CHAPTER XXIX 



LITERARY WORK 



As we have seen, Mr. Shaler began to write in his youth. He did 

 so, however, without intending to make literature, in other than 

 a secondary way, any part of the serious work of his life; in 

 truth long after he was fairly committed to the writing of books 

 he insisted that such work should with most authors be a side 

 issue, the spilling over of a full life ; a recreation rather than a 

 deliberate purpose. The hard drill which a man received in the 

 exacting field of his avowed profession would, he thought, do 

 away with amateurish results. Furthermore he believed that a 

 well-educated man could apply his talents as well to one thing 

 as another and could write on any subject of ordinary human 

 interest. Owing to his own varied intellectual activities it is 

 difficult to associate Mr. Shaler with a special branch of know- 

 ledge or industry, for there was hardly a subject on which he 

 could not throw an unexpected light; and for this reason his 

 literary work falls in with no ready-made classification either of 

 subject or intellect. Apparently no irresistible impulse led his 

 mind away from what seemed at the moment the thing best 

 worth doing, nor when accomplished could it detain him longer. 

 It was possible for him to enter into the floating interests about 

 him, 1 and yet keep his energies in the steady stream of his 

 appointed tasks ; always faithful to the hour and minute of their 

 discharge, never shirking the fatigue or monotony of their 

 smallest detail. The different ideas which beset him, strange to 

 say, were not combatants. In passing they saluted one another 

 and went on their way, each patiently biding its time for fuller 

 recognition and development. In this respect his life was pe- 



1 As is shown by the multitude of magazine articles he wrote on current subjects of 

 interest, such, for instance, as the Silver Question, the Negro Problem, Red Sunsets, the 

 Law of Fashion, Hurricanes, Immigration, etc. 



