OUR LITERARY CELEBRITIES.

Patea Mail, Volume II, Issue 170, 25 November 1876, Page 2

OUR LITERARY CELEBRITIES.

—. —♦— . m The London correspondent ot'Tne Lynn Advertiser is answerable for the following:—“To judge from appearance, literature is not a Very profitable profession. I had occasion lately to spend a good deal of time at the readingroom of the British Museum Library* and of all the badly dressed, unwashed, unshaven, unkempt, persons ever collected in a public room, the frequenters of that library are certainly the seediest. And yet a large proportion are not the mere rank and file of the profession, mere literary hacks and penny-a-liners—but names “ familiar in our mouths as household words,” men famous wherever the English language is spoken are there. But a single magazine article for which the publisher would pay ten guineas would defray the annual tailor’s bill of most of these celebrities ; and, to the shame of the craft be it said, there are few of its profession whose brain-work does not prevent their giving any attention to the exterior of their heads. Most of them are prematurely old—■ many are asthmatic. In society they are often as shy and awkward as a senior wrangler ; and, in point of fact* they are, as a rule, pleasanter in their writings than in their persons.”