"
"Tell me," said my friend, "do you read the advertisements of the books
of rival authors?"
"Brother authors," I corrected him.
"Well, brother authors."
I said, No, candidly, I did not; and I forbore to add that I thought them
little better than a waste of the publishers' money.
II.
My friend did not pursue his inquiry to my personal disadvantage, but
seemed to prefer a more general philosophy of the matter.
"I have often wondered," he said, "at the enormous expansion of
advertising, and doubted whether it was not mostly wasted. But my
author, here, has suggested a brilliant fact which I was unwittingly
groping for. When you take up a Sunday paper"--I shuddered, and my
friend smiled intelligence--"you are simply appalled at the miles of
announcements of all sorts. Who can possibly read them? Who cares even
to look at them? But if you want something in particular--to furnish a
house, or buy a suburban place, or take a steamer for Europe, or go, to
the theatre--then you find out at once who reads the advertisements, and
cares to look at them. They respond to the multifarious wants of the
whole community. You have before you the living operation of that law of
demand and supply which it has always been such a bore to hear about.
As often happens, the supply seems to come before the demand; but that's
only an appearance. You wanted something, and you found an offer to meet
your want.
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