River Falls journal. [volume] (River Falls, Pierce County, Wis.) 1872-2019, 1877-09-06
Who Wouldn't be an Editor.

] Inc courier Journal, OF LOUISVILLE n.y.,
receives the flowing communication
from q young man in Tennessee:
II have been teaching school ever since
quit school year ago, but | do not
like it. 1t is time / had chosen pro-
fession, and think / would rather be an
editor than anything else, for like ease
and comfort, and plenty of money, and
do not like to work. To be an editor
to sit in an elegant sanctum with nothing
to do but write when felt like it; to have
plenty of money and go where / please,
free of cost, and lead the editors quiet
life of ease, without care or trouble of any
SORTS the height of my ambition. My
friends think that | ought to study for
law or medicine, or to keep on teaching,
but to become lawyer or a doctor re-
quires too much study, and too much
brains to start with, and teaching is too
hard work. Under these circumstances
would you not advise me to become an
cditor?"
To this remarkable communication the
Courier-JourndL sportively replied as
follows, and it is to be hoped to the
young editorial aspirant's entire satisfac-
ton:
We certainly would; your ideas of the
life of an editor, and his surroundings
and freedom from care and toll are sin
gularly correct. IN editor is the happiest
being on earth. He has little or nothing
to do, and his pay is all that mis- heart
could wish. His sanctum, with its Per-
sian rugs and Turkey carpets, its costly
rosewood furniture, its magnificent mir
rors, its beautiful pictures, its complete
library of splendidly bound books, its
buffet stuffed with the finest of wines
liquors and cigars, which cost him but a
puff or two; its silver bell to summon an
attendant whenever julep or cocktail
is wanted, and, in short, with its every
thing that human ingenuity can devise
for his comfort and pleasure, is u perfect
little paradise where he sits or lounges
and reigns a young lord, with the world
of fashion and pleasure at his feet. And
then, anyone can be an editor study,
no preparation, no brains, nothing but a
little money to start with, and once start
ed, the money pours in upon you in a
steady stream, and the chief labor of your
life is to spend it, AS for the labor of
editing a paper that is mere moonshine.
A mere glance at the columns of news
paper is enough to convince you that it
requires no labor to edit it, and less
brains. 1t is certainly glorious life,
that of an editor, life.of luxurious ease
and elegant leisure-a life for the gods,
| filled, like that of the young lover in his
| first sweet dream of requited love, with
flutes, and rose leaves and moonbeams,
While not "A wave of trouble rolls
Across his peaceful breast;
and that all men are not editors is one of
the strangest things beneath the stars.
True, there must be doctors and lawyers
and merchants and shoemakers and pea
nut dealers, and the like, and all these
callings must be filled by somebody, but
there are thousands of men who are not
smart enough to fill them, and why they
don't become editors, and lead the life of
opulent princes, is thing that staggers
US. But after all, it may be matter of
mere taste. 1t may be repugnant to some
natures to be clothed in purple and fine
linen, and fare sumptuously every day,
and of course it would never do for such
nature to become an editor; the life of
ease, elegance and luxury, and exemption
! from all care and duns, would soon be-
come bore to him, and he would spend
his nights in dreaming of plows, and
! pitchforks and reaping machines, and
squander his days in devising some plan
of swapping places with blacksmith
apprentice or a street car driver. Yes, we
would advise our young Tennesseean
friend to become an editor by all means.
Let him rent twenty acres of good ground
if he has none Of his own, and if it fails
to yield him decent living it is because
he hasn't edited it as we'll as he should
have done.