The notable lack in our literature is this: the prickles and irregularities of personal feeling have been pumice-stoned away. It is too smooth. There is an absence of individuality, of private opinion. This is the same lack that curses our politics,--the absence of private opinion. The sacrifice in political life is honesty, in literary life is intellect; but the closer you examine honesty and intellect the more clearly they appear to be the same thing. Suppose that a judge, in order to please a boss, awards Parson Jones’ cow to Deacon Brown; does he boldly admit this even to himself? Never. He writes an able opinion in which he befogs his intelligence, and convinces himself that he has arrived at his award by logical steps. In like manner, the revising editor who reads with the eyes of the farmer’s daughter begins to lose his own. He is extinguishing some sparks of instructive reality which would offend--and benefit--the farmer’s daughter; and he is obliterating a part of his own mind with every stroke of his blue pencil. He is devitalizing literature by erasing personality. He does this in the money interests of a syndicate; but the debasing effect upon character is the same as if it were done at the dictate of the German Emperor. The harm done in either case is intellectual. Take another example. A reporter writes up a public meeting, but colors it with the creed of his journal. Can he do this acceptably without abjuring his own senses? He is competing with men whose every energy is bent on seeing the occasion as the newspaper wishes it seen. Consider the immense difficulty of telling the truth on the witness stand, and judge whether good reporting is easy. The newspaper trade, as now conducted, is prostitution. It mows down the boys as they come from the colleges. It defaces the very desire for truth, and leaves them without a principle to set a clock by. They grow to disbelieve in the reality of ideas. But these are our future literati, our poets and essayists, our historians and publicists. The experts who sit in the offices of the journals of the country have so long used their minds as commercial instruments, that it never occurs to them to publish or not publish anything, according to their personal views. They do not know that every time they subserve prejudice they are ruining intellect. If there were an editor who had any suspicion of the way the world is put together, he would respect talent as he respects honor. It would be impossible for him to make his living by this traffic. If he knew what he was doing, he would prefer penury.