es, stories, poems, the usual repertoire."

I wondered what kind of material this suave, cynical, reserved man could
have produced--in other words, what was his undercurrent. I
interrogated. To my surprise and consternation I had found at last the
author of my pedestal-placed masterpiece.

"But why," I said, "did you not keep on; why hide, deface, forget, a
talent like yours?"

"Allowing, for the sake of argument," he answered, "that I possessed
talent to the degree you imply, I should still have been forced to my
present attitude. I am not alone in this. I am convinced that the best
writers (of course, with notable exceptions) are the people who never
write, who could bring to the field varied experience, the results of
travel, thought, and cultivation, but who are driven away by the
knowledge that the wolf will have them if they attempt it.
Notwithstanding the fact that there has never been a time when
literature has been produced so prolifically, a man can only make a
moderate competence, and that after years of weary uncertainty and a
constant strain on the waiting nerves, and, even at the end, he gets
but a meagre reward: lots of newspaper notoriety and a scanty bank
account. I am not complaining; I looked the facts squarely in the face,
and chose what I regarded as the only sensible solution. I could not
conscientiously use literature as a safety-valve or time-passer, giving
to the world the result of tired brain and over-wrought nerves;
consequently, I sacrificed inclination to necessity, and have left my
muse alone. However,"--and he was once more the worldling,--"I have
reserved to myself the right to criticise; and when I see a young man of
talent enter the field of letters, I conclude he is like a man about to
marry, either a great hero or a great fool."

_Gertrude F. Lynch._

NEW YORK, N. Y.

FASHIONS IN LITERATURE.

A veteran novel reader has learned to detect a plot in its early stages;
to see from afar the marriage, the forgery, the hidden will; to him (or
should I rather say to her?) the true inwardness of the different
characters is manifest; no disguise, no blandishments, avail to conceal
from his piercing vision the true heir, the disguised villain, the timid
lover.

It has been stated by careful students that the original stories in the
world number but two hundred and fifty; but we have not forgotten our
arithmetic, and we have learned chess, so we know something of the
manifo