Meanwhile, "The Professor" had met with many refusals from
different publishers; some, I have reason to believe, not
over-courteously worded in writing to an unknown author, and none
alleging any distinct reasons for its rejection. Courtesy is
always due; but it is, perhaps, hardly to be expected that, in
the press of business in a great publishing house, they should
find time to explain why they decline particular works. Yet,
though one course of action is not to be wondered at, the
opposite may fall upon a grieved and disappointed mind with all
the graciousness of dew; and I can well sympathise with the
published account which "Currer Bell" gives, of the feelings
experienced on reading Messrs. Smith and Elder's letter
containing the rejection of "The Professor".

"As a forlorn hope, we tried one publishing house more. Ere long,
in a much shorter space than that on which experience had taught
him to calculate, there came a letter, which he opened in the
dreary anticipation of finding two hard hopeless lines,
intimating that "Messrs. Smith and Elder were not disposed to
publish the MS.," and, instead, he took out of the envelope a
letter of two pages. He read it trembling. It declined, indeed,
to publish that tale, for business reasons, but it discussed its
merits and demerits, so courteously, so considerately, in a
spirit so rational, with a discrimination so enlightened, that
this very refusal cheered the author better than a
vulgarly-expressed acceptance would have done. It was added, that
a work in three volumes would meet with careful attention."

Mr. Smith has told me a little circumstance connected with the