It is a difficult thing for literary people, as well as others, to tell the truth sometimes. Now here is a letter containing an article by which the writer hopes to make money; and of which my "candid opinion is asked, as soon as convenient."
Now in the first place, the article is most illegibly written; an objection sufficient to condemn it at once, with a hurried editor—and all editors are hurried—beside having always a bushel basket full of MSS. already in hand to look over. In the second place, the spelling is wofully at fault. In the third place, the punctuation is altogether missing. In the fourth place, if all these things were amended, the article itself is tame, common-place, and badly expressed. Now that is my "candid opinion" of it.
Still, I am not verdant enough to believe that the writer wished my "candid opinion" were it so condemnatory as this; and should I give it, there is great danger it would be misconstrued. The author, in his wounded self-love, might say, that, being a writer myself, I was not disposed to be impartial. Or he might go farther and say that I had probably forgotten the time when I commenced writing, and longed for an appreciative or encouraging word myself. Now this would pain me very much; it would also be very unjust; because when I began to write I called that person my best and truest friend who dared tell me when I was at fault in such matters. I have now in my remembrance a stranger, who often wrote me, regarding my articles, as they appeared from time to time; who criticised them unsparingly; finding fault in the plainest Saxon when he could not approve or praise. I thanked him then, I do so now; and was gratified at the singular interest he manifested in one unknown to him. I have never seen him all these years of my literary effort; but I know him to have been more truly my friend than they who would flatter me into believing better of what talent I may possess than it really merits.
This is the way I felt about friendly though unfavorable criticism. The question is, have I sufficient courage to risk being misunderstood, should I, in this instance, speak honestly and plainly. Or shall I write a very polite, non-committal answer, meaning anything, or nothing. Or shall I praise it unqualifiedly, and recommend the writer to persevere in a vocation in which I am sure he is certain to be doomed to disappointment; and all for the sake of being thought a generous, genial, kindly, sympathetic sort of person.
Which shall I do?
The writer would not like to descend from his pedestal, and hear that he must begin at the foot of the ladder, and first of all, learn to spell correctly, before he can write. And that after words, must come thoughts; and that after thoughts, must come the felicitous expression of thoughts. And that, after all that, he must then look about for a market for the same.
This, you see, is a tedious process to one who wants not only immediate but large pecuniary results, and evidently considers himself entitled to them, notwithstanding his deference to your "candid opinion."
But what a pleasure, when the person appealed to, can conscientiously say to a writer, that he has not over but under-rated his gifts! What a pleasure, if one's opinion can be of any value to him, to be able to speak encouragingly of the present, and hopefully for the future. And surely, he who has himself waded through this initiatory "Slough of Despond," and, by one chance in a thousand, landed safely on the other side, should be the last to beckon, or lure into it, those whose careless steps, struggle they ever so blindly, may never find sure or permanent foot-hold.
"What did I do, after all, about that letter?" Well, if you insist upon cornering me, it lies unanswered on my desk, this minute: a staring monument of the moral cowardice of Fanny Fern.