Rensselaer Republican, Volume 19, Number 22, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 3 February 1887 — Natural Selection in Literature. [ARTICLE]

Natural Selection in Literature.

One of the minor regrets which the observer of contemporary literature must feel in view of the fact that he will/probablv not be alive a hundred years hen.ee is ,tliat he cannot khow what is to become of ail the estimable books which the press is now pouring out. If he is an author, he knows that his own books must at least perish in the second glacial epoch; and he cannot help the foreboding that much besides which is excellent, and much which is beautiful, will be lost before that time in the mere excess of beauty and excellence. The greatest excellence and the greatest beauty are still, perhaps, as rare as in the past, but we think that the literary average is in some ways higher than ever it was. More honest and faithful and skillful work is done, and more of it. The penetrating spirit of democracy has found its expression in the very quality of literature; the old oligarchic republic of letters is passing; already we have glimpses of the Commune. If the reader has noted the optimistic tone of these essays he will conceive that we are not wholly dismayed at the prospect, and that we find a consolation in recognizing what seems good now, when the difficult business of forecasting its future perplexes and saddens. Our chief concern is thjrt we cannot recognize all the good there is in all the books that come to us; but if the public will keep our secret, we will confess that we believe this will have very little to do with their destiny. Ihe fittest, in literature as in everything else, will survive, as it has always done; and for all our confident air iu saying tuis is well and that is ill, we understand perfectly that we are not dealing final doom. We are saying what ony experience of literature and of life has persuaded us is the truth; but these books are also the expression of literature and of life, and we will confess again, if again the public will keep our secret, that sometimes the crudest exp ession in that sort seems better than the finest comment upon it. W e have sometimes suspected that more thinking, more feeling certainly, goes to the creation of a poor novel than to the production of a brilliant criticism; and if any novel of our time fails to live a hundred years, will any censure of it live ? Who can endure to read old reviews ? One can hardly read them if they are in praise of one’s own books. It v is not, then, with a wholly impersonal pang, dearly beloved brother immortals, that we sit here in our study sorrowfully regarding your multitude, and misgiving which of you shall survive, Ton cannot all, that is certain; and mo’re and more pensively we perceive that it is not absolutely for us to say which; blit to use what patience we may if thee poets, the historians,.the novelists, the essayists, are not able to keep their number within bounds. It is vain, at any rate, to preach Malthusianism to them, and we willingly relinquish to the reader the problem of the future, if, as seems very likely, they should multiply rather than decrease. It is already quite impossible to do more than touch contemporary literature at a few points, to speak o.f what seems characteristic, or what seems promising; but the author neglected or .overlooked need not despair for that reason, if he will reflect that criticism can neither make nor unmake that there have not been greater books since criticism became an art than there were before; that, in fact, the greatest hooks seem to have come much earlier.—JU. D. Howells.