Doing pot-boilers was easy after such a triumph as
that. They even treated themselves to holidays—they
purchased a quart of ice-cream on one day, and hired
a boat and went picnicking on another. Thyrsis
got out his fiddle once again, and even became so reckless
as to inquire about the price of a “practice-clavier”
for Corydon. Also he began inquiring as to the
cost of houses; when they got the money they would
build themselves a little cabin here—a cabin
just the size of the tent, but with a room upstairs
where Thyrsis could do his work. After that they
would be free from all the world—they would
never go back to be haunted by the sight of
“Sorrow
barricadoed evermore
Within the walls of cities.”
Section 14. So a month passed by; and Thyrsis
wrote again to the editor, and was told that they
were still discussing the story. And then, after
two more weeks, there came another letter; and this
was the way it read:
“I am sorry to have to tell you that the decision
has been adverse to using your story. My own
opinion of it has not changed in the least; but I
have been unable to induce my associates to view it
in the same light. They seem to be unanimous
in the opinion that your work is too radical for us
to put to the front. We have a very conservative,
fastidious, and sophisticated constituency; and this
is one of the limitations by which we are bound.
I am more than sorry that things have turned out so,
and I trust I need hardly say that I shall be glad
to read anything else that you may have to submit
to us.”
And there it was! “A conservative, fastidious,
and sophisticated constituency!” Thyrsis believed
that he would never forget that phrase while he lived.
Could one get up a thing like that anywhere in the
world save in Boston?
It was a bitter and cruel disappointment—the
more so because it had taken six weeks of his precious
time. But there was nothing to be done about
it save to send off the manuscript to another magazine.
And when it had come back from there he sent it to
another, and to yet another—paying each
time a total of eighty cents to the express-company,
a sum which was very hard for him to spare. To
make an ending at once to the painful episode, he
continued to send it from one place to another, until
“The Hearer of Truth” had had the honor
of being declined by a total of fifteen magazines and
twenty-two publishing-houses. The pilgrimage occupied
a period of nineteen months—after which,
to Thyrsis’ great surprise, the thirty-eighth
concern offered to publish it. And so the book
was brought out, with something of a flourish, and
met with its thirty-eighth rejection—at
the hands of the public!
The shadow of a dark cloud had fallen upon the
woods, and the voices of the birds were strangely
hushed.
“There is a spell about this place for me,”
she said, and quoted—
