y he sells it the better will be the result, not only for the
public appreciation of his message, but for himself as a private
individual and as an artist with further activities in front of him.

Now this absolutely logical attitude of a merchant towards one's
finished work infuriates the dilettanti of the literary world, to whom
the very word "royalties" is anathema. They apparently would prefer to
treat literature as they imagine Byron treated it, although as a fact no
poet in a short life ever contrived to make as many pounds sterling out
of verse as Byron made. Or perhaps they would like to return to the
golden days when the author had to be "patronised" in order to exist; or
even to the mid-nineteenth century, when practically all authors save
the most successful--and not a few of the successful also--failed to
obtain the fair reward of their work. The dilettanti's snobbishness and
sentimentality prevent them from admitting that, in a democratic age,
when an author is genuinely appreciated, either he makes money or he is
the foolish victim of a scoundrel. They are fond of saying that
agreements and royalties have nothing to do with literature. But
agreements and royalties have a very great deal to do with literature.
Full contact between artist and public depends largely upon publisher or
manager being compelled to be efficient and just. And upon the
publisher's or manager's efficiency and justice depend also the dignity,
the leisure, the easy flow of coin, the freedom, and the pride which are
helpful to the full fruition of any artist. No artist was ever assisted
in his career by the yoke, by servitude, by enforced monotony, by
overwork, by economic inferiority. See Meredith's correspondence
everywhere.

Nor can there be any satisfaction in doing badly that which might be
done well. If an artist writes a fine poem, shows it to his dearest
friend, and burns it--I can respect him. But if an artist writes a fine
poem, and then by sloppiness and snobbishness allows it to be
inefficiently published, and fails to secure his own interests in the
transaction, on the plea that he is an artist and not a merchant, then I
refuse to respect him. A man cannot fulfil, and has no right to fulfil,
one function only in this complex world. Some, indeed many, of the
greatest creative artists have managed to be very good merchants also,
and have not been ashamed of the double _role_. To read the
correspondence and memoirs of certain