There must have been some limit, however, because their books were hand made, and not everyone could do it. Since the printing press relieved this mechanical restriction, and educational facilities made reading and writing come, if not by nature, at least with general compulsion, the making of books has increased to the present output—which would have made the ancient philosopher blush for his premature complaint.
In this, as in all social functions, we have the normal and the abnormal growth before us; but so far we have not learned to divide them. There is no harm at all in having anybody and everybody write books if they choose, any more than in having anybody and everybody talk if they choose. Literature is only preserved speech.
Freedom of speech is dear to our hearts; it is an easy privilege, and costs little—to the speaker. People are free to talk, privately and publicly, and free to write, privately and publicly.
The harm comes, in this as in other processes, by the door of economic interest. It is not the desire to write which crowds our market so disadvantageously; it is the desire to sell.
Though a fair capacity in the art of literature were even more general than to-day, if our social conditions were normal only a certain proportion of us would naturally prefer that form of expression. Our literary output is abnormally increased by two influences; the hereditary and inculcated idea of superiority in this profession, and the emoluments thereof. These last are greatly over-estimated, as, in truth, is the first also.
There is nothing essentially more worthy in the art of saying things than in the art of doing things. The basic merit in literature, as in speech, lies in the thing said. This the makers of many books have utterly forgotten. "She's a beautiful talker!" we might say of someone. "It's perfectly lovely! Such language! Such expression! It's a joy to hear her!"
Then an unenthusiastic person might rudely inquire, "Yes—but what does she say?"
Talking is not fancy-work. It is not an exhibition of skill in the use of the vocal chords, in knowledge of grammar and rhetoric. Speech is developed in our race as a medium of transmission of thought and feelings. The greater or less ease and proficiency with which we elaborate the function should always be held subordinate to the real use. Literature is to be similarly judged by its initial purpose, the preservation and transmission of ideas and feelings. Even the picture-work of fiction must carry a certain content of ideas, else it cannot be read; it does not, as the children say, "make sense."
Now take up your current magazine—the largest medium of literary expression to-day—and consider it from this point of view.
The modern magazine is a distinctly new product. When the slow, thick stream of book-making first began to spread and filter out through the new channels of periodic publication, a magazine was a serious literary production. The word "magazine" implies an armory, a storehouse, a collection of valuable pieces of literature. Now we need a new word for the thing. It has become a more and more fluent and varied mouthpiece of popular expression. It is a halfway-house between the newspaper and the book. The older, higher-priced, more impressive of them, keep up, or try to keep up, the standards of the past; but the world of to-day is by no means so much interested in "beautiful letters" as in the fresh current of knowledge and feeling belonging to our times.