verbose! It seems as if his soul were responsive--not plaintively, but
appreciatively responsive--to all the chords, influences, and objects of
nature; and that his imagination were absorptive enough to embrace and
love, and reflect all changes and transitions of light and shadow in
nature and life, particularly in the inner human life,--for Walt
Whitman's love for humanity, permeating all his writings, has more
grandeur than the most heroic of classic epics!

_Roman I. Zubof._

BOSTON, Mass.

SHALL WRITERS COMBINE?

Things in this world are often the precise opposite of what we should
expect. The shoemaker's wife and the blacksmith's horse frequently go
poorly shod. The man who makes his sole living from the product of his
brains does not use them in disposing of his wares. He remains the slave
of publishers who have enriched themselves from his labor, while he
thoughtlessly plods on, apparently content with a few crumbs from the
feast which he has provided for them.

One striking difference between the two halves of the nineteenth century
is the gigantic combination which the shuttle of these latter years is
weaving. The wealth of no single man was found sufficient to place a
railroad across the continent. Men combined their capital, and to-day we
can ride from New York to San Francisco in a car as luxuriously
furnished as a drawing-room. Had it not been for this union of dollars,
we should to-day be forced to use the stage coach or to walk. When the
railroads were once built, their owners found combination necessary to
keep them from cutting each other's throats and to maintain a good rate
of profit.

By combination the working man has reduced his hours of toil, obtained a
fairer share of the profits coming to capital from his labor, and made
his own life better worth the living. These concessions did not come
voluntarily: combination wrung them from capital, and then stood guard
over them.

The author stands almost alone with no union among his craft. The
refiners of sugar and coal oil, the makers of matches, lead-pencils,
screws,--in short, almost all other interests,--have some sort of
combination. The brewers stand by each other in fixing the price of
beer, and if a saloon keeper fails to pay one brewer, the others will
not furnish him with the product of their vats.

There is plenty of freemasonry among publishers. Their contracts read
very much alike. They resort to the same subterfuges t