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Page 46
Matthew Arnold struck a truer note in Rugby Chapel. The true leaders of
mankind can never be mere intellectualists. There must be a union of
intellectual and moral energy like that which he recognized in his
father. To the fainting, dispirited race,--
"Ye like angels appear,
Radiant with ardour divine,
Beacons of hope, ye appear!
Languor is not in your heart,
Weakness is not in your word,
Weariness not on your brow;
Ye alight in our van: at your voice
Panic, despair, flee away."
When those whom we have looked upon as our intellectual leaders grow
disheartened, we must remember that a lost leader does not necessarily
mean a lost cause. When those whom we had called the kings of modern
thought are dumb, we can find new leadership. "Change kings with us,"
replied an Irish officer after the panic of the Boyne; "change kings
with us, and we will fight you again."
ON REALISM AS AN INVESTMENT
_From a Real-Estate Dealer to a Realistic Novelist_
Dear Sir:--
I have been for some time interested in your projects for the
improvement of literature. When I saw your name in the newspapers, I
looked you up in "Who's Who," and found that your rating is excellent
What pleased me was the bold way you attacked the old firms which have
been living on their reputations. The way you showed up Dickens,
Thackeray & Co. showed that you know a thing or two. As for W. Scott and
the other speculators who have been preying on the credulity of the
public, you gave them something to think about. You showed conclusively
that instead of dealing in hard facts, they have been handing out
fiction under the guise of novels.
Our minds run in the same channel: you deal in reality and I deal in
realty, but the principle is the same. I inclose some of the literature
which I am sending out. You see, I warn people against investing in
stocks and bonds. These are mere paper securities, which take to
themselves wings and fly away. But if you can get hold of a few acres of
dirt, there you are. When a panic comes along, and Wall Street goes to
smash, you can sit on your front porch in South Canaan without a care.
You have your little all in something real.
You followed the same line of argumentation. You showed that there was
nothing imaginative about your work. You could give a warranty deed for
every fact which you put on the market. I was so pleased with your
method that I bought a job lot of your books, so that I could see for
myself how you conducted your business. Will you allow me, as one in the
same line, to indulge in a little criticism? I am afraid that you are
making the same mistake I made when I first went into real estate. I was
so possessed with the idea of the value of land that I became "land
poor." It strikes me that a novelist may become reality poor in the same
way; that is, by investing in a great many realities that are not worth
what he pays for them.
You see, there is a fact which we do not mention in our circulars. There
is a great deal of land lying out of doors. _Some_ land is in great
demand, and the real trick is to find out what that land is. You can't
go out on the plains of Wyoming and give an acre of land the same value
which an acre has in the Wall Street district. I speak from experience,
having tried to convince the public that if the acres are real, the
values I suggested must be real also. People wouldn't believe me, and I
lost money.
And the same thing is true about improvements. They must be related to
the market value of the land on which they are placed. A forty-story
building at Goshenville Corners would be a mistake. There is no call for
it.
This is the mistake which I fear you have been making. Your novel is a
carefully prepared structure, and must have cost a great deal, but it is
built on ground which is not worth enough to justify the investment. It
has not what we call "site value." You yourself declare that you have no
particular interest in the characters you describe at such length. All
that you have to say for them is that they are real. It is as if I were
to put up an expensive apartment-house on a vacant lot I have at North
Ovid. North Ovid is real, and so would be the apartment-house; but what
of it?
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