From a photograph by G.C. Cox, New York.
Sunday-school writers did books by sets in those days; perhaps they do still. And at least two such sets I provided to order, each of four volumes. Both of these, it so happens, have survived their day and generation—the Tiny books, we called them, and the Gypsy books. Only last year I was called upon to renew the copyright for Gypsy, a young person now thirty years old in type.
There is a certain poetic justice in this little circumstance, owing to the fact that I never worked harder in my life at anything than I did upon those little books; for I had, madly enough, contracted to supply four within a year.
We had no vacations in those days; I knew nothing of hills or shore; but "spoke straight on" through the terrible Andover weather. Our July and August thermometers used to stand up hard at over ninety degrees, day and night, for nearly a week at a time. The large white mansion was as comfortable as ceiled walls and back plaster could be in that furnace; but my own small room, on the sunny side of the house, was heated seven times hotter than endurance. Sometimes I got over an open register in a lower room, and wrote in the faint puffs of damp air that played with my misery. Sometimes I sat in the cellar itself; but it was rather dark, and one cherished a consciousness of mice. In the orchard, or the grove, one's brains fricasseed quickly; in fact, all out-of-doors was a scene of bottomless torment worthy of a theology older and severer than Andover's.
When the last chapter of the last book was done, it occurred to me to wonder whether I might ever be able to afford to get for a week or two where the thermometer went below ninety degrees in summer. But this was a wild and baseless dream, whose irrationality I quickly recognized. For such books as those into which I had been coining a year of my young strength and heart, I received the sum of one hundred dollars apiece. The "Gypsy" publisher was more munificent. He offered one hundred and fifty; a price which I accepted with incredible gratitude.
I mention these figures distinctly, with the cold-blooded view of dimming the rosy dreams of those young ladies and gentlemen with whom, if I may judge by their letters, our country seems to be brimming over.
"Will you read my poem?" "Won't you criticize my manuscript?" "I would like to forward my novel for your perusal." "I have sent you the copy of a rejected article of mine, on which I venture to ask—," etc., etc. "I have been told that all I need is Influence." "My friends think my book shows genius; but I have no Influence." "Will it trouble you too much to get this published for me?"
"Your Influence—" and so on, and so on, run the piteous appeals which every successful author receives from the great unknown world of discouraged and perplexed young people who are mistaking the stir of youth or vanity, or the ennui of idleness, or the sting of poverty, for the solemn throes of power.
What can one do for them, whom no one but themselves can help? What can one say to them, when anything one says is sure to give pain, or dishearten courage?
Write, if you must; not otherwise. Do not write, if you can earn a fair living at teaching or dressmaking, at electricity or hod-carrying. Make shoes, weed cabbages, survey land, keep house, make ice-cream, sell cake, climb a telephone pole. Nay, be a lightning-rod peddler or a book agent, before you set your heart upon it that you shall write for a living. Do anything honest, but do not write, unless God calls you, and publishers want you, and people read you, and editors claim you. Respect the market laws. Lean on nobody. Trust the common sense of an experienced publisher to know whether your manuscript is worth something or nothing. Do not depend on influence. Editors do not care a drop of ink for influence. What they want is good material, and the fresher it is, the better. An editor will pass by an old writer, any day, for an unknown and gifted new one, with power to say a good thing in a fresh way. Make your calling and election sure. Do not flirt with your pen. Emerson's phrase was, "toiling terribly." Nothing less will hint at the grinding drudgery of a life spent in living "by your brains."