T.B.S.

ON AUTHORSHIP.

There are, first of all, two kinds of authors:  those who write for the subject’s sake, and those who write for writing’s sake.  While the one have had thoughts or experiences which seem to them worth communicating, the others want money; and so they write, for money.  Their thinking is part of the business of writing.  They may be recognized by the way in which they spin out their thoughts to the greatest possible length; then, too, by the very nature of their thoughts, which are only half-true, perverse, forced, vacillating; again, by the aversion they generally show to saying anything straight out, so that they may seem other than they are.  Hence their writing is deficient in clearness and definiteness, and it is not long before they betray that their only object in writing at all is to cover paper.  This sometimes happens with the best authors; now and then, for example, with Lessing in his Dramaturgie, and even in many of Jean Paul’s romances.  As soon as the reader perceives this, let him throw the book away; for time is precious.  The truth is that when an author begins to write for the sake of covering paper, he is cheating the reader; because he writes under the pretext that he has something to say.

Writing for money and reservation of copyright are, at bottom, the ruin of literature.  No one writes anything that is worth writing, unless he writes entirely for the sake of his subject.  What an inestimable boon it would be, if in every branch of literature there were only a few books, but those excellent!  This can never happen, as long as money is to be made by writing.  It seems as though the money lay under a curse; for every author degenerates as soon as he begins to put pen to paper in any way for the sake of gain.  The best works of the greatest men all come from the time when they had to write for nothing or for very little.  And here, too, that Spanish proverb holds good, which declares that honor and money are not to be found in the same purse—­honora y provecho no caben en un saco.  The reason why Literature is in such a bad plight nowadays is simply and solely that people write books to make money.  A man who is in want sits down and writes a book, and the public is stupid enough to buy it.  The secondary effect of this is the ruin of language.

A great many bad writers make their whole living by that foolish mania of the public for reading nothing but what has just been printed,—­journalists, I mean.  Truly, a most appropriate name.  In plain language it is journeymen, day-laborers!

Again, it may be said that there are three kinds of authors.  First come those who write without thinking.  They write from a full memory, from reminiscences; it may be, even straight out of other people’s books.  This class is the most numerous.  Then come those who do their thinking whilst they are writing.  They think in order to write; and there is no lack of them.  Last of all come those authors who think before they begin to write.  They are rare.