Solomon, much more must it be so to-day, when books are fast ceasing to be saleable, and have to be given away with out-of-date or up-to-date newspapers, pounds of tea, and other doubtful merchandise.
If, therefore, the supply of authors could be mitigated, much of this long-standing trouble might be abated; and it becomes a reasonable thing for a citizen—especially one who has himself been guilty of some of the minor literary misdemeanours—to inquire why authors become authors, instead of following some useful trade, and what human motive it is that drives people to authorship. I do not pretend that I have found the answer to the question, “Why be an Author?” If I had I should have solved one of the riddles of the universe. But I can, perhaps, set forth a few suggestions upon the lines of which future scientists will be able to pursue the problem to its ultimate solution.
To make a rough attempt at the classification of the common motives of authorship is a bold thing to do. Experimentally I should set down—“in the order of going in,” to use a cricket phrase—the four following, namely:—
(1) Vanity, or conceit.
(2) Greed.
(3) The fun of the thing,
and