s, in the nature of
the case, beyond their fondest dreams of pecuniary affluence and social
splendor. Perhaps they do not want the chief seats in the synagogue;
it is certain they do not get them. Still, they do very fairly well,
as things go; and several have incomes that would seem riches to the
great mass of worthy Americans who work with their hands for a
living--when they can get the work. Their incomes are mainly from
serial publication in the different magazines; and the prosperity of
the magazines has given a whole class existence which, as a class, was
wholly unknown among us before the war. It is not only the famous or
fully recognized authors who live in this way, but the much larger
number of clever people who are as yet known chiefly to the editors,
and who may never make themselves a public, but who do well a kind of
acceptable work. These are the sort who do not get reprinted from the
periodicals; but the better recognized authors do get reprinted, and
then their serial work in its completed form appeals to the readers who
say they do not read serials. The multitude of these is not great, and
if an author rested his hopes upon their favor he would be a much more
embittered man than he now generally is. But he understands perfectly
well that his reward is in the serial and not in the book; the return
from that he may count as so much money found in the road--a few
hundreds, a very few thousands, at the most.

V.

I doubt, indeed, whether the earnings of literary men are absolutely as
great as they were earlier in the century, in any of the
English-speaking countries; relatively they are nothing like as great.
Scott had forty thousand dollars for "Woodstock," which was not a very
large novel, and was by no means one of his best; and forty thousand
dollars had at least the purchasing powers of sixty thousand then.
Moore had three thousand guineas for "Lalla Rookh," but what publisher
would be rash enough to pay twenty-five thousand dollars for the
masterpiece of a minor poet now? The book, except in very rare
instances, makes nothing like the return to the author that the
magazine makes, and there are but two or three authors who find their
account in that form of publication. Those who do, those who sell the
most widely in book form, are often not at all desired by editors; with
difficulty they get a serial accepted by any principal magazine. On
the other hand, there are authors whose books,