Etc. [pp. 468-473]

472 Overland Monthly
the last year or two, with the exception of At the rate of progress toward perfect
the Porto Rico Tariff Bill, has gone on honesty which has been made since Mr
record as a "Victory of the San Francisco Depew's boyhood, how long will it be before
Examiaer," an`~Indorsement of one of its the millennium?
Planks," e-t-c! There is no possible inter LET US trust that both terms of the hope
pretation of this except that the enterpris- expressed by Professor Moses, of the Philip
Ing paper named is supervising and
controlling everything from Maine to pine Commission, may be fulfilled-" to
Manila. It is a form of government never make the Filipinos respect us first and then
love us."
tried in this slow world before, but it seems
to be working fairly well thus far; and cer- SO SELDOM do we hear any word so
tain it is that the "American National Poll- much as implying that the thoughts, the purcy" is practically sound and well deserves poses, or the awakening hopes of the Orientthe indorsement of the President, the Con- als themselves may have anything whatever
gross and the American people. to do with the political and commercial prob lems of Eastern Asia, the following from
TO TRE many persons who write us in- Professor Fryer (as reported in the daily
quiring if the profession of literature pays, papers) is at least novel, and one may say
and if we think they have a fair prospect refreshing:of making fortunes at it, we answer once There is a crisis near at hand, and the
for all, Yes, of course it pays; you are on Chinese empire waits with patient dignity.
She sees warships of various nations as birds
the right track; look at John Ruskin, whose of prey hanging about a wounded animal.
copyrights are said to have brought him in She is determined, however, not to give her
$20,000 a year; that ought to encourage any- carcass as booty. The hope of China is to
body and everybody; all you have to do is have other nations spend years of fighting
to "dash off" a few books like "Sesame over lier while she gains strength. The out look is far from hopeless. The Chinese
and Lilies," "A Crown of Wild Olives," heart is good and noble, and when other
"The Seven Lamps of Architecture," and nations give the empire a helping hand in
"Unto this Last." A half-dozen volumes such manufacturing and industrial pursuits, her
as these will place you financially where future is assured.
you would hardly care for even a partner- "Occan Tragedies" Again
ship with Mr. Carnegie. This is our sober
To tJie Editor of tize Overland AIonthl~
and well-considered judgment as to your I was much interested in "Ocean Trage
chances in the field of literature, for money, dies of the Northwest Coast," in the Octoand, quite incidentally, for glory. ber, (`09) number as I know well many of
IT IS not such a phenomenally prosaic the vessels and officers mentioned. The
and unimaginative period after all. Witness wreck of the Brother Jonathan was a
the fact that in the United States, in 1899, specially sad and terrible disaster, and
seven hundred and thirty-eight new novels vividly portrayed by the author. llowever,
were published, and three hundred and two there were only nine persons in the boat (a
volumes of poetry. The output of juvenile small quarter-boat) saved instead of nineliterature, which also draws largely on the teen, and it was due to the energy, skill,
resources of imagination, was likewise pro- and endurance of the third ma?e of the
digious. To be sure, the greater part of all vessel, a Danish or Norwegian sailor, who
this becomes at once the lumber of libraries was also the only one saved who could give
or the miscellany of cheap counters, but it an intelligent account of the wreck.
suggests that there is something yet astir I doubt very much that Mrs. General
In the human mind that is not concerned Wright was in the boat, or could have rewith shops and commodities and kitchen- turned to the steamer had she so desired.
ware. Perhaps the vision will nor cease and The conditions made that impossible.
the people will not perish. About a week or ten days after the
wreck, I went to San Francisco (I think, on
AND NOW we have Chauncey Depew's the Colnmbia), and touching at Trinidad we
word for it that the world is more honest took on board the body of Mrs. Wright, just
to-day than it was in his boyhood. Problem: wasl~ed asl~ore near by. I do not know