You seem a little cross with publishers and editors. They have not
proved the distinguished, brilliant, and sympathetic beings you imagined
them in your boyish dreams. No doubt, publishers and editors enter
hardly into the kingdom of heaven. But then, you see, they don't care so
much about that; they are much more interested in the next election at
certain fashionable clubs. It is really a little hard on them that they
should suffer from the ignorant misconception of the literary amateur.
It is only those who have had no dealings with them who would be unfair
enough to expect publishers or editors to be literary men. They are
business men--business men _par excellence_--and a good thing, too, for
their papers and their authors. You lament their mercenary view of life;
but, judging by your letter, even you are not disposed to regard money
as the root of all evil.

You cannot understand why you have failed where others have succeeded.
You have far more Greek than Keats, more history than Scott, and you
know nineteen languages--ten of them to speak. With so many
accomplishments, it must indeed be hard to fail--though you do not seem
to have found it difficult. You have travelled too--have been twice
round the world, and have a thorough knowledge of the worst hotels.
Certainly, it is singular. Nevertheless, I must confess that the dullest
men I have ever met have been professors of history; the worst poets
have not only known Greek, but French as well; and, generally speaking
the most tiresome of my acquaintances have more degrees than I have
Latin to name them in. Alas! it is not experience, or travel, or
language, but the use we make of them, that makes literary success,
which, one may add, is particularly dependent--perhaps not
unnaturally--on the use we make of language. A book may be a book,
although there is neither Latin nor Greek, nor travel, nor