Page:Free Opinions, Freely Expressed on Certain Phases of Modern Social Life and Conduct.djvu/27

evident that the Children of the Eagle purchase British fiction. It is equally evident that the publishers who cater for the Children of the Eagle are anxious to get British fiction cheap, and are doing this little deal of the "No demand" business from an acute sense of urgency. It is all right, of course! If I were an American publisher and had to pay large prices to popular British authors for popular British fiction (now that "piracy" is no longer possible), I should naturally tell those British authors that they are not wanted in America, and that it is very good and condescending of me to consider their wares at all. I should give a well-known British author from £100 to £500 for the sole American rights of his or her newest production, and proceed to make £5,000 or £7,000 profit out of it. That kind of thing is called "business." I should never suspect the British author of being so base as to send over and get legal statements as to how his or her book was selling, or to take note of the thousands of copies stacked up every day in the stores, to be melted away as soon as stacked, in the hands of eager purchasers. No! As a strictly honourable person, I should hope that the British author would stay at home and mind his or her own business. But let us suppose that the American publisher's latest delicate "feeler" respecting the "No demand for British literature" were true, it would seem that Americans, even more than the British, require to be taught "how" to read. If one may judge from their own output of literature, the lesson is badly needed. Ralph Waldo Emerson remains, as yet, their biggest literary man. He