compared with those of
the popular favorites, do not sell, and yet they are eagerly sought for
by editors; they are paid the highest prices, and nothing that they
offer is refused. These are literary artists; and it ought to be plain
from what I am saying that in belles-lettres, at least, most of the
best literature now first sees the light in the magazines, and most of
the second best appears first in book form. The old-fashioned people
who flatter themselves upon their distinction in not reading magazine
fiction, or magazine poetry, make a great mistake, and simply class
themselves with the public whose taste is so crude that they cannot
enjoy the best. Of course this is true mainly, if not merely, of
belles-lettres; history, science, politics, metaphysics, in spite of
the many excellent articles and papers in these sorts upon what used to
be called various emergent occasions, are still to be found at their
best in books. The most monumental example of literature, at once
light and good, which has first reached the public in book form is in
the different publications of Mark Twain; but Mr. Clemens has of late
turned to the magazines too, and now takes their mint mark before he
passes into general circulation. All this may change again, but at
present the magazines--we have no longer any reviews--form the most
direct approach to that part of our reading public which likes the
highest things in literary art. Their readers, if we may judge from
the quality of the literature they get, are more refined than the book
readers in our community; and their taste has no doubt been cultivated
by that of the disciplined and experienced editors. So far as I have
known these they are men of aesthetic conscience, and of generous
sympathy. They have their preferences in the different kinds, and they
have their theory of what kind will be most acceptable to their
readers; but they exercise their selective function with the wish to
give them the best things they can. I do not know one of them--and it
has been my good fortune to know them nearly all--who would print a
wholly inferior thing for the sake of an inferior class of readers,
though they may sometimes decline a good thing because for one reason
or another they believe it would not be liked. Still, even this does
not often happen; they would rather chance the good thing they doubted
of than underrate their readers' judgment.

New writers often suppose themselves reject