The Young Contributor | Page 5

more and more jealous of perfection in
one's work.
The editor's conditions are that having found a good thing he must get
as much of it as he can, and the chances are that he will be less exacting
than the contributor imagines. It is for the contributor to be exacting,
and to let nothing go to the editor as long as there is the possibility of
making it better. He need not be afraid of being forgotten because he
does not keep sending; the editor's memory is simply relentless; he
could not forget the writer who has pleased him if he would, for such
writers are few.
I do not believe that in my editorial service on the Atlantic Monthly,
which lasted fifteen years in all, I forgot the name or the characteristic
quality, or even the handwriting, of a contributor who had pleased me,
and I forgot thousands who did not. I never lost faith in a contributor
who had done a good thing; to the end I expected another good thing
from him. I think I was always at least as patient with him as he was
with me, though he may not have known it.

At the time I was connected with that periodical it had almost a
monopoly of the work of Longfellow, Emerson, Holmes, Lowell,
Whittier, Mrs. Stowe, Parkman, Higginson, Aldrich, Stedman, and
many others not so well known, but still well known. These
distinguished writers were frequent contributors, and they could be
counted upon to respond to almost any appeal of the magazine; yet the
constant effort of the editors was to discover new talent, and their wish
was to welcome it.
I know that, so far as I was concerned, the success of a young
contributor was as precious as if I had myself written his paper or poem,
and I doubt if it gave him more pleasure. The editor is, in fact, a sort of
second self for the contributor, equally eager that he should stand well
with the public, and able to promote his triumphs without egotism and
share them without vanity.

II.
In fact, my curious experience was that if the public seemed not to feel
my delight in a contribution I thought good, my vexation and
disappointment were as great as if the work hod been my own. It was
even greater, for if I had really written it I might have had my
misgivings of its merit, but in the case of another I could not console
myself with this doubt. The sentiment was at the same time one which I
could not cherish for the work of an old contributor; such a one stood
more upon his own feet; and the young contributor may be sure that the
editor's pride, self-interest, and sense of editorial infallibility will all
prompt him to stand by the author whom he has introduced to the
public, and whom he has vouched for.
I hope I am not giving the young contributor too high an estimate of his
value to the editor. After all, he must remember that he is but one of a
great many others, and that the editor's affections, if constant, are
necessarily divided. It is good for the literary aspirant to realize very
early that he is but one of many; for the vice of our comparatively
virtuous craft is that it tends to make each of us imagine himself central,

if not sole.
As a matter of fact, however, the universe does not revolve around any
one of us; we make our circuit of the sun along with the other
inhabitants of the earth, a planet of inferior magnitude. The thing we
strive for is recognition, but when this comes it is apt to turn our heads.
I should say, then, that it was better it should not come in a great glare
and aloud shout, all at once, but should steal slowly upon us, ray by ray,
breath by breath.
In the mean time, if this happens, we shall have several chances of
reflection, and can ask ourselves whether we are really so great as we
seem to other people, or seem to seem.
The prime condition of good work is that we shall get ourselves out of
our minds. Sympathy we need, of course, and encouragement; but I am
not sure that the lack of these is not a very good thing, too. Praise
enervates, flattery poisons; but a smart, brisk snub is always rather
wholesome.
I should say that it was not at all a bad thing for a young contributor to
get his manuscript back, even after a first acceptance, and even a
general newspaper proclamation that he is one to make the immortals
tremble for their wreaths of asphodel--or is it amaranth?