One of the trustiest jokes of the humorous paragrapher
is that the editor is in great and constant dread
of the young contributor; but neither my experience
nor my observation bears out his theory of the case.
Of course one must not say anything to encourage a
young person to abandon an honest industry in the
vain hope of early honor and profit from literature;
but there have been and there will be literary men
and women always, and these in the beginning have
nearly always been young; and I cannot see that there
is risk of any serious harm in saying that it is to
the young contributor the editor looks for rescue from
the old contributor, or from his failing force and
charm.
The chances, naturally, are against the young contributor,
and vastly against him; but if any periodical is to
live, and to live long, it is by the infusion of new
blood; and nobody knows this better than the editor,
who may seem so unfriendly and uncareful to the young
contributor. The strange voice, the novel scene,
the odor of fresh woods and pastures new, the breath
of morning, the dawn of tomorrow—these are
what the editor is eager for, if he is fit to be an
editor at all; and these are what the young contributor
alone can give him.
A man does not draw near the sixties without wishing
people to believe that he is as young as ever, and
he has not written almost as many books as he has
lived years without persuading himself that each new
work of his has all the surprise of spring; but possibly
there are wonted traits and familiar airs and graces
in it which forbid him to persuade others. I
do not say these characteristics are not charming;
I am very far from wishing to say that; but I do say
and must say that after the fiftieth time they do
not charm for the first time; and this is where the
advantage of the new contributor lies, if he happens
to charm at all.
The new contributor who does charm can have little
notion how much he charms his first reader, who is
the editor. That functionary may bide his pleasure
in a short, stiff note of acceptance, or he may mask
his joy in a check of slender figure; but the contributor
may be sure that he has missed no merit in his work,
and that he has felt, perhaps far more than the public
will feel, such delight as it can give.
The contributor may take the acceptance as a token
that his efforts have not been neglected, and that
his achievements will always be warmly welcomed; that
even his failures will be leniently and reluctantly
recognized as failures, and that he must persist long
in failure before the friend he has made will finally
forsake him.
I do not wish to paint the situation wholly rose color;
the editor will have his moods, when he will not see
so clearly or judge so justly as at other times; when
he will seem exacting and fastidious, and will want
this or that mistaken thing done to the story, or poem,
or sketch, which the author knows to be simply perfect
as it stands; but he is worth bearing with, and he
will be constant to the new contributor as long as
there is the least hope of him.
