To those persons who can't live by printing papers we would say, in the language of the profligate boarder when dunned for his bill, being told at the same time by the keeper of the house that he couldn't board people for nothing, "Then sell out to somebody who can!" In other words, fly from a business which don't remunerate. But as we intimated before, there is much gammon in the popular editorial cry of poverty.
Just now we see a touching paragraph floating through the papers to the effect that editors don't live out half their years; that, poor souls! they wear themselves out for the benefit of a cold and unappreciating world. We don't believe it. Gentle reader, don't swallow it. It is a footlight trick to work on your feelings. For ourselves, let us say, that unless we slip up considerably on our calculations, it will be a long time before our fellow-citizens will have the melancholy pleasure of erecting to our memory a towering monument of Parian marble on the Public Square.
1.38. EDITING.
Before you go for an Editor, young man, pause and take a big think! Do not rush into the editorial harness rashly. Look around and see if there is not an omnibus to drive—some soil somewhere to be tilled—a clerkship on some meat cart to be filled—anything that is reputable and healthy, rather than going for an Editor, which is hard business at best.
We are not a horse, and consequently have never been called upon to furnish the motive power for a threshing-machine; but we fancy that the life of the Editor who is forced to write, write, write, whether he feels right or not, is much like that of the steed in question. If the yeas and neighs could be obtained, we believe the intelligent horse would decide that the threshing-machine is preferable to the sanctum editorial.
The Editor's work is never done. He is drained incessantly, and no wonder that he dries up prematurely. Other people can attend banquets, weddings, &c.; visit halls of dazzling light, get inebriated, break windows, lick a man occasionally, and enjoy themselves in a variety of ways; but the Editor cannot. He must stick tenaciously to his quill. The press, like a sick baby, mustn't be left alone for a minute. If the press is left to run itself even for a day, some absurd person indignantly orders the carrier-boy to stop bringing "that infernal paper. There's nothing in it. I won't have it in the house!"
The elegant Mantalini, reduced to mangle-turning, described his life as "a dem'd horrid grind." The life of the Editor is all of that.
But there is a good time coming, we feel confident, for the Editor. A time when he will be appreciated. When he will have a front seat. When he will have pie every day, and wear store clothes continually. When the harsh cry of "stop my paper" will no more grate upon his ears. Courage, Messieurs the Editors! Still, sanguine as we are of the coming of this jolly time, we advise the aspirant for editorial honors to pause ere he takes up the quill as a means of obtaining his bread and butter. Do not, at least, do so until you have been jilted several dozen times by a like number of girls; until you have been knocked down-stairs several times and soused in a horse-pond; until all the "gushing" feelings within you have been thoroughly subdued; until, in short, your hide is of rhinoceros thickness. Then, O aspirants for the bubble reputation at the press's mouth, throw yourselves among the inkpots, dust, and cobwebs of the printing office, if you will.
* * * Good my lord, will you see the Editors well bestowed? Do you hear, let them be well used, for they are the abstract and brief chroniclers of the time. After your death you had better have a bad epitaph than their ill report while you live. Hamlet, slightly altered.