ELECTRICITY AND LITERATURE.

'S it printing or book-making that is the "art preservative of arts?" Do type or covers play the part of amber in our modern existence, and save the life of the present for the study of future ages-much as living organisms of by-gone eons are embalmed in transparent exudations of the longperished forests of the Baltic coasts? When any attempt is made to weigh or measure the enormous masses of printed paper daily and hourly going into rubbish heaps and junk shops because newspapers, and more leisurely made periodicals also, cannot even preserve themselves, it must be admitted by the most zealous champion of the press that periodicals seem merely the forests, destined to decay and obliteration; and the amber that holds fast the living thought of the day appears to be found in books alone.

But if the preservative office of literature be narrowed to duly bound and fully developed books, and printing be limited to its more conservative and slow-moving forms, as a means of embalming the life of any age or country, it must be expected that new forces and conditions will find their way only by slow degrees into the enduring records of the times. The vast mass of printed matter that sweeps along like a flood, day and night, must be looked upon as only a source of present power, immediate interest, transitory effects. It is passing on to the ocean of oblivion, changing and enriching the world through which it flows but leaving no part of its own tremendous bulk behind, unless altered wellnigh beyond recognition.

So it happens that the stock phrases or circulating medium of literature are filled with evidence of the remarkable persistence of old forms derived from outgrown customs, instruments, and beliefs. The wars of the last few years have shown how obsolete the sword and the bayonet have become in actual fighting. The Boers have used rifles with not a bayonet to

every thousand. Even their officers have no swords. Not one American soldier was hurt in the brief struggle with Spain by either sword or bayonet. This change from the warfare of the eighteenth century is nothing new. In the Franco-German war of 1870-'71 only about 300 German soldiers were injured by sword thrusts or cuts. Nearly 100,000 were killed or wounded by bullets and other projectiles. That was thirty years ago; yet in literature the "sword," now a mere ornament or badge of rank, still stands, in many instances, for all weapons and for war itself. With Chinese-like conservatism of ancient error we write of the "heart" as the seat of the emotions and the affections. "Sails" have an importance in books and in the current coin of literature which has long been lost in navigation and international commerce. A floating fort of steel, as devoid of canvas as a whale, is said to "sail" from port to port. Instances of this sort might be multiplied to almost any extent.

It is not strange, therefore, that the place which electricity, in its varied manifestations, has won in literature is exceedingly small in comparison with the part it plays in the life of civilized nations. As yet we have little of it in books that are not too technical to be literature at all. The telegram arrives in the nick of time, it is true, in certain novels, as well as in the melodramas that are apt to be more "mellow" than anything else. The newspapers tell how campaign orators "electrify" their audiences and dilate upon the "magnetic" presence of candidates; but it has been shown that the daily press is not literature, if for no other reason than its inability to make enduring records of the times. Now and then a play that comes near the border of true literature may use the stock “ticker" and the electric light, and the extreme picturesqueness and charm of the searchlights on ships have won recognition in writings that may endure. One of Mr. Howells's dainty heroes of some years ago was put in peril of swooning into his soup by the whirring of an electric fan in a hotel dining-room, and Kipling, born into the rising tide of a new age of electricity, has been showing

the world with what ease and power modern forces and conditions can be handled. His "dour Scots engineer" speaks of the "purring dynamos" of an up-to-date steamship as freely as any captain of old ever sang of his sails and spars. In "The Deep-Sea Cables" this same young Anglo-Indian genius, with his contempt for all barriers between his pen and the outposts of modern progress, makes splendid verse of a very new form of that imperial development which is the pride and soul of his "Song of the English.”

Only here and there, it is true, does any wonder of electric science flash out in literature, but in the light of such suggestions as Kipling has given the world of the possibilities of the near future it is quite safe to predict the splendid enrichment, strengthening, and development of the materials used by artificers in language. As yet the new wonder-working force is touched cautiously and with uncertain hands, but the next generation will regard much that is still strange and bewildering to us as the men of this day think and speak of the railroad and the rifle. Since literature, however slow to adopt the new and the little known, must nevertheless follow the movement of civilization, if it is to be vital and enduring, it is certain that its pictures of life will soon glitter with the electric light of science grown into the subconsciousness of perfect understanding.

In a widely different way the effect of electricity upon letters is sure to be very great. It will render the distribution and use of books and periodicals easy and general to a degree never yet known. Modern newspapers are virtually the creation of electricity, and without it they could not exist in their present form. The more highly systems of instantaneous transmission of intelligence can be developed the more newspapers will flourish. They are not literature, and they never will be more than a means of spreading the love of reading and quickening intelligence; but in that manner their effect upon the demand for books and the opportunities enjoyed by authors will be very important. Only a superficial view of existing conditions leads to the common assertion that the habit of reading the ephemeral publications of the day has lessened the use of

books. The records of the book trade do not justify that conclusion, and it would be fairer to say that the enormous growth of newspaper patronage has taken the place of old-time tavern gossip rather than supplanted literature. It has done away, to a great extent, with the circulation of news by letter, and it has made much "small talk" seem a waste of time to busy persons. They read instead of conversing. But it is more conducive to the use of books to read papers than to talk, matching the daily press against common gossip, and therefore the influence of electricity upon newspapers tends, in the long run and the large view, to promote the growth and prosperity of literature.

Consider what electric science may do for the circulation of books and magazines from public or subscription libraries. Already, in an experimental way, we have seen single-rail electric roads built that seem to offer fair promise of a speed of two hundred miles an hour, perhaps for passengers and almost surely for small packages. Here is a hint of such improvements in the express and mail service of the country that no great stretch of the imagination is required to picture millions of families living outside of cities and towns enjoying the privilege of sending a request for a certain book to a library fifty miles away, using the telephone at three in the afternoon and receiving the volume wanted, by electric mail, so to speak, an hour later. Any such extension of city advantages in the dissemination of intelligence could not fail to quicken the mental life of the world. It would mean that many million fingers that now feel the pulse of the great arteries of civilization only faintly and seldom would become more and more sensible of its heart throbs. Such new knowledge implies the sowing of wider fields and the reaping of richer and greater harvests than have yet been garnered in the storehouses of wisdom, which are chiefly books. So electricity is very likely to prove one of the best handmaidens literature has ever known.

In the more remote and vague day-dreaming of electric science there is a promise of wonder-working, in a wider and greater field, that would touch books and letters and all the

intellectual life of mankind in a most deep and subtle way. Conceive such perfection of the storage battery that the power of the winds could be made available, cheaply and effectively, through calms, and equalized in storms and gentle breezes. Or imagine the direct conversion of the ether waves that beat upon our planet into a form of electric energy that would permit its use to illuminate and heat the world and furnish power for all purposes. In either case the tide of population might be expected to flow into new channels. Then the parts of the world that are most beautiful, pleasant, and salubrious would have more potent attractions than some of the ugly and unhealthful places that now flourish because of their cheap coal. Let the tides of the sea or its waves be economically used to generate power, to be transmitted in the form of electric energy to all parts of the coast cities, and the ocean margins of the continents must feel a new impulse of life and growth. Then a larger part of mankind would dwell where international commerce is most active and the imagination is most stimulated by the presence of men of many lands and shipping laden with the treasures of remote parts of the world. shall estimate the effect upon literature of a change that might move even ten per cent. (or more than 40,000,000 in Europe and the United States) of the whole population into homes more open to wide and inspiring influences, such as foreign commerce, beauty of scenery, and purity of atmosphere?

Who

The charms of Nature alone do not avail as a source of literature. Neither does travel in distant lands. Sailors and mountaineers are not notable as makers of books. But man has not yet found conditions so favorable to the rapid growth and development of civilization, with literature as its finest expression, as those that would exist in clean and stately cities that were great modern seaports and centers of trade and industry, without being grimy with smoke or foul with fuel gases. Electricity promises to make London, Chicago, and Pittsburg smokeless and brilliant by day and night. For literature, that means more leisure, more patrons, and more inspiration to joyous and charming creation.