that we need ask of him is to give us life, and the rest we must do for ourselves.

It is not chiefly the enjoyment of our critical faculties or the satisfaction of our moral judgment that we ask for in a novel, although we cannot be wholly satisfied without these activities.

Nous demandons à une œuvre de roman [writes René Bazin] qu'elle nous fasse penser, mais bien plus encore qu'elle nous fasse aimer, souffrir, espérer. Il y a là un mystère, parce que nous touchons à quelque chose de semblable à la vie et de semblable à la création. Je ne prétends pas l'expliquer.

It is not, however, to be supposed that there is no order, no method, no composition in the work of the novelist who gives himself up to the influence of the living characters he has evoked. It is very hard to be perfectly truthful in the description of character, never to be tempted into melodrama, or weakened into false pathos, never to play up to popular morality, nor to play down to popular immorality, to be always firm and impartial to a favorite character, to be gentle with a villain. But where there is truth and life there will be organic structure, and fine proportion arising out of the moral history of the characters themselves. This is so where selfrestraint is practised and constancy to the main theme. Of course there is a liberty from rule that loses the main object in license. Who does not feel that the magnificent and adorable creations of Les Misérables would have gained not lost if Victor Hugo had

The Dublin Review.

not indulged each of his personages in turn regardless of the others, and had not neglected all his spoilt children at any moment for any passing caprice?

A critic has calculated that there are exactly 985 useless pages in that colossal novel. Yet no one, it may be said in conclusion, has said better than Victor Hugo that in literature, as in politics, order is the result of liberty— only in his latter years he was prone to forget that disorder is the inevitable consequence of license. The following passage is from the Preface of 1826 to the Odes et Ballades-a few pages of quite remarkable interest dealing with the poetic controversies of the day but applicable to prose fiction, and containing in one phrase, which we have put in italics, a lesson of supreme import

ance.

Ce qu'il est tres-important de fixer, c'est qu'en littérature, comme en politique, l'ordre se concilie merveilleusement avec la liberté, il en est même le résultat. Au reste, il faut bien se garder de confondre l'ordre avec la régularité. La régluarité ne s'attache qu'à la forme extérieure; l'ordre résulte du fond même des choses, de la disposition intelligente des élements intimes d'un sujet. La régularité est une combinaison matérielle et purement humaine; l'ordre est pour ainsi dire divin. Ces deux qualités si diverse dans leur essence marchent frêquemment l'une sans l'autre. Une Cathédrale gothique présente un ordre admirable dans sa naïve irrégularité; nos édifices français modernes, auxquels on a si gauchement appliqué l'architecture grecque ou maine, n'offrent qu'un désordre régulier.

Josephine Ward.

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I. Americans are great advertisers. Probably there is no other nation in the world which advertises more extensively or spends more time, money and effort in developing the genius of advertisers amongst men and women. The advertising appropriation of the large American firms often mounts up into the millions. It has come to be a common saying that, no matter whether a thing has merit or not, if it is properly advertised, it is bound to sell and make a fortune for its financial backers. It naturally follows that in a country where advertising is given such a prominent place in business, the salaries paid to artists, copy-writers, designers and those who "evolve" the ideas which form the pivotal point of the "ad" are princely, and the specialists in these lines are held in great respect and esteem.

It is apparent to a student of American conditions, however, that the American genius for advertising is showing signs of degenerating, just as the talent for newspaper-writing has done. Even the most conservative newspapers in the United States to-day are evincing a disposition to turn "yellow"-as the sheets which exclusively retail sensational news in a manner which appeals to the emotions are commonly called. The "yellow" reporter and editorial writer are a fait accompli. So is also the "yellow" photographer, who produces spurious pictures to order, making them to suit the occasion. But the taint of sensationalism does not stop there. In America they have, as well, the "yellow" writers, designers and illustrators of advertisements.

Vast sums of money and tireless efforts are spent on advertisements in an endeavor to make them of such a char

acter that they will attract the public by arresting the attention of the people who see them. The aim is to take advantage of the native curiosity of the reader, stimulating the desire to know that which is hidden, causing inquiry respecting the goods advertised and thus paving the way for enormous sales. Therefore, "catchiness" is an essential feature of an advertisement just as it is the keynote of the headlines, of the opening paragraph, of the substance of the article and of the photographs published in a newspaper. The people have a craving for sensations. They revel in thrills. They are willing to pay a price for the sake of experiencing a new emotion. newspaper-maker, anxious to amass dollars, long ago discovered this trait of American nature and took advantage of it by retailing the sort of sensational matter which the American public craves for. Likewise ad-men are springing up like mushrooms in early spring everywhere in the country, who are willing and anxious to gain their end by making the advertisements yellow-sensational.

The

A foreigner who girdles the country with eyes wide open and ears ever ready to listen to new facts, considers the work of the sensation-monger in the realm of advertising as conspicuous as the yellow-writer's flaming headlines and made-up stories. Sometimes the yellowness of an advertisement is smoothed down so as not to be too glaring, but usually no effort is made to hide its uncomeliness. In fact, the effect purposely is made impressionistic. Real art in advertising may attract a certain small percentage of the reading public, but as a rule it is useless as a means to rouse into activity the emotions of the people, whose appetite

for unusual effects has become jaded by over-indulgence. It is necessary for the ad-writer to-day to hammer hard at the people he desires to entangle in his net, and stun them into buying the wares he advertises, without their questioning the merits or the necessity that may exist for purchasing them. The clever copy-writer makes it his business to persuade people that they want something for which they really have no need. For instance, a man may be perfectly healthy, but the advertising manager who makes it his business to push the sales of some kind of patent medicine attempts to persuade him that he is in a precarious condition, and that nothing but the remedy advertised will cure him. Advantage is taken of the fact that even a healthy person sometimes has twinges of pain and feelings that may be construed into symptoms of some dreadful disease. A list of these simple symptoms is printed, with the question, "Do you ever feel like this?" The natural conclusion is that if you do, then the grave will claim you if you do not use the medicine advertised, which is the only remedy for the disease that has you in its clutches. So insidiously are these patent-medicine advertisements worded that they catch hold of the subconscious brain and never let go their grip until the person who reads the list of symptoms acknowledges that he is subject to them, and becomes an invalid, patronizing, of course, the firm that is advertising the cure for what ails him. One of the most forceful advertisements of this description that ever was perpetrated on the unsuspecting public showed the discoverer of the medicine advertised standing in the midst of a cemetery. About him played flashes of lightning, and as he held out his hands the dead were rising from their graves. Accompanying the picture

was a list of symptoms and the sug

gestion that the reader might suffer from one or all of them. This advertisement was so startling as to be positively uncanny. From every blank wall and bill-board it stared at the passer-by, until the most casual reader began to take notice of it and to check up the list of symptoms to see if he had any of them. The advertisement was the means of flooding the coffers of the medicine firm with hundreds of thousands of dollars.

An instance of advertising which stuns by its very bluntness is found in the placard which may be seen in Amercan saloons and cigar stands and which reads something like this:-"If your business interferes with drinking (or smoking, as the case may be) cut out your business." Evidently the writer of this advertisement wished to be funny. If he attempted to be witty, so far as the writer can analyze the thing, he failed miserably. It would appear that such an advertisement would have an opposite effect from the one intended-would bring prominently to the minds of sensible men the banes of drinking and smoking; but the designers of the advertisement in question and those of a like nature deal with people who have more emotion of a low order than common sense. Thus a yellow advertisement of this description appeals to their undeveloped sense of humor, captures their sentimentality and proves the means of bringing an immense volume of business to the advertiser.

After conferring abundantly with the heads of advertising departments of several of the leading business houses in America, the writer is fast coming into the belief that the aim of the ad-man is to fence in such a manner that the good sense and reasoning ability of the advertisement reader is successfully eluded, and then fire at him, in a hypnotic manner, a volley of syllogistic reasoning, calculated to

touch his passion for greed, or appeal to his fear of death or appetite for sensation, or some such emotion, usually not of a very dignified order.

II.

It appeals to a foreigner's sense of humor to observe the clever devices the yellow ad-designer applies to capture the attention of the passer-by. Not long ago, in a metropolitan American city, two men, representing typical "hay-seeds”—people who wear garments and affect manners scores of years behind the times and are in every sense of the word egregiously out of date-travelled about the principal streets of the city on roller skates. One of the parties wore woman's clothes-hat, and veil, jacket, skirt, petticoat, stockings and shoes in vogue in the rural districts fifty years ago, and loomed truly ridiculous in these fantastic garments. Wherever the hayseeds went they attracted crowds of people who raced after them in long processions. Once in a while the man would turn in his hand the old-fashioned satchel which he carried, and the people following the couple would see the advertisemnt of a roller-skating rink which was about to be opened. They became such a nuisance that the city authorities arrested one of the men on the charge of appearing in public dressed in woman's clothes, and thus put a period to this freakish advertising novelty.

Another firm had a man dressed in the costume of an old-time Quaker walk about the streets. He attracted attention wherever he went. A theatrical manager advertised the play which he was putting before the public by sending up into space a huge box-kite which was attached to a rope and held captive. To the rope were fastened little banners bearing letters which spelled the name of the play. night an electric flash-light lit up the

At

It is really an engrossing study to detect the clever, and in many cases, what by the Old World would be called, unscrupulous, methods employed in America to disguise the “advertiseness" of the advertisements. This statement at first sight may sound paradoxical; but the conundrum is easily explained. The effort of the adman is to impress the mind of the reader with the usefulness of his products and yet leave the idea that he is not reading an advertisement, but merely editorial comment. In order to achieve this end, several methods are in vogue. Probably the most extensively resorted to device is that of counterfeiting the language and style of the paper or periodical in which the advertisement appears, using similar type and illustrations. If it is a newspaper, headlines in different types are used. If it is a perodical, the effort is made to copy the style of its contributions. In a word, external appearance is of such a character that the uninformed reader is unable to discover that he is reading an advertisement and not a genuine article. The writers of these "reader ads"-as they are called-are adepts in their special sphere of work. All they aim to do is to write an interesting paper on some burning topic of the day. In odd places, in the body of the article, they manage to insert little hints that would win over the confidence of the reader and guide the thought into the channel desired by appealing to the sub-conscious rather

In

than the conscious mind. This form of advertising is very elusive and sly, and is widely employed in America. fact, it is considered the most effective form of advertising.

To the people of India this would appear extremely unethical. But if such is the characterization of the reader ads, what shall be the category in which "write-ups" of men, women and things are printed in American newspapers and periodicals which pretend to be of the most exclusive character and of the highest grade, with the tacit understanding that they are to be paid for at regular advertising rates—in many instances a dollar a line and sometimes as high as a thousand dollars a page. These advertisements are printed as news items or "feature stories" in the body of the paper or periodical, and no one who is not initiated in the intricate mysteries of newspaperdom in America has any means of knowing that even the leading American periodicals stoop to using such low and degrading modus operandi.

III.

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The outside world knows that newspapers and magazines are maintained in America for advancing the political interests of certain individuals-that railroads and large manufacturing and commercial organizations control number of publications. But the average man in America or out of it has no idea of the extent to which the commercialization of the newspaper and periodical has placed him at the utter mercy of the ad-man. Political, immigration, railroad, manufacturing and industrial bureaus, boards of trade and chambers of commerce, individuals seeking personal aggrandizement and desirous of fulfilling ambitions, taint and tincture the news, prejudicing the editorial policy to such a degree that it is almost impossible to put any credence in what is printed even in the

newspapers and periodicals of SOcalled approved and established reputation.

Every writer in America finds that the Advertising Manager of the newspaper or the periodical is the real "boss." It is he who dictates the policy, guides and controls the administration of the Managing Editor. If a firm advertises in the publication, nothing that is likely to injure its interests is allowed to see the light of day. If a reporter writes an article inimical to an advertiser's interests, it is consigned to the wastepaper basket and the reporter is reprimanded for attempting such an unholy task. If a concern is afraid of being given unwelcome notoriety, all that is to be done is to telephone to the Advertising Manager, buy a certain amount of space for advertising, and drop a gentle hint that the expense is incurred with the specific purpose of preventing the publication of articles damaging to the commercial organization.

There are, no doubt, publications in America which are conducted on a strictly ethical basis; but their number is extremely limited. The writer knows of some of the most widely-read periodicals which do not hesitate to print an article containing a reader ad, hidden in the article, because immigration and other commercial bureaus have these contributions written by experts of wide reputation and offer them freely to the publications. Furthermore, social and political organizations and so-called newspaper syndicates hold litterateurs in fee, so that they give their exclusive attention to writing articles of a certain type, offering them to the periodicals under their own name and accepting payment for the work from them. This is about the most sly scheme employed in literary work and is engaged in on an extensive scale.

Some of the big business firms have staff-writers who prepare articles in