Clarksville chronicle. (Clarksville, Tenn.) 186?-1872, 1872-03-30
Mark Twain as Edi,or-in-Cs,cs.

Mark IVAN, In his new volume
Roughlng Ii, gives his experience as
local editor of the Virginia CITY (Ne
vada) Daily Enterprise, and incident.
ally credits the leading writer" of n
daily journal in manner as rare as i,
usually is deserved. In the case men.
toned Mark had tired of his labor AZ
local editor. He says:
" l wanted variety of some kind. 1,
came. Mr.. Goodman went away for q
week and left me the post of chief edi-
tor. 1t destroyed me. The first day |
wrote my leader in the forenoon. The
second day | had no subject. and put
i off till the afternoon. The third
day / put it off till evening, and then
copied an elaborate editorial out of the
American Cyclopedia, that steadfast
fr end of the editor all over the land
The fourth day ] fooled till mid
night, and then fell back on the Cyclo.
pedia again. The fifth day / cudgeled
my brain till midnight, and then kent
the press waiting while penned some
bitter personalities on six different peo :
pie. The sixth day l labored in
anguish till far into the night, and
brought forth-nothing. The paper
went to press without an editorial. The
seventh day / resigned. On the eigth
Mr.. Goodman returned and found six
duels on his hands-my personalities
had borne fruit. Nobody, except be
has tried it, knows what il is to be an
editor. 1t il easy to scribble local
rubbish, with the facts all before YOU;
it is easy to clip selections from other
papers; it is easy 70 string out cor
respondencc from any locality; but it
is an unspeakable hardship to write
editorials-snbiects are the trouble
the dreary lack of them | mean.
Every day it is a drag, drag, drag
think and worry and sutfer-all the
world is dull blank and yet the edi-
torial column must be filled Only
give the editor subject, and his work
is done-it is no trouble to write il up;
but fancy how you would feel if you
had to pump your brains dry every
day in the week, fiity-two weeks in the
year 1t makes one low spirited sim.
ply to think of il. The matter
that each editor Of a daily paper in
America writes in the course Of year
would fill from four to eight bulky
volumes like this book. Fancy what a
library an editors work would make
after twenty or thirty years service.
Yet people often marvel that Dickens,
Scott. Bulwer, Dumas, cct., have been
able to produce so many books. II
these authors had wrought as volumi-
nously as newspaper editors do, the
result would BE something to marvel
at indeed. How editors can continue
this tremendous labor, this exhausting
consumption Of brain fiber (for their
work is creative, and not mere me-
chanical laying of facts like report.
ing), day after day and year after year. is
incomprehensible. Preachers take
two months holiday il midsummer,
for they end tina; to produce two ser
mons a week j. varying in the long
run. In truth il must be so; and,
therefore, how an editor can take from
ten to twenty painstaking editorials a
week, and keep il up for all the year
round, is further beyond comprehen-
sion than ever. Ever since survived
my week as editor | have found at least
one pleasure in any newspaper that
comes to my hand; il il in admiring
the long columns of editorials, and
wondering to myself how in the mis-
chiefhe did il.