In fact, my curious experience was that if the public
seemed not to feel my delight in a contribution I
thought good, my vexation and disappointment were
as great as if the work hod been my own. It was
even greater, for if I had really written it I might
have had my misgivings of its merit, but in the case
of another I could not console myself with this doubt.
The sentiment was at the same time one which I could
not cherish for the work of an old contributor; such
a one stood more upon his own feet; and the young
contributor may be sure that the editor’s pride,
self-interest, and sense of editorial infallibility
will all prompt him to stand by the author whom he
has introduced to the public, and whom he has vouched
for.
I hope I am not giving the young contributor too high
an estimate of his value to the editor. After
all, he must remember that he is but one of a great
many others, and that the editor’s affections,
if constant, are necessarily divided. It is good
for the literary aspirant to realize very early that
he is but one of many; for the vice of our comparatively
virtuous craft is that it tends to make each of us
imagine himself central, if not sole.
As a matter of fact, however, the universe does not
revolve around any one of us; we make our circuit
of the sun along with the other inhabitants of the
earth, a planet of inferior magnitude. The thing
we strive for is recognition, but when this comes
it is apt to turn our heads. I should say, then,
that it was better it should not come in a great glare
and aloud shout, all at once, but should steal slowly
upon us, ray by ray, breath by breath.
In the mean time, if this happens, we shall have several
chances of reflection, and can ask ourselves whether
we are really so great as we seem to other people,
or seem to seem.
The prime condition of good work is that we shall
get ourselves out of our minds. Sympathy we need,
of course, and encouragement; but I am not sure that
the lack of these is not a very good thing, too.
Praise enervates, flattery poisons; but a smart, brisk
snub is always rather wholesome.
I should say that it was not at all a bad thing for
a young contributor to get his manuscript back, even
after a first acceptance, and even a general newspaper
proclamation that he is one to make the immortals
tremble for their wreaths of asphodel—or
is it amaranth? I am never sure which.
Of course one must have one’s hour, or day,
or week, of disabling the editor’s judgment,
of calling him to one’s self fool, and rogue,
and wretch; but after that, if one is worth while
at all, one puts the rejected thing by, or sends it
off to some other magazine, and sets about the capture
of the erring editor with something better, or at least
something else.
