George Cary Eggleston

“ But as a people, have we outgrown our provincialism? Have we achieved our intellectual independence? Have we learned to value our own judgments, our own thinking, our own convictions independently of English approval or disapproval? I fear we have not, even in criticism. When the novel "Democracy" appeared I wrote a column or two about it in the Evening Post, treating it as a noteworthy reflection of our own life, political and social—not very great but worthy of attention. ”

“ He was an entire stranger to me when I joined the staff of the World, but we soon became comrades and friends. There was so much of robust manhood in his nature, so much of courage, kindliness, and generous good will that in spite of the radical differences between his conceptions of life and mine, we soon learned to find pleasure in each other's company, to like each other, and above all, to trust each other. I think each of us recognized in the other a man incapable of lying, deceit, treachery, or any other form of cowardice. ”

“ Ordinarily there is no such secure ground upon which to base a prediction of success for any book. The plate-room of every publisher is the graveyard of a multitude of books that promised well but died young, and the plates are their headstones. Every publisher has had experiences that convince him of the impossibility of discovering beforehand what books will sell well and what will "die a-borning." ”

“ I am disposed to think that whatever saves trouble to the writer is purchased at the expense of the reader. The classic dictum that "easy writing makes hard reading" is as true to-day as it was when Horace made laborious use of the flat end of his stylus. For myself, at any rate, I have never been able to "dictate," either "to the machine," or to a stenographer, with satisfactory results, nor have I ever known anybody else to do so without some sacrifice to laziness of that which it is worth a writer's while to toil for. ”

“ Many of them are dead now—as, alas! most other persons are with whom I have been closely associated. But those of them who are living have made place and reputation for themselves in a way that justifies the pride I used to feel in their abilities, their energies, and their conscientious devotion to duty when they worked with me. Indeed, as I contemplate the careers of these men, most of whom came to me as "cubs" fresh from college, I am disposed to plume myself not only upon my sagacity in discovering their untried abilities, but also upon the tutelage I gave them in journalism. ”

“ Godwin
One day Mr. Godwin expressed himself as delighted with all I had written on the American Idea. I responded:
"That is very natural. The idea is yours, not mine, and in all that I have written about it, I have merely been reporting what you said to me, as we stood looking at the surf dashing itself to pieces on the rocks at Bar Harbor."
"Not at all," he answered. "No man can expound and elaborate another man's thought without putting so much of himself into it as to make it essentially and altogether his own. ”

“ The man is not a poet, but a fool. He not only hasn't the smallest appreciation of what poetry is or means, but he hasn't the ability to entertain a thought of any kind worthy of presentation in print or in any other way. I should have stultified myself and the Evening Post if I had written more favorably of his work than I did. I should never have thought of writing of it at all, but for the Evening Post's rule that every book offered here for review must be mentioned in some way in the literary columns. ”

“ Lincoln once wrote him a letter—often quoted by his enemies—which any "statesman" of the accepted type would have regarded as an unforgivable affront. Yet in due time Mr. Schurz wrote an appreciative estimate of Lincoln which has no fit fellow in the whole body of Lincoln literature. His judgments of men and measures were always the honest conclusions of an honest mind that held in reverence no other creed than that of truth and preached no other gospel than that of human liberty. ”

“ In the meanwhile, of course, my literary work had been sacrificed to the Moloch of journalism. I had canceled [293] all my engagements of that sort and severed connections which I had intended to be lifelong. In a word, I had been drawn again into the vortex of that daily journalism, from which I had twice escaped. I was worn, weary, and inexpressibly oppressed by the duties of responsible editorship—a responsibility I had never sought, but one which circumstances had twice thrust upon me. ”

“ Get yourself rested. And when you come back, don't let me talk newspaper with you, till you've had a night's sleep."
It was in that kindly spirit that Mr. Pulitzer always treated his lieutenants when he invited them to pass a time with him. So long as he and they were together, he could not help working them almost to death. But, when he realized their weariness, he sent them off to rest, on carriage drives or yachting voyages or what not, with generous consideration of their inability to carry weight as he did night and day and every day and every night. ”

“ Think of what it means to the weary one to go home with the next day's task upon his mind as a new burden, and with the discouraging consciousness that all he has done on one day's issue is dead so far as the next day is concerned. Think what it means to a sensitive man to feel that upon his discretion, his alertness, his sagacity, depends not only the daily result of a newspaper's publication, but the prosperity or failure of other men's investments of hundreds of thousands of dollars. ”

“ When I first knew Theodore Tilton as my editor-in-chief, on the Union, he was in his thirty-fifth year. His extraordinary gifts as an effective writer and speaker had won for him, even at that early age, a country-wide reputation. He was a recognized force in the thought and life of the time, and he had full possession of the tools he needed for his work. The Independent exercised an influence upon the thought and life of the American people such as no periodical publication of its class exercises in this later time of cheap paper, cheap illustrations, and multitudinous magazines. ”

“ It seems to me time for a revolution—not a revolution of violence or one which seeks overthrow, but a revolution of public opinion designed to restore the landmarks and [337] bring the country back to its foundations of principle. Financial folly, such as Mr. Bryan advocates, threatens us with nothing worse than a temporary disturbance of business affairs. Imperialism threatens us with the final destruction of those ideas and principles that have made our country great in itself and immeasurably greater in its influence upon thought and upon the welfare of humanity in every country on earth. ”

“ In the face of the facts thus demonstrated, it would have been political suicide for the men in control at Washington to refuse a public loan and to sell the bonds to the syndicate for millions less than the people were eager to pay for them. The administration yielded to moral force, but it did so grudgingly and with manifest reluctance. It cut down the proposed loan to the minimum that the Treasury must have, and it hedged it about with every annoying device that might embarrass willing investors and prevent the subscriptions of others than banks and bankers. ”

“ Schurz replied:
"You are right so far as your criticism goes. The man has done all that you charge in the way of corrupting legislatures and perverting legislation. He has made [335] a business of it. But that is the very smallest part of his offense against morality, good government, and free institutions. His far greater sin is that he has made corruption respectable, in the eyes of the people. And those who invite him to banquets and set him to speak there, and noisily applaud him, are all of them partners in his criminality whether they know it or not." ”

“ Cockerill's abilities as a newspaper editor were very great, but they were mainly executive. He had no great creative imagination. He could never have originated the Napoleonic revolution in journalism which Mr. Pulitzer's extraordinary genius wrought. But Mr. Pulitzer was fortunate in having such a man as Cockerill to carry out his plans. His alert readiness in grasping an idea and translating it into achievement amounted to genius in its way. But during all the years of my intimate association with him, I never knew Cockerill to originate a great idea. ”

“ In the first place, anonymous literary criticism may easily become a cowardly stabbing in the back under cover of darkness. In the second place, the reader of such criticism has no means of knowing what value to place upon it. He cannot know whether the critic is a person competent or incompetent, one to whose opinions he should defer or one whose known incapacity would prompt him to dismiss them as unworthy of consideration because of their source. In the third place, anonymous literary criticism opens wide the door of malice on the one hand, and of undue favoritism on the other. ”

“ I explained that in my view government in a school should have no object beyond that of giving every pupil opportunity to learn all he could, and the teacher opportunity to teach all he could. I frankly abolished the arbitrary rule that had before made of whispering a grave moral offense, and substituted for it a request that every pupil should be careful not to disturb the work of others in any way, so that we might all make the most of our time and opportunity. ”

“ The World, which had never been able to achieve a paying circulation or a paying constituency of advertisers, suddenly began selling in phenomenal numbers, while its advertising business became what Mr. Pulitzer once called a "bewildering chaos of success, yielding a revenue that the business office was imperfectly equipped to handle."
It is an interesting fact, that the World's gain in circulation was not made at the expense of any other newspaper. ”

“ It bred a race of men who spoke the truth, lived uprightly, and met every duty without a shadow of flinching from personal consequences. It reared a race of women fit to be the wives and mothers of such men. Under its spell culture was deemed of more account than mere education; living was held in higher regard than getting a living; refinement meant more than display; comfort more than costliness, and kindliness in every word and act more than all else. ”