ls, or such as Emerson wrote. Without a
great name behind it, I am afraid that a volume of essays would find
few buyers, even after the essays had made a public in the magazines.
There are, of course, instances to the contrary, but they are not so
many or so striking as to make me think that the essay could not be
offered as a good opening for business talent.

I suspect that good poetry by well-known hands was never better paid in
the magazines than it is now. I must say, too, that I think the
quality of the minor poetry of our day is better than that of
twenty-five or thirty years ago. I could name half a score of young
poets whose work from time to time gives me great pleasure, by the
reality of its feeling, and the delicate perfection of its art, but I
will not name them, for fear of passing over half a score of others
equally meritorious. We have certainly no reason to be discouraged,
whatever reason the poets themselves have to be so, and I do not think
that even in the short story our younger writers are doing better work
than they are doing in the slighter forms of verse. Yet the notion of
inviting business talent into this field would be as preposterous as
that of asking it to devote itself to the essay. What book of verse by
a recent poet, if we except some such peculiarly gifted poet as Mr.
Whitcomb Riley, has paid its expenses, not to speak of any profit to
the author? Of course, it would be rather more offensive and
ridiculous that it should do so than that any other form of literary
art should do so; and yet there is no more provision in our economic
system for the support of the poet apart from his poems, than there is
for the support of the novelist apart from his novel. One could not
make any more money by writing poetry than by writing history, but it
is a curious fact that while the historians have usually been rich men,
and able to afford the luxury of writing history, the poets have
usually been poor men, with no pecuniary justification in their
devotion to a calling which is so seldom an election.

To be sure, it can be said for them that it costs far less to set up
poet than to set up historian. There is no outlay for copying
documents, or visiting libraries, or buying books. In fact, except as
historian, the man of letters, in whatever walk, has not only none of
the expenses of other men of business, but none of the expenses of
other artists. He has no such outlay to make for materials,