LITERATURE AND LIVELIHOOD.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 9714, 9 February 1910, Page 4

LITERATURE AND LIVELIHOOD.

A successful author advised young men to sweep crossings rather than to take to writing for a living. We do not know what 'crossing-sweepers learn, but no doubt some of them make more than does the unhappy author who 'confesses in "T.P.s Weekly" that he and bis wife are compelled to live on thirteen shillings a week. Here is a tragic instance of the small recompense that too often rewards the pursuer of pure literature. The writer, who does not give hisjname, but is vouched for by, Mr T. P. O'Connor as a well-known author whose books are highly esteemed by the critics, is not a novelist, and so appeals only to a small public. He does not say what it is he writes about, but tells us it interests hundreds of thousands of readers, and necessitates travelling about the country in search of information. The reviews of his books are proof that his work is good. The "Daily News" said of him: "He writes as Whistler painted, with the knowledee of a lifetime"; the "Saturday Review" (ever hard to please) described some of his work as equal to similar things by Bret Harte; "The Times" and the "Daily News" compared him to Stevenson and Thoreau. But hundreds of commendatory reviews have failed to induce the public to buy his books. After years of writing he finds himself with thirteen shillings a week on which to keep himdelf and his wife. A meal often comes from the garden, for the couple are practically vegetarians by force of circumstances. "How we manage to get our clothes is a matter between ourselves, and all I will say about it is that the buying of a new dress or a pair of boots is quite an event in our lives." For obvious reasons, friends are rarely visited ; any invitation to a function where svening'dress is obligatory must be declined. It was hard to have to decline to meet the colonial Premiers in London, and forego the chance of seeing "a gilded salon of the great," but the state of the wardrobe was imperative. It may take him twelve

months to, write a book. His receipts may be only £SO, of which about half goes in expenses, and he has to wait a year or eighteen months for his money. Yet he declares that both he and his wife ai-e happy. What his youthful dreams were he does not say, but they can be easily imagined. To-day his ambition is to make a pound a week Then he would be perfectly happy.