New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1888-11-30
HRITER'S CRIMP.

The professional writer Of verse and short
stories for the magazines is, at this season of the
year, entitled to more sympathy than he gets
from the general public. Indeed, he is entitled
to a larger share than he receives at any season.
He is a victim of circumstances over which he has
no control The tn ughtlcss may say that he
ought TO be having a pretty good time now, his
Thanksgiving and Christmas and New Years
poetry and stories having been all published, and
he should be enjoying the holiday season with
the money which he presumably received for
them But such is not the case; for the next
two months at least he must sit with his feet in
a pail of boiling water and write warm June love
stories, patriotic Fourth of July poetry and verses
addressed ITO August While others Of us
put on our scal-sxin coats and dash up the avenue
in our private slcighs, the poor magaznist who
wants to get his goods into the market while they
are timely must hang calendar over his desk
for july put a hot brick in each pocket and write
an outdoor summer-resort love-story.
This necessity of constantly keeping some six
months ahead OF the is steadily sapping
the strength OF a large number OF magazine
writer's, both men and women These delightful
holiday stories which are now giving us so much
pleasure, some by being read, others by being
carefully avoided, were not written amid the
fast-falling snow-6alIes,' nor within hearing OF
the merrily ringing sleigh-bells,' nor by the
cheerfully- blazing hearth-fire' which they so
love to tell of; but they were ground out last
June and July, when the top of the thermometer
was occupied largely by the mercury. The poet
who wrote the Christmas ode which gads your
eye to-day spent two hours last August trying to
think of a new rhyme for December" and sat
I'D all one hot night trying to work out rhyme
for month" and then gave it up about sunrise
. trio all tn
hitch up with reason
Nor can Imagination, even for the poet, do
everything Many of them resort to artificial
aids The spectacle of one OF our fanciiul, fine
grained Ariel-hlSe poets, sitting in an ice-house
in the middle of July while small boy shakes
a string of sleigh-bels under the window as the
bard pens q lofty New Year song is far from
celebrating
The matter begins to assume a still more serious
aspect when learn that this continual ignoring
of the present state of the weather has at last
unbalanced the mind Of at least one writer of
popular and timely magazine literature 1t is
said that this gentleman who resides in
Boston, insisted during all last summer on
wearing "a fur coat and heavy gloves, while
this winter he is straying around on the bleak
England hills, wearing light check suit,
enjoying his summer vacation. Much struggling
to keep the magazine market in hand hath made
him mad. This is u sad warning. May not they
all some day come In earnest To seeking roses
in December,-icc in June?7 Would it not be
n good sew Year resolve fer the public TO make 70
decide for the next five years, say, 10 take its
stories and poems they come and give the
tortured writer's chance to recover ?-that is
let them write their Christmas and snow-storm
stories and Jack Frost and ST. Valentine verses
when the weather and season prompts them, and