A LITERARY NIAGARA.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 7583, 23 December 1902, Page 2

A LITERARY NIAGARA.

+-. THE MODERN BOOK OUTPUT. Mr* Augustine Birrell, K.C., contributes to the new" volume of the "Encyclopedia. Britannica" a prefatory essay upon "Modern Conditions of Literary Production." "As we step B cautiously into the arena of the book market," he says, " our ears are deafened with the roar of its Niagara, its : tremendous output, and straightway are excited within us feelings of amazement, j admiration or dismay. { '< The newspapers of a single week, piled j one on the top of another, would- make a decent hill in a, flat country, while monthly magazines issue forth in crowds. " The spread of what Goethe shuddering- ] ly called ' half-culture,' is noticeable, every- j where. Even polite learning 'has not "wholly escaped the tainfc of trade^ ( Parnassus is undoubtedly a very noisy mountain, where publishers shout their wares, and authors seek to gain popularity by the doubtful device of exhibiting their photographs. A commercial spirit pervades the atmosphere." But, mixed with all this evil, Mr Birrell finds much .good— perhaps more good than harm. Thus, " Among our middle classes , there has sprung up of late years an honest love of literature. England is now full of j good editions of good books, and the demand for them increases." His concluding summary is optimistic to a degree. " After contemplating the J changed condition, of modern literature," | he writes, "we may congratulate ourselves that Avherever we look we see all the symptoms of life and activity in a people striv- j ing to get quit of the clogs of ignorance, j and to enter upon th© glorious inheritance j that belongs by right to every cultivated intelligence." «,