ack to the blithe days at school when they first taught you
never to think your own thoughts or take what came in a way of your own,
but to pool your brains with the rest and 'throw yourself into the life of
the school,' and on to your early manhood's deeper training in resemblance
to others, and so to the good day, always coming and always here, always
to be had by him who wills it with his might, when the imitative shall
inherit the earth."

* * * * *

I quote this, the very essence of the work, in order to choke off the
feeble, the kind, and the altruistic. I would not hawk this book. If I had
foreknown what it was I would never have mentioned it. I would have
mentioned it to none, sure that, by the strange force of gravity which
inevitably draws together a book and its fit reader, the novel would in
the end reach the only audience worthy of it. I say no more about it.

PUBLISHERS AND AUTHORS

[_10 Mar. '10_]

Authentic documents are always precious to the student, and here is one
which strikes me as precious beyond the ordinary. It is a letter received
from a well-known publisher by a correspondent of mine who is a
journalist:

"I am awfully sorry that we cannot take your novel, which is immensely
clever, and which interested my partner more than anything he has read in
a good while. He agrees with me, however, that it has not got the
qualities that make for a sale, and you know that this is the great
desideratum with the publisher. Now don't get peevish, and send us nothing
else. I know you have a lot of talent, and your difficulty is in applying
this talent to really practical problems rather than to the more
attractive products of the imagination. Get down to facts, my son, and
study your market. Find out what the people like to read and then write a
story along those lines. This will bring you success, for you have a
talent for success. Above all things, don't follow the lead of our
headstrong friend who insists upon doing exactly what you have done in
this novel, namely, neglecting the practical market and working out the
fanciful dictates of imagination. Remember that novel-writing is as much
of a business as making calico. If you write the novels that people want,
you are going to sell them in bales. When you have made your name and your
market, _then_ you can afford to let your imagination run riot, and _then_
people will look at you admiringly, and say, 'I don't