As a Related (Kind-of, Maybe) Piece

As a related (kind-of, maybe) piece to "On Publishing and Book Scarcity," something I recommended in the book thread this morning. (Was it only this morning? What a long day.)

Washington Irving holds an imagined dialog with an old tome in "The Mutability of Literature."
http://www.bartleby.com/109/6.html

[quote]
...Language gradually varies, and with it fade away the writings of authors who have flourished their allotted time; otherwise, the creative powers of genius would overstock the world, and the mind would be completely bewildered in the endless mazes of literature. Formerly there were some restraints on this excessive multiplication. Works had to be transcribed by hand, which was a slow and laborious operation....

[snip: other restraints listed]

...But the inventions of paper and the press have put an end to all these restraints. They have made everyone a writer, and enabled every mind to pour itself into print, and diffuse itself over the whole intellectual world. The consequences are alarming. The stream of literature has swollen into a torrent - augmented into a river - expanded into a sea....
[endquote]

And that was long before Blogs...