The Indiana State sentinel. [volume] (Indianapolis) 1868-1895, 1879-01-22
LIVING BY LITERATURE.
The Hardest and Worst Paid Work
There Is.

Rose Terry Cooke in Sunday afternoon for
January.
Then there is another trouble in literary
work; it is very poorly paid. | do not
mean that the money is not paid in proper
ton to the work. for | think it is, especially
to popular writer, but the trouble is the
long waiting for that which you have earned,
and the uncertainty OF a payment depends
upon the time OF printing the manuscript.
There are but two firms in this country who
habitually pay on acceptance; elsewhere the
writer must wait any uncertain length of
time for an uncertain result. | have myself
been put off TWO years and 4 half in one in
stance; frequently year. This makes
writing precarious mode OF getting living
indeed; ii involves authors in necessary
debt and life is steady grind when we
dread to meet our fellow creatures. | have
sinking heart to see them pass the house
because we owe them for the very neces-
saries of life, and can not pay our bills till il
pleases this magazine or that paper to print
the article which means to Us, shoes, or pota-
toes or flour. To be ct liberty to do the
best work au author should have some reg
ular income beside that which he earns;
but how few havei
1t follows, OF course, that tho=e publishers
who pay for manuscript have the choice of
the best, and next to them come those
weekly papers which pay for contributions.
OF these last know of only one which is
paid for the week alter printing. ths rest
delay, and Gnger, and possibly have to be
dunned-a most distasteful necessity 10 a
lady-Sefore they pay such debts. One
paper, edited by two clergymen, 1 have
ceased to write for, because could not afford
to wait so long after an article was printed
as l was Obliged to wait in every instance
for my money. To have regular salary
such as 9 teacher, or a seamstIess or . hous e.
keeper, or a servant receives, would be de-
lightiui compared with this constant work
and canstant debt; for though checks delay,
hunger and cold and the thousands needs
of daily life will not; and living on nothing
while you wait for publication is poor ex-
pertinent.
Then, again, you need health and strength
to write, for it is hard work Nothing ex-
hausts SO utterly as a day of writing; and
how is ii weeks and months? You feel that
a clergyman earns a large salary who writes
two sermons of ) 800 words each and every
week; and l generally write about 5000,
and have written as many as IL, 600 words in
/ five days, and attended to my house and the
needs of an invalid besides; yet have never
i made thousand dollars in year.
I when you write" said my physician to
me, 'you draw from the very source of your
/ vitality, not from Its distributed energies;
10 wonder you are exhausted" and / have
4 felt the truth OF his words in the aching
head and cramped fingers and weary irrita
4 bility that will follow mental eXertion, even
in such good health as l happily possess
| Mo- there is no royal road to literary work
any more than to washing and ironing; 1t is
poor pay for the exhsusting labor, and it Is
! work never done, and very hard work al
that; all the harder because of its slow and
uncertain reward.