Therefore, the individual who contemplates becoming an author must be a law unto himself. If he finds his truest expression, his greatest delight in literary work, let him persevere, all the world to the contrary notwithstanding.
"There is no chance, no destiny, no fate,
Can circumvent, can hinder, or control
The firm resolve of a determined soul.
Gifts count for nothing; will alone is great."
An editor, noted for his gentleness and courtesy, tells us that all writers must go through an evolutionary process of rejected manuscripts, and cites the instance of Mrs. Harriet Prescott Spofford, who awoke one morning to find herself famous. She had written "The Amber Gods." When congratulated as the first author who had attained reputation by a single effort, she replied:—
"No, that is not true. I have been writing for years under an assumed name."
Susan Andrews Rice.
Washington, D. C.
THE DELUGE OF VERSE.
A fragment of a conversation overheard the other evening, when the writer, half-buried with the daily proof-sheets from which he knows no escape, was hurrying westward on an afternoon train, is the raison d'être of this communication. The participants were two young and pleasant-looking girls: they discussed matters feminine, of which only the words "toque," "a bewitching little thing," and "pink velvet" had reached my ears; but when I heard the question, "What became of your last poem, Clara?"—and the reply, "Youth's Companion, came back with a printed slip; Independent, ditto; then I tried the Waverley Magazine, who accepted it, but did not pay young contributors"; I became unthinkingly an interested eavesdropper, and just then, with creak and clatter, the train stopped, the station, "Wellesley," was called, and the fair ones departed, taking my thoughts (and all power of concentration on work in hand) with them.
I mused in this wise: "Just why does the average young person give him (or her) self out in verse, good, bad, and indifferent?" The Youth's Companion does not want a Wellesley girl's lucubrations; it has verse on hand from many of the most skilled and charming writers in that line. But it does, I know, want good stories for boys, for girls,—and where can be a better "locale," materials for plot, sketches of life and character, etc., than at a girls' college? One could surely range "from grave to gay, from lively to severe," in such a field.
The editor of the Atlantic, dear young people, accepts articles—well-written, of course—on questions relating to higher education, university extension, matters of historical research. Harper & Brothers are glad to get character sketches (not New England particularly,—you cannot outdo, quite yet, Miss Jewett and Mary Wilkins,—but there are many other bits of humanity, quaint, odd, or pathetic). Scribner's and the Cosmopolitan like travels, but they must be bright and varied; and mechanical articles, young men, but these must be a direct and forcible presentation of their subjects, and not rehashes from old books; while the Century will pay you well for some dainty comic bit for its "Bric-à-brac." Friends of the Golden Rule, Cottage Hearth, and Christian Register have assured me that good—not goody-goody—juvenile literature is very hard to get. I know a young woman who is paid well by the page for all the children's stories she can write, and her pages are fresh and good, with new themes and unhackneyed incidents; and a young man who is taking up themes of interest in our history,—the unprecedented message of a president which gave no report to Congress of financial or diplomatic matters for the preceding two years, and the three presidential protests against action taken in Congress (how many of you know about these state papers?),—there are a hundred other things, too, which might be told about in this line,—and he finds no difficulty in getting his matter accepted. There is an assistant editor not far from Beacon Hill who keeps track of the clergymen, the prominent families, and individuals in a certain large religious denomination. Every week she furnishes her quota of items to an eight-page paper, and she is a pearl of great price to her chief. The Marthas of the household, "careful and troubled," there is a place for in many journals to-day, whether their specialty be cooking, scrubbing, or lace-work. There is also a chance for those who possess a large fund of miscellaneous information, in Notes and Queries and like journals.