“We have read with care the manuscript of The Captive which you have offered us. We are pleased to be able to tell you that we have found it a very fine piece of work, but we are sorry to say that our previous experience with publications of this character does not lead us to believe that we could make a success of it.
“We are holding MS. subject to your order.”
I did a desperate thing to-day—two of them. First I had to go and get the manuscript, so I asked to see the publisher. I sat down and looked straight into his face and said: “How is a man who is trying to write what is fine to keep alive if the publishers won't publish what he writes?”
He was very kind—he seemed to be interested. He explained that a publisher who published books that the public did not want would be driven out of business in a year. Then he said he knew many who were facing the same problem as I; that there was nothing to do but write for the magazines and the papers, and that it was a bitter shame that society made no provision for such men. “Your work is as noble and sincere as work can be,” he said, “but I do not believe that you will find a publisher in this country to undertake it, unless there be one who feels wealthy enough to do it as a service to literature and a labor of love.”
That made me turn white. I got my manuscript and I went out on the street, and the houses reeled about me. “So,” I said, “and that settles it!”
As I walked along I stared into the future. It seemed very clear all of a sudden.
I thought it all out. “No one will publish The Captive,” I said, “and no one would heed it if it were published. Therefore I have but one question to face, Have I the strength to go on, living as I have lived, distracted and tormented as I have been—and still piling up new emotions in my soul, daring new efforts, reaching new heights, producing new books? I can have no idea that my second work will be any more available than my first; on the contrary, I know that it would be just what The Captive is, only more so. Therefore, perhaps it will be ten years—perhaps it will be twenty years—before men begin to pay any heed to what I have written! And so there is the question, Have I the strength to go on in that way—have I the strength to face that future?”
Then I grew faint and had to lean against a railing. I knew that I could not do that!