St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1893-11-13
sMorHERING OF GENIUS.

SMOI II EhlNG OF GENIUS.
The lustiest seed that was ever i'm
planted in the bosom of mother earth
will never bear fruit if its sprout cannot
pierce the crust of earth above it and
get to the air and the sunlight. If you
break the crust you will see that the
sprouting seed has sent its plumuIe
twisting about in search of some weaker
spot through which it may break its
way to liberty and the fulfiIlment of its
mission. Falling this, its energies be-
came exhausted, and it died.
Every young soul into which is born
the inspiration to write out its thought
in song or prose. finds between it and
the sunlight of publicity and the
warmth and nutrition of recompense a
crust which seems to be ever thickening
and hardening. Between him ana the
public he would charm or amuse or In
struct. closing the avenues, sits the man
who measures genius with yardstick,
or weighs it in the coarse balance of
avoirdupois and tags it with dollar
mark. II he has feelings of kindly
sympathy and impulse to lend helping
hand to the budding genius. he can not
let them endanger the balances of his
ledger. He must make profit of his
wares or an assignment. He must study
the appetites of those who buy before
ne can take the productions of those
who would sell. Heaven-born and
heaven-piercing genius must wait its
first flight on the commercial instincts
or Judgment of the man who merely
prints and sells.
After the man who sells has over
come the natural timidity of his trade
and has given the reading world taste
of the fruit which young genius brings
it, and finds that it has pronounced it
so good that it Graves more, then the
crust is broken. and tbelupward growth
of the aspiring plant finds nutrition and
cultivation an d ample opportunity for
expansion. But these vents in the crust
are few and the budding plants are
many, and an unknown many Of. these
must become atrOphied from mere want
of opportunity for growth and expan-
sion.
Books, magazines and newspapers are
the orifices in the crust through which
the writer finds access to his public. If
wealthy, he may command the first at
his pleasure; but If not-and, with but
few exceptions, he is noJ-then he must
placate the Cerberus who sits at the
gate and convince him that the public
behind the gates is hungry for the food
he brings. This he finds a grueSome
task. Cerberus has ideas of his own as
to what his public wants. He may have
tried it with one or another food, and
does not Care to educate it to a taste
for another, finding sufficing profit in
things as they are. He may recall eX-
periments which have failed and
brought increase only to the wrong side
of the profit and loss account.
This necessity of the man who prints
to provide what the public will buy has
led to almost a monopoly of the maya
zine field, at least, by writer's who have
pleased the public. and no opening is
left for that perpetually sprouting and
growing number of young and unknown
writers who must have their chance to
| offer their wares to the public if they
| are ever to win name and fame. Loud
| are their complaints against the denial
of opportunity; bitter their protests
against the exclusive occupation of the
field by those who, like themselves,
must once have sought, but, unlike
them, found the gateway to publicity.
Among those who have espoused the
| cause Of the unknown and reproached
| the editors of the magazines for their
Partially for the known is the Pioneer
| Press, which recently and ably pre-
| sented the case of the f1edglings in
| literature. But the editor of the North
west Magazine, whose hospitable pages
| are always open TO the writer's, fledged
or Hedging, of the Northwest, reminds
the Pioneer Press that there is beam
in its own eye which it should remove
before it point to the mote In its
brothers.. He takes a Sunday issue of
| that paper. and shows that all the liter
airy articles in 1t are furnished by the
| Eastern syndicate which makes good
round profit by buying the productions
of writers whose regulations guarantee
sale and supplying the papers III the
| syndicate with them, thus closing gate
to the young and ambitious writers as
4 SuOSluoAly NAOOo 0hO SolbO1 VI sll0
magazine with his methods.
| The editor of the Northwest goes
| farther, and shows how the ready print,
the ''patent inside" has narrowed that
| fertile field, that veritable seed bed, for
| the embryotic writers of thirty or forty
years ago, the country village paper.
The half of the paper printed at home
is so taken up with advertisements,
local news and editorials that. with the
kindest of disposition, no room is left
for the story which the shy young
author has covertly sent and whose
publication he awaits, torn by hope and
fear, behind the hedge of his anonym-
ity. Here again business throttles
| genius in the bud. The margin between
income and outgo with the country
editor is generally so scant-outgo tread
| ing closely on the heels of income, and
too often passing it that he must
utilize the economies furnished by the
| ready print. Profit stiles the prophet.
|