What an
inestimable boon it would be, if in every branch of literature there
were only a few books, but those excellent! This can never happen, as
long as money is to be made by writing. It seems as though the money
lay under a curse; for every author degenerates as soon as he begins
to put pen to paper in any way for the sake of gain. The best works
of the greatest men all come from the time when they had to write for
nothing or for very little. And here, too, that Spanish proverb holds
good, which declares that honor and money are not to be found in the
same purse--_honora y provecho no caben en un saco_. The reason why
Literature is in such a bad plight nowadays is simply and solely that
people write books to make money. A man who is in want sits down
and writes a book, and the public is stupid enough to buy it. The
secondary effect of this is the ruin of language.

A great many bad writers make their whole living by that foolish
mania of the public for reading nothing but what has just been
printed,--journalists, I mean. Truly, a most appropriate name. In
plain language it is _journeymen, day-laborers_!

Again, it may be said that there are three kinds of authors. First
come those who write without thinking. They write from a full memory,
from reminiscences; it may be, even straight out of other people's
books. This class is the most numerous. Then come those who do their
thinking whilst they are writing. They think in order to write; and
there is no lack of them. Last of all come those authors who think
before they begin to write. They are rare.

Authors of the second class, who put off their thinking until they
come to write, are like a sportsman who goes forth at random and is
not likely to bring very much home. On the other hand, when an author
of the third or rare class writes, it is like a _battue_. Here the
game has been previously captured and shut up within a very small
space; from which it is afterwards let out, so many at a time, into
another space, also confined. The game cannot possibly escape the
sportsman; he has nothing to do but aim and fire--in other words,
write down his thoughts. This is a kind of sport from which a man has
something to show.

But even though the number of those who really think seriously before
they begin to write is small, extremely few of them think about _the
subject itself_: the remainder think only about the books that have
been written on the subject, and what has be