lly.

"I judge, then, that there has been some notable literature produced in
this century."

"Yes," said Dr. Leete. "It has been an era of unexampled intellectual
splendor. Probably humanity never before passed through a moral and
material evolution, at once so vast in its scope and brief in its time
of accomplishment, as that from the old order to the new in the early
part of this century. When men came to realize the greatness of the
felicity which had befallen them, and that the change through which
they had passed was not merely an improvement in details of their
condition, but the rise of the race to a new plane of existence with an
illimitable vista of progress, their minds were affected in all their
faculties with a stimulus, of which the outburst of the mediaeval
renaissance offers a suggestion but faint indeed. There ensued an era
of mechanical invention, scientific discovery, art, musical and
literary productiveness to which no previous age of the world offers
anything comparable."

"By the way," said I, "talking of literature, how are books published
now? Is that also done by the nation?"

"Certainly."

"But how do you manage it? Does the government publish everything that
is brought it as a matter of course, at the public expense, or does it
exercise a censorship and print only what it approves?"

"Neither way. The printing department has no censorial powers. It is
bound to print all that is offered it, but prints it only on condition
that the author defray the first cost out of his credit. He must pay
for the privilege of the public ear, and if he has any message worth
hearing we consider that he will be glad to do it. Of course, if
incomes were unequal, as in the old times, this rule would enable only
the rich to be authors, but the resources of citizens being equal, it
merely measures the strength of the author's motive. The cost of an
edition of an average book can be saved out of a year's credit by the
practice of economy and some sacrifices. The book, on being published,
is placed on sale by the nation."

"The author receiving a royalty on the sales as with us, I suppose," I
suggested.

"Not as with you, certainly," replied Dr. Leete, "but nevertheless in
one way. The price of every book is made up of the cost of its
publication with a royalty for the author. The author fixes this
royalty at any figure he pleases. Of course if he puts it unreasonably
high it is his own loss, for the book wi