The Auction Room of Letters
By Arthur Waugh
"The present position of the literary man in England is very much that of an auctioneer. He offers his goods for sale; other people, middlemen, come and bid for them, and the prize goes to the highest bidder." I have not the exact words by me as I write; nor, in a case of this sort, do exact words matter very greatly. It is at least true that to this effect, and essentially with this intention, a leading man of letters has within the last month delivered himself upon the art which he espouses, that he asks us to accept, as an illustration or parallelism, this comparison of his calling with the huckstering of the auctioneer, and that such a pronouncement appears, if one may conjecture assent from a harmonious silence, to be received without disapproval by a large number of his fellow-artists.
Now in the obiter dicta of distinguished men there is often more food for reflection than is evident at first sight, and this playful—or was it perhaps a reproachful?—metaphor of auctioneer and public, carries a good deal more of import on its back than "many such like as'es of great charge," which are bruited abroad into fame from day to day. It contains in little the whole story of the present position of authorship; it reflects the past, it fore bodes the future, and it adorns its tale by pointing a strenuous
moral
