[LITERARY ASPIRANTS.]
IT is the most astonishing thing that persons who have not sufficient education to spell correctly, to punctuate properly, to place capital letters in the right places, should, when other means of support fail, send MSS. for publication. Now before me lies just such a MS., accompanying which is a letter requesting me to read it, give the writer my opinion of it, and hand the same to some publisher.
Now, here is my opinion. In the first place, every editor is crowded with offered MSS. from all sources. Secondly, many of the writers would not mind not receiving pay for the same, could they only see that MS. in print in a certain journal that they have selected. In fact, many times they would rather pay for having it inserted than to have it declined. This much for the glut in the market.
Then, after this, an editor makes his own selections. It may be he has already a sufficient corps of contributors, and does not care for, and will not entertain, any fresh applications. But suppose this is not the case. Suppose he looks over, or employs a person to look over, these various MSS. What chance, I ask you, among the myriads, has a MS., every other word of which is misspelt, and which is wrongly punctuated, and without paragraphs or capitals, and illegibly written beside, and, crowning bother of all, written on both sides of the page, over those which are just the reverse; which are no trouble to read, which require no revision, and which contain ideas as well as words?
Very well: after all that, an editor has to decide, among even these properly prepared MSS., which is best suited to his individual paper, about which he has, and very properly, his own notions and ideas. Now an article may be well written, and yet not be the thing he wishes for his paper, although it might be the very thing desired for another. Well—he of course rejects it, as he has an undoubted right to do. He could not carry on his paper or magazine successfully on any other principle. You would not ask a grocer to buy a piece of calico because you wanted money for that calico. He would immediately say, "It is not in my line of business; I can make no use of it. I am sorry you are in want of money; but business is business. I will make you a present of three or four dollars, as the case may be; but your calico is of no use to me."
Now you could see the force of that: why can't you be made to understand that it is just so, only a great deal more so, with an editor?
Perhaps you say to me, "Ah, you forget the time when you began." I beg your pardon, but I do not. Many a weary tramp I had; much pride I put in my pocket, and few pennies, even with the advantage of a good education, and a properly prepared MS., and the initiation "of reading proof"—for my father, who was an editor, when I was not more than twelve years old—before I succeeded.
It is because I know; it is because I have been behind the scenes, that I tell you plainly the preliminary steps to be taken before you "send MSS. for publication," to any one.
Then, don't you see, it is not agreeable to write thus to a person who quite puts these preliminary steps out of sight, either through ignorance or conceit: My Dear Sir, or my Dear Madam, this wont do! you have neither education nor ideas. This appears to them unfeeling; but it is not. It is doing such persons a much greater kindness than you could do them by luring them on with the idea of reward, thus wasting their time, which might be used successfully in other directions, only to end in mortification and disappointment.