Walking-Stick Papers

rs are inclined to be youthful in their reviews. Elderly reviewers usually have missed fire with their lives, or they wouldn't still be reviewers. The bes

oh them as things beneath them. Still somebody must read them, as publishers pay for them with their advertising. No publishers' advertising, no book reviews, is the policy of nearly every newspaper; and the reviews are generally in proportion to the amount of advertising. Now publishers are sagacious men who generally live in comfortable circumstances, and who occasionally get quite

y are tolerated by the owners of papers, who are very powerful men indeed, engaged in the vast modern industry of manufacturing news for the people, and in constant effort to obtain control of politics. Reviewers are paid space rates of, in some instances, as much as eight dollars a column, with the head lines deducted. When there is no other payment they always get the book they review free f

our foremost literary journal, and now a professor in one of our great universities, Dr. Perry certainly knows a good deal about various branches of the book business. His highly critical review of the reviewing busine

work to-day: the absurdly young, the slightly bald, and the

, who was a professional reviewer, and at whose house I was stopping, brought home one day this book on engraved gems, and told me he had got it for me to review. "But," I said, "I don't know anything about engraved gems, and" (you see I was very inexperienced) "I can wri

; such, for example, as getting your information out of the book itself; and he caut

, simply as now a trained judge of these things, I will say that it was a very fair review: it "gave the book," as the term is. I discovered that I ha

my style, and always gave me a good position in the paper. He liked me personally, and always put my name to my reviews

ho was a very witty reviewer (when he was young); that fellow used to get love letters from ladies he had never seen, just like a baseball pitcher, or a tenor; there was a rich man who ate meals at the Century Club had him there to dinner, because he thought him funny; he got a note from a Literary Adviser asking him for a book manuscript; and two persons wrote him from San Francisco. I myself have had courteous letters

was another man, his friend, who was a reviewer. Now the Alaskaian said to the critic: "Why don't you get my book from the paper? I'll write the review-I know more about the

ed an individual note in them; he had an enthusiasm for books of literary quality, somewhat to the neglect of other branches of the publishing business; he gathered abo

m last on a Wednesday; he outlined his plans for the future. On Friday, I know he "made up" his paper. Saturday I looked for him, but he had gone from that plac

be put into a book: for it reveals how close we came to having in this country a

inions; and he had never read anything at all (outside of Columbia University) before he was called to the literary profession. Later he went into politics, and became something at Washington. Some reviewers, again, are lexicographers. I know about a dozen of these, ranging in age from twenty-seven years to seventy. When they had finished writing the dictionary, they joined the army of the unem

the other hand, by some papers, books are economically given out for review to reporters. And again (for the same reason), to editorial writers and to various editors. In America, you know, practically everybody connected with a newspaper is an editor. The man who sits all day in his shir

in support of my statement. I had enjoyed the book greatly. It was delightful, I thought. It was then a bit of a jolt to me to read a lengthy article by another reviewer of the same book,

ng-Else declared that this was the rottenest hook that ever came from the press, you would be inclined to accept the conclusion of the majority of critics, would you not? Well, I'll tell you this: the man who "does" the fiction week by week for the New York This and for The That

hree of my stories about my experiences as a vagabond. Farthermore, when I remonstrated with you about this over the telephone, you told me that you were very busy. Wh

eviews. The prejudice is the other way round, in "log rolling," as it is called, among little cliques of friends. Though I have known more than one case more or less like that of a revi

and then for an idea. Those were happy, innocent, amateur days. That is: when my thoughts got stalled I would throw myself on a couch for a bit, or I would look out at my window, or I took a turn about Gramercy Park for a breath of air. Reviews sometimes

ry of the American Negro"; winding up the day, perhaps, with a lively article about a popular book on "Submarine Diving and Light Houses"; and taking home at night the "Note Books of Samuel Butler." I began the morrow, very likely, with an "omnibus article" lumping together five books on the Panama Canal. And then, as the publishers of the latest book on art had turned in a double-column hundred-agate-line "ad" the week before, it was necessary to do something serious "for" that masterpiece. I reviewed a dictionary and a couple of cookery books

g the dramatic art were done by the dramatic critic; and those on music went to the

eceived, Books of the Week, or The Newest Books; and got out the correspondence of the literary department-with publishers and with fools who write in about things. I also went over the foreign exchange, that is:

got for this. It should be understood, however, that I was with one of the great papers, which paid a scale of gener

loy a chief solely for each department. It is recognised that the work of the literary editor can be economically combined with that of the dramatic editor, or with that of the art critic; or the art critic runs the Saturday supplement, or som

e and lofty endeavour. The editorial tenure, as all men know, is a house of sand-a summer's breeze, a wash of the tide, and the editor is a refugee. I know the editor o

ry conscientious young reviewer. "Good work won't get you anything. Play politics, off

ew of reviews. I never knew a reviewer who was bound to tell anything but the truth as he saw it. Nor have I ever written in any review a word that I knew to be false; and I believe that few reviewers do. Because, however, this or that publishing ho

t every book, almost, is meet for some. It is not his business to break things on the wheel; but to introduce the book before him to its proper audience; always recognising, of course,

e "killed" when a large "ad" announcing books brought out by the publisher of this one so treated comes in for the next paper; and then search is made for a book from the same publisher which may be favourably reviewed. Or a

rofessional reviewers, one composite of a class, the other

n anonymous writer. He has never had sufficient intellectual character to do anything well. The downward side of middle age finds him afflicted with various physical ailments, entirely dependent upon a precarious position at a moderate salary, without influential friends, completely disillusioned, with a mediocre mind now much fagged, devoid of high ambition, and with a most unstimulating prospect before him. His attitude toward the business of book reviewing is th

and he thinks it sufficient in a review. Sufficient, that is, to "get by." And whatever gets by, in his view, "pleases them just as well as anything else." Our friend of this character has a considerable number of stock remarks which

for something like thirty years-a fine intellectual figure of a man. He makes his living out of this, indeed, but his interest is in the thing itself, in literature. He has all that one really needs in the world, he has the esteem of the most estimable people, and he follows with unceasing pleasure a delightful occupation. He is as keen to-day, he declares, on the "right way of putting three wor