44 AMERICAN MEN OF LETTERS [44 



decline during the last few decades studied. 1 The theory 

 advanced above readily explains this apparent exception to 

 the general tendency. Activity increased in the three kinds 

 of work which were in harmony with the spirit of the time. 

 This activity furnished what the people demanded. The 

 environment being favorable, the number of literati in these 

 three fields naturally tended to increase. 



The third noteworthy fact, discovered from data not 

 here presented, is that in these three fields in which activity 

 was increasing, apparently because of greater popular in- 

 terest, there was not a growing proportion of literati of 

 talent compared with those of merit. It might seem that, 

 according to the theory that when literature is in popular 

 favor conditions stimulate the production of literary genius, 

 an increase in the number of men of talent in these fields 

 should have been expected. In reality, however, such an 

 increase would not harmonize with that theory, while the 

 decline in the ranks of men of talent observed is quite in 

 accord with it. This paradox is explained as follows. In 

 the first place, it must be remembered that, at the time when 

 the authors born in the latter decades studied were writing, 

 popular taste in fiction and the drama was not at all what it 

 had been several decades previously. Even the attitude of 

 the public toward the players had changed. People did not 

 then have, as formerly, enduring interest in an actor. The 

 desire of the public was for the recent. " Popular " books 

 were lauded, and it was not fashionable to read books 



1 These facts were further verified by the results of another analysis 

 in which the method of procedure served as a check to the one used 

 in compiling Table IV. In this case each litterateur was counted once 

 for every line of activity in which he had achieved distinction. Re- 

 sults differed so little from those noted in Table IV that it seemed 

 needless duplication to print even the summaries. It is quite evident 

 that literary activity declined at approximately the same rate as did 

 the number of literati. 



