I KNOW of no brighter, sprightlier, more sensible and energetic young woman than my fair cousin Sue, who having recently graduated at an eminent female college, is universally regarded by her fair companions as a miracle of learning. Sue has several times filled the poet's corner of the county newspaper of late, and the other day read a poem before her maiden friends which they unanimously pronounced good enough for the ——; whereupon Sue concluded the matter by furbishing up her rhymes and sending them to the editor of that popular magazine. Presently they came back to her enclosed in that ugly bit of printed paper with which every reader who has had any literary aspirations whatever is acquainted, in which the editor "regrets" that owing to the pressure on his columns, etc., he cannot "make the enclosed article available." Sue came to me with the printed paper in her hand, looking more disturbed than I had ever seen her.
"Cousin," said she, "you are a favorite with the editors: can't you teach me how to succeed with the flinty-hearted creatures? I've spent more time at school than you; my teachers assured me that I had literary talent, and ought to improve it; I take the greatest pains with my poems, and yet they always come back to me with only these printed regrets."
I took paper and poem and read both. "Sue," said I at length, "I want one of those long after-dinner talks that we used to have before you went to college; and if I probe a little deep, as I used to, you must remember that it is the 'galled jade' that winces."
Not long before I had been in the den of the managing editor of one of the great metropolitan dailies, and the conversation had turned on the mass of unavailable communications that flooded his office on the arrival of every mail. "What is the proportion of accepted to rejected manuscripts?" I inquired.—"One in a hundred," he replied, and continued: "It is strange what crude ideas people have as to the needs and capacities of a daily journal. For instance, in this pile of 'unavailables' are poems, sketches, love-stories, theological disquisitions, scientific treatises, book-reviews, political squibs, biographies and essays on civil and social reform—not one rising above commonplace, and the majority the veriest trash imaginable; and this is sent to us in the face of the fact, which ought to be apparent to all, that we have a regular corps of trained writers and correspondents."—"And who are the producers of all this matter?" was my next query.—"Well," said he, "an editor who is harassed by them three hundred days in the year soon gets to classify them correctly, I think. There are three great classes. First, the dilettante scribblers, young men and young women of elegant leisure, who think literary distinction 'very nice,' and plunge into authorship for a little pleasant excitement or in the hope of winning fame. There are often glimpses of talent in the productions of this class, and with hard work they might succeed; but they only skim the surface, and the result is that their work doesn't reach even the respectable. The second class are those who without special talent embark in literature, expecting to make a living by it. The third class I pity: it consists of those who have some literary talent and a desire to improve it, but who lack the gift of expression or the constructive faculty, or some other requisite, and are simply incapable of producing anything worth putting in print. It is this class of incompetents that put the greatest strain on an editor's sensibilities, for their articles are almost, but never quite, available. If I could reach these literary aspirants I would whisper in their ears that modern journalism is an organized, elaborated profession, and that every conductor of a better-class journal, whether newspaper or magazine, has a corps of trained writers at command who to literary talent add the experience of years, and whose contributions are generally satisfactory. Yet it by no means follows that first-class articles from outside correspondents are neglected: on the contrary, it is because an occasional nugget is found that readers are employed to examine their miscellaneous correspondence. There now!" he added, laughingly, "I have given you some points for a sermon to the scribbling public, and as you have plenty of leisure you ought really to improve the opportunity."
I told all this to Sue, adding, "I am no sermonizer—not, at least, since my lamentable failure at the obsequies of poor old Tabby—but I feel in the mood for a few plain, honest words on this topic this evening, and only wish I had a larger circle of hearers. I shall not take up any of the points mentioned by my friend the editor, for he has exhausted the subject: he has told you why many fail. I wonder if you have any idea what it costs the successful writers to win, because if you have not I have a friend who is entitled to be placed in this category, and I should like you to know what it cost him to attain his present position. He was eighteen when he discovered an aptitude for literary work by publishing a sketch in the village newspaper, and he was twenty-nine before he succeeded in gaining the slightest public recognition. These eleven years he spent in study, travel, close observation and literary labor, writing home letters to provincial newspapers whose editors published them readily enough, but forgot to send the author either money or thanks; and when he knocked at the door of the paying journals, as he did occasionally during these years, he was dismissed with the same politeness and complacency that you complain of. All this time, remember, he was living the life of a recluse, shunning general society and almost an anchorite as regards the sex: at the same time he was well aware that his friends, who were all engaged in the general scramble for wealth, regarded him pityingly as a man of a chimerical turn of mind, who, despite their efforts, would continue to the end in the profitless pursuit of a phantom. Notwithstanding, he held to his purpose with a tenacity of will worthy of the old Scotch Covenanter from whom he descended. His final success, he has often declared, was owing to a lucky chance. When twenty-nine years of age he wrote a book, and succeeded in finding subscribers enough among those interested in his specialty to publish the work. There was evidence of talent in it which somehow attracted the attention of an editor in Massachusetts, conductor of a high-toned literary journal there, who wrote it up, and was followed shortly after by a New York editor of equal standing: this aided little in selling the book, but it gave him literary standing—a coign of vantage but little appreciated by young writers. Our friend next wrote a sketch half romantic, half historical, and armed with it gained a hearing from the editor who had favorably reviewed his book, and who in turn introduced him to the managing editor of his journal. This gentleman was induced by the author's representations to read the manuscript himself, was pleased with it and inserted it in his columns, together with many others of similar character; and as they were unique both in subject and style they were widely copied and commented upon, and placed the young author in the high-road to success.
"Now, Sue, it is possible that with equal exertion of will, perseverance and endurance you may win equal success; but suppose you do, will it pay? I grant there is no joy greater than that of the literary neophyte when his work first obtains recognition in quarters where recognition is worth something; but this is pretty nearly all there is to be gained in authorship. Ease, position and wealth are to be left behind when one embarks in it in earnest. I question if there can be found a civilized people that takes less interest in literature and literary workers than do Americans. Congress, that intensely practical body, has persistently refused to protect or encourage them, reasoning, evidently, that while the author may be a pleasing and graceful ornament to the kingly power, he is a useless appendage to a republic. Again, it is not for the interest of a publisher to encourage American authors, whom he must pay for their work, for he has the cream of English literature at his command without money and without price. As to the American public, it doesn't read books. It prides itself on being well read, I know, and it is in magazines and newspapers, but the figures in our publishers' offices prove incontestably that of our fifty millions of people between one and two thousand only are regular buyers of books. Forty years ago the case was different: then wealthy men bought books, as they now buy pictures, to encourage American art, and the genial sun of their patronage called out such men as Bryant, Cooper, Irving and Hawthorne. But under the changed conditions of our times what writers have risen up to fill their places? Brilliant magazinists, versatile journalists, skilled producers of the lightest of light literature for summer-resort consumption, I grant, but few distinctive names; for one might as well expect roses to bloom in January as a true national literature to grow and bloom under the blight of universal neglect and indifference.
"But I am carrying my generalizations too far: it is my purpose rather to narrate for your benefit some cases of individual hardships on the part of authors that have come under my own observation. My friend, the accomplished magazinist of whom I spoke, wins the wage of a grocery clerk; and as nothing could induce him to leave his profession—it is his life—he will continue to eat the bread of poverty all his days. I know authors who have fared far worse than this—who would be glad to exchange all the fame their books have brought them for money to meet the obligations incurred in their publication. I have a friend who was not a tyro in authorship when he came up to New York with a newly-completed book seeking a publisher. He first gave his manuscript to a leading publishing-firm, which, after keeping it three weeks for inspection, informed him in the politest manner that their reader did not advise them to undertake the publication. He then sought another publisher equally eminent, who in due time consented to take the book on the following terms: He would publish it, give it the benefit of the firm's imprint and push its sale through the trade for a certain commission, the author to pay the entire cost of the stereotype-plates when delivered, and also the cost of printing and binding the first edition. The publisher admitted the hardship to authors of this plan, but declared that since the decline of the book-trade it had been almost universally pursued by publishers as a means of ensuring themselves against loss. But, as it happened, my friend succeeded in making better terms with another publisher. In the course of their conversation the latter remarked that he could offset the author's experience with a much severer one, and proceeded to relate the following incident, which he declared to be strictly true: Not long ago a well-known lady writer made arrangements with a large New York publishing-house to publish a book for her. In return for the firm's name on the title-page she agreed to pay the entire cost of the plates and of the first edition of two thousand copies, and the usual per cent. commission for introducing the book, and in addition not to call for any settlement of accounts until the entire edition was exhausted. She did this the more readily as she supposed that the books would be sold in two or three months at the farthest. Time flew on, the book-trade was dull, and the last half of the second year was approaching ere fifteen hundred copies had been sold. She was in urgent need of the money, and to obtain it sent a buyer into the market who bought for her the remaining five hundred copies, paying the publisher his commission on them: in this way she secured payment for the entire edition.
"In these instances I have only hinted at the hardships endured by authors. I mention them not to excite your sympathy for the guild—although none are more deserving of it—but to show you plainly some of the lions in the way of the literary aspirant; and I regret that I have not in my audience the ten thousand brave, capable young men and women in our country who are looking forward to a literary career—some in the hope of winning distinction, and some as a profession to be used in bread-winning. Certainly, nothing will justify man or woman in embarking in it but the possession of the true afflatus, the rich gift of imagination, constructive power and expression which we call literary genius."
Happy is the preacher who sees the seed he sows fall into good ground! Not many days after our talk, happening to glance into the parlor, I saw Sue in suspicious proximity to Fred Alston, the young bank-cashier, and only last night she blushingly announced her engagement to him, assuring me that she was content to shine in a literary way only in the home-circle. Fred is a good fellow, besides being desperately in love with her, and, as he hasn't a particle of literary talent himself, will set all the more store by Sue's.
C. B. T.