d it up? Years
afterward the publisher admitted that the manuscript contained some of
the most exquisite work Hawthorne had ever written. This story
emphasizes the intense sensitiveness of the author about his work.
Often after two or three rejections he will give the manuscript up as
hopeless and of no value, while it may be that he has only failed to
find the house that is looking for that kind of book. An agent, if he
has once taken the book up, does not drop it so quickly. Only recently
an agent sold a book which had been declined by fifteen houses to the
sixteenth. He is willing to persevere with a manuscript and with an
author, in spite of rebuffs and discouragement, if he believes that
the author has merit; and if he is willing to persevere with an author
in the day of small things, he will reap his reward later on.

In conclusion the writer believes that the agent, as he has tried to
indicate, can perform a definite and valuable service to both author
and publisher by helping the author to bring his wares to the man who
will publish them most advantageously, and by obtaining for the author
the prices that such wares are worth in the open market, and he can
help the publisher by acting as a sifter and bringing before the
publisher and editor manuscripts that are really worthy of
consideration.

THE LITERARY ADVISER

By Francis W. Halsey.

The position of literary adviser to a publishing house differs in its
duties, according as the adviser may be employed in a house highly
organized, or in one that is not. When the organization is such that
the duties in the various departments are not well differentiated, the
adviser's work will be likely to involve many things that properly
belong to the manufacturing and advertising departments. These
conditions, however, if they exist at all, will be found in the
smaller houses, or in houses which, as to personnel, are undergoing
reorganization; they are, and ought to be, exceptional.

The adviser's actual duties should pertain almost exclusively to the
manuscripts, and to the relations of the house with those who produce
them. In this way, the adviser acts as an intermediary between the
publisher and the author. This relation seems, on the surface, to be
somewhat delicate, and it usually is confidential, but most men find
the occupation an agreeable one. Authors as a class, so far from being
an irritable race, will usually be found, at least in their relations