SOCIETIES

HISTORIC AND SOCIAL JOTTINGS

Successful authorship is attracting more and more attention as writers multiply, and some of the best thinkers of the age are discussing its causes and its obstructions. The mere desire often leads an ambitious scholar to the impression that it is quite easy to become an author, and a few pages are dashed off and sent to some editor under the delusion that it will bring by return mail a check of fabulous magnitude. Fitness for authorship is not once taken into consideration, and when the manuscript instead of a check comes back the disappointment is intense. Mr. T. W. Higginson has recently shown in an able essay that the literary profession is no exceptional or extraordinary vocation, but stands on the same basis as any other business, that of earnest, faithful and honest hard work, guided by intelligent common sense. A talent for writing well doe not of itself insure fame or money; themes must be chosen with care and exact knowl edge of what has already been placed before the public, and then must be so critically studied as to be treated in a way that will meet the want of the world.

One of the chief obstructions to the success of a young author is the counting of words with an eye to the price thereof. In the language of Maurice Thompson: Safely may it be said no man ever succeeded in any learned profession, if he practiced it chiefly for the acquisition of money. The aim must be to excel on merit, to win through mastery, to compel by force of supreme wisdom in the field of legitimate effort, to overlook others by acquiring absolute vision. Money is the secondary aim; it is merely the reward claimed after the feat is accomplished; the feat itself is the true goal of ambition. This, it seems to me, is not so well understood to-day as it was fifty or a hundred years ago among aspirants to literary distinction. The reward has obscured the achievement for which it was offered. The flourishing author is usually the author who is in love with his art; but is not this true with the lawyer, the tailor, and the horse-trader as well? No half-hearted devotion to business, no matter in what line, will achieve what will come to the enthusiastic, never-resting, self-absorbed worker who loves his vocation better than his life. Self-consecration is the proof of what one's nature finds most desirable, and this, too, is the best guaranty of success."

The words of Mrs. Clarence E. Beebe, president of the Young Women's Christian Association of New York, in presenting diplomas to the graduates in stenography and other classes at the recent commencement exercises, are applicable to all workers in every sphere of industry, literature, of course, included: Your work must never be made secondary to your means of maintenance. First your excellent work, first your honest service, first your employer's interests, last of all the gain. You as working women must sacredly uphold the standard of careful work; you must shrink from inaccuracy and carelessness as you would from a charge of theft. What is your capital in this undertaking? Is it credit given you by those who sympathize with your anxieties, is it your promissory notes, when your capabilities shall be ranked at your own valuation; does your mind hold only these idle bonds, or have you, as I hope and trust, the valuable securities of self

control and self-denial, industry and ambition, patience and promptness, perseverance and attention? Choose your niche, select it as carefully as for a life's companion, and then take it for better or worse. Fill it until you have outgrown it, remembering that faithfulness in that which is least always marks the soul capable of higher honors. Idealize the places you fill until they hold for you the satisfaction of content. Put your love into your work. 'Tis that which makes it liberty. Love the needles until they are glorified by your spirit. You begin by learning rules and you forget their dogmatism by observing them."

Another obstruction to successful authorship is the mistaken notion that four or five hours a day gives sufficient time for application to any literary aspirant for honors and emoluments—with vacations of days and weeks supplied liberally. Says one of our eminent essayists: "Why should a literary laborer expect that he is going to play half the year and yet prosper in his vocation? Does the successful lawyer follow that plan? Go to the merchant, the civil engineer, the physician, and the real-estate agent, and see if they make a competent income without constant labor, and wise, thoughtful attention to the details of business. If a man has force, let him learn to control it with the wisdom of common sense. If his force flows in a literary direction, let him inquire of its volume and compass, so that he may not set it to turning a machine too heavy or too complicated for its capacity, and most of all let him not expect that he can sell literary bran for the same price that is paid for extra fine, roller-process, prize-wheat flour from the golden mills of genius."

Among the well-known men of letters of the past quarter of a century the late Oliver Bell Bunce will go into history as having given more words of sterling advice and criticism and more substantial aid and inspiration to young literary aspirants than any other scholar of his time. He always spoke from the standpoint of experience, combined with observation and astute judgment. Born in Hartford, Connecticut, in 1828, he lost his father when about eleven years of age, and his chief inheritance was a taste for literary pursuits which developed under the influence and guardianship of his mother, a lady of culture and great strength and symmetry of character. There was a vein of literary aptitude and creative genius running through the ancestral blood, and a marked tendency toward the book-making art in every generation of the Bunce family, past and present. Mr. Bunce early became an industrious student, and although he never went through a college course he did not lack opportunities for mental discipline and intellectual growth. While still very young he was the author of several books, written with great directness, force, and elegance. At the age of twenty-five he formed the book publishing firm of Bunce & Brother, and became editor as well as publisher of Mrs. Ann S. Stephens' Monthly. A few years later he was associated for a time with James G. Gregory, of the publishing firm of Gregory & Co., and was the first to produce fine illustrated books in the United States; In the Woods, Forest Hymns, and Christmas Carols were among the pioneers in this class.

Mr. Bunce will be remembered best, however, through his twenty-three years' connection with the firm of D. Appleton & Co. He was the editor of Appleton's Journal and of the Art Journal; while Picturesque America, one of the colossal successes of the age, was

projected through his suggestions, and he was intrusted with the sole control of the literary and art execution of the work. He gave personal attention to the production of the illustrations, never esteeming it economy to accept a drawing from however noted an artist which did not attain to his standard of merit, often paying large sums for sketches (because they had been ordered and the workman's time consumed) that were consigned the next instant to the waste-basket, while another's skill was put to the test in the same direction. His policy was to secure the best results withoht regard to cost. He overlooked the final printing with a scrutiny that was the terror of the careless employee. No haze hung over the sharp outline of his exact idea. He was running in advance of the experience of the world, and striving for a degree of excellence which he believed it was possible to reach. Nor was he mistaken. But when it was accomplished he said nothing about it, as if it were the commonest thing in the world. He was a dramatist of ability, the author of several successful plays in which prominent actors were concerned, and his little volume Don't, a manual of rules of conduct, has passed through innumerable editions.

Mr. Bunce was one of the most modest and unpretentious of men, and his splendid and single-minded devotion to duty elicited universal admiration and made his career a model. His sentiment of personal honor was almost a fanaticism, so strictly did it actuate every thought and motive of his life. He was of slight figure, neither tall nor short, with a keen, dark eye, and beard and mustache slightly flecked with gray. In conversation he was animated and emphatic, with a keen sense of humor, seeing into the remote causes of things, and wielding such ideas, arguments, and principles as are comparatively easy to arrange and apply. His attractive home was the favorite resort of scholars, editors, authors, poets, novelists, and artists, and all who were worthy found in him one of the truest of friends. His loveliness of character endeared him to his devoted wife and children, and a large circle of sincerely attached friends mourn his death with a sharp sense of personal bereavement. He was one of the founders of the Authors' club, and a member of the St. Nicholas society.