division of public association; it might result in Bok's physical
undoing, as already he was overworked. Mr. Curtis's arguments, of
course, prevailed; the negotiations were immediately called off, and for
the second time--for some wise reason, undoubtedly--the real Edward Bok
was subdued. He went back into the bottle!

A cardinal point in Edward Bok's code of editing was not to commit his
magazine to unwritten material, or to accept and print articles or
stories simply because they were the work of well-known persons. And as
his acquaintance with authors multiplied, he found that the greater the
man the more willing he was that his work should stand or fall on its
merit, and that the editor should retain his prerogative of
declination--if he deemed it wise to exercise it.

Rudyard Kipling was, and is, a notable example of this broad and just
policy. His work is never imposed upon an editor; it is invariably
submitted, in its completed form, for acceptance or declination. "Wait
until it's done," said Kipling once to Bok as he outlined a story to him
which the editor liked, "and see whether you want it. You can't tell
until then." (What a difference from the type of author who insists that
an editor must take his or her story before a line is written!)

"I told Watt to send you," he writes to Bok, "the first four of my child
stories (you see I hadn't forgotten my promise), and they may serve to
amuse you for a while personally, even if you don't use them for
publication. Frankly, I don't myself see how they can be used for the L.
H. J.; but they're part of a scheme of mine for trying to give children
not a notion of history, but a notion of the time sense which is at the
bottom of all knowledge of history; and history, rightly understood,
means the love of one's fellow-men and the land one lives in."

James Whitcomb Riley was another who believed that an editor should have
the privilege of saying "No" if he so elected. When Riley was writing a
series of poems for Bok, the latter, not liking a poem which the Hoosier
poet sent him, returned it to him. He wondered how Riley would receive a
declination--naturally a rare experience. But his immediate answer
settled the question:

"Thanks equally for your treatment of both poems, [he wrote], the one
accepted and the other returned. Maintain your own opinions and respect,
and my vigorous esteem for you shall remain 'deep-rooted in the fruitful
soil.' No occasion for apolog