I do not think there is any danger of a ruinous competition from
it in the field which, though narrow, seems so rich to us poor
fellows, whose business talent is small, at the best.

The most of the material contributed to the magazines is the
subject of agreement between the editor and the author; it is
either suggested by the author, or is the fruit of some
suggestion from the editor; in any case the price is stipulated
beforehand, and it is no longer the custom for a well-known
contributor to leave the payment to the justice or the generosity
of the publisher; that was never a fair thing to either, nor ever
a wise thing. Usually, the price is so much a thousand words, a
truly odious method of computing literary value, and one well
calculated to make the author feel keenly the hatefulness of
selling his art at all. It is as if a painter sold his picture
at so much a square inch, or a sculptor bargained away a group of
statuary by the pound. But it is a custom that you cannot always
successfully quarrel with, and most writers gladly consent to it,
if only the price a thousand words is large enough. The sale to
the editor means the sale of the serial rights only, but if the
publisher of the magazine is also a publisher of books, the
republication of the material is supposed to be his right, unless
there is an understanding to the contrary; the terms for this are
another affair. Formerly something more could be got for the
author by the simultaneous appearance of his work in an English
magazine, but now the great American magazines, which pay far
higher prices than any others in the world, have a circulation in
England so much exceeding that of any English periodical, that
the simultaneous publication can no longer be arranged for from
this side, though I believe it is still done here from the other