Still, it is to be hoped that readers are left who hold that a book should be judged according to its merits and the skill with which its central ideas are handled, and not by the test of whether or no something can be raked from the literature of all times and countries that has a family resemblance to one or more of those ideas. If this hope is baseless novelists may throw aside their pens, and betake themselves to some more peaceful occupation. MR. MEESON'S WILL. CHAPTER I. AUGUSTA AND HER PUBLISHER. EVERYBODY who has any connection with Birmingham will be acquainted with the vast publishing establishment still known by the short title of "Meeson's," which is perhaps the most remarkable institution of the sort in Europe. There are or rather there were, at the date of the beginning of this history-three partners in Meeson's-Meeson himself, the managing partner; Mr. Addison, and Mr. Roscoe--and people in Birmingham used to say that there were others interested in the affair, for Meeson's was a company. However this may be, Meeson & Co. were undoubtedly a commercial marvel. The firm employed more than two thousand hands; and its works, lit throughout with the electric light, cover two acres and a quarter of land. One hundred commercial travellers, at three pounds a week and a commission, went forth east and west, and north and south, to sell the books of Meeson (which were largely religious in their nature) in all lands; and five-and-twenty tame authors (who were illustrated by thirteen tame artists) sat-at salaries ranging from one to five hundred a year-in vault-like hutches in the basement, and week by week poured out that hat-work* for which Meeson's was justly famous. Then there were editors and vice-editors, and heads of the various departments, and sub-heads, and financial secretaries, and readers, and many managers; but what their names were no man knew, because at Meeson's all the employés of the great house were known by numbers; personalities and personal responsibility being the abomination of the firm. Nor was it allowed to any one having dealings with these items ever to see the same number twice, presumably for fear lest the number should remember that he was a man and a brother, and his heart should melt towards the unfortunate, and the financial interests of Meeson's should suffer. In short, Meeson's was an establishment created for and devoted to money-making, and the fact was kept studiously and even insolently before the eyes of everybody connected with it-which was, of course, as it should be, in this happy land of commerce. After all that has been written, the reader will not be surprised to learn that the partners in Meeson's were rich beyond the dreams of avarice. Their palaces would have been a wonder even in ancient Babylon, and would * Hat-work, it is perhaps necessary to explain, is work with no head in it. |