"Now, Sue, it is possible that with equal exertion of will, perseverance and endurance you may win equal success; but suppose you do, will it pay? I grant there is no joy greater than that of the literary neophyte when his work first obtains recognition in quarters where recognition is worth something; but this is pretty nearly all there is to be gained in authorship. Ease, position and wealth are to be left behind when one embarks in it in earnest. I question if there can be found a civilized people that takes less interest in literature and literary workers than do Americans. Congress, that intensely practical body, has persistently refused to protect or encourage them, reasoning, evidently, that while the author may be a pleasing and graceful ornament to the kingly power, he is a useless appendage to a republic. Again, it is not for the interest of a publisher to encourage American authors, whom he must pay for their work, for he has the cream of English literature at his command without money and without price. As to the American public, it doesn't read books. It prides itself on being well read, I know, and it is in magazines and newspapers, but the figures in our publishers' offices prove incontestably that of our fifty millions of people between one and two thousand only are regular buyers of books. Forty years ago the case was different: then wealthy men bought books, as they now buy pictures, to encourage American art, and the genial sun of their patronage called out such men as Bryant, Cooper, Irving and Hawthorne. But under the changed conditions of our times what writers have risen up to fill their places? Brilliant magazinists, versatile journalists, skilled producers of the lightest of light literature for summer-resort consumption, I grant, but few distinctive names; for one might as well expect roses to bloom in January as a true national literature to grow and bloom under the blight of universal neglect and indifference.