side.


VII.

I think this is the case of authorship as it now stands with
regard to the magazines. I am not sure that the case is in every
way improved for young authors. The magazines all maintain a
staff for the careful examination of manuscripts, but as most of
the material they print has been engaged, the number of volunteer
contributions that they can use is very small; one of the
greatest of them, I know, does not use fifty in the course of a
year. The new writer, then, must be very good to be accepted,
and when accepted he may wait long before he is printed. The
pressure is so great in these avenues to the public favor that
one, two, three years, are no uncommon periods of delay. If the
writer has not the patience for this, or has a soul above cooling
his heels in the courts of fame, or must do his best to earn
something at once, the book is his immediate hope. How slight a
hope the book is I have tried to hint already, but if a book is
vulgar enough in sentiment, and crude enough in taste, and flashy
enough in incident, or, better or worse still, if it is a bit hot
in the mouth, and promises impropriety if not indecency, there is
a very fair chance of its success; I do not mean success with a
self-respecting publisher, but with the public, which does not
personally put its name to it, and is not openly smirched by it.
I will not talk of that kind of book, however, but of the book
which the young author has written out of an unspoiled heart and
an untainted mind, such as most young men and women write; and I
will suppose that it has found a publisher. It is human nature,