The effect of this recent drift of the trade has been to stimulate the frothy side of literature to an extreme degree. The more serious literature is being neglected. The latest novel is the fad. Its average life is reduced to little more than one year, though the copyright lasts for twenty-eight years, and with a renewal it may be extended to forty-two years. This shortening of the life of books has had a baneful effect: (_a_) Baneful to the bookseller, since it frequently leaves him with a dead stock of books on hand that cannot be turned without loss. (_b_) Baneful to the publisher, since the book stops selling and the plates become valueless before he has had time fairly to recoup himself for the expense of bringing it out, advertising it, and putting it on the market. (_c_) Baneful to the author, since by shortening the life of his books the value of his property in them is reduced. But perhaps the most baneful effect of this craze for ephemeral literature is upon the people themselves. As the standard or degree of civilization for a given age is marked by the character of the literature the people produce and read, we cannot hope for a golden age in American letters, unless the present system is reversed. Work of real merit is never done by accident, nor is it the product of mediocre talents. If we are to develop a national literature that shall fitly characterize the sterling qualities of the American people in this, the full strength of the early manhood of the nation; at the time when the nation has taken its place in the vanguard of civilization; at the time when the consumptive power of the nation is equal to one-third of that of the entire civilized world; at the time when men of talents and genius are annually earning and expending, for their comfort and pleasure, more munificent sums than were ever lavished on the most opulent princes; I say, if we are to produce a literature that shall fitly characterize this age of our nation, we must hold forth such rewards for the pursuits of literature as will attract men of genius, men of the most lustrous talents, men who are the peers of their co-workers in other walks of life. But this will not be possible so long as the present strife to furnish cheap literature to the people continues. It should be observed that the bookseller has not suffered alone in this cheapening process. The publisher has suffered. Within the past few months two names that for half a century were household words, synonyms of all that is excellent in the publishing world, have met with disaster, and others were approaching a crisis.