Wheeling Sunday register. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1882-1934, 1895-09-29
AT NINETEEN AND TWENTY
SEVEN.
BY Emma NJ. Wise.

Dy GAuAld VI. WISE.
Esther Lindsay was nineteen when
her first story was published It was
not the first one she had written by
any means. Ever since she had been
able to form the alphabetical charac-
tiers and join them legibly her fertile
brain had been weaving all sorts Of
possible and impossible romances,
many of which she had forwarded to
publishers in various parts of THE
country, believing with all the fervor
OF her youthful egotism that her crude
| sentiments still more rudely wrought
would inspire in some editors soul the
same faith in her greatness which she
| already possessed.
| But somehow her contributions al
ways fell short of the mark of excel
lence necessary to insure them a ia
yorable consideration, and manuscript
after manuscript was returned to her
and was securely locked away in the
old drawer Of her old-fashioned bu-
reau, which had been dedicated, with a
good many tears of disappointment, as
a repository for all rejected offerings
at the shrine Of literature. BY the time
| she was nineteen there were probably
| a hundred or more Of those hapless
! productions laid away, either to be ig
| ANONYMOUSLY forgotten or to be resur-
! rected and revised when her mind
should become sufficiently matured to
| sift out whatever meritOrious material
there might be in them and use it to
good advantage
She worked steadily for more than
three months on her STORY Of the
] Cfoov,,nfs ar,rlvialr - MI fa
finished rewriting it for the twenty
first time and the next day she sent it
to Jesse Arnold, editor of IrOnton In
! land Weekly, with a f1ye-line note
asking him to read it carefully, and
even II he could not use it to let her
know what he thought Of II.
OF all the editors in the land She
seemed to have chosen him as her
most favored target, why she could not
have told, for she had no personal ac-
uaintqance with him, and his letters
accompanying returned manuscript
had been even more curt and forbid
ding than than those Of his brother
publishers. But for all that each I'M
happily ending venture only added
fresh fuel to her zeal to secure q foot
hold among the ranks of the Inland
Weekly'c contributors and compel its
chief, by sheer force of her importu-
nifty, to acknowledge her developed or
potential ability.
Her STORY Of the Steamer Ken
drick was not a work of genius, but
there were phases OF the plot that were
strong and passages that were I'M
usually well conceived and executed,
and after reading it three times Jesse
Arnold, who was a conscientious edi-
tor decided to keep it. He accented it
with that feeling Of uncertainty with
which an insurance man Issues poll
icy on an extra hazardous risk, and
congratulated himself on his shrewd-
ness with equal delight when il turned
out to be preferred. The public
liked the story, and several critics who
condesceneded to review che Inland
Weekly praised it, Perhaps Editor
Arnold himself was more fully aware
Of the glarlng absudites in the piece
he had brought out than were any OF
it's readers, and each favorable com
ment that came to his notice only
made them all the more apparent AT
last he concluded TO write to his UNI
known literary proteee and warn her
against certain errors which might be
pardoned in a young authors first
story. but which, IL often repeated.
would be a serious drawback to her
advancement in her art. Before he
did so. however, she sent him another
hastily written story and letter
which was a strange tumble of graft
tude to him for bringing her before
the public, thankfulness that she had
been so we'll received, and unstinted
expressions of q steadfast belief that
she was fairly launched on a sea OF
success, where wrecks and disasters
were an impossibility. In conclusion
she limited that he ought to be eternal
ly grateful to her for allowing him to
print story which would. in all prob
ability shed lustre round his own rep
utatiOn as well as her own.
That evening he wrote the contem-
plated letter.
'You are in danger of being spoil
ed" he said In part. you need adj
vice, and feel that have the right to
address you in the capacity OF censor.
Remember you are in an up-tO-date
world, and the literature that viii live
will be the very essence, the embOdi-
ment Of that world. Visionary, IDEAL
istic sketches such as yours may make
very good reading, but they are not
the true stuff. You have unquestiOn-
ed ability, but if you wish to succeed
you must turn it to the portrayal Of
living men and women, not the mag
mary puppets that you have maniDu-
! fr, fnr
of the Steamer KendriCk" Take your
hero for instance. 1t may be quite
comforting for time to come in con-
tact, through the medium OF printers
ink and paper, with an Apollo. men
tai Hercules, a spiritual god and a
financial CrOesus, all combined in one
| American man, and q New Yorker at
that. but I doubt if any Of us would
! relish a closer acquaintance with him;
he would be apt to prove unpalatable.
Besides. he would be an eXcrescence
on the human race. and after your sec
ond or third story the public would
| have none of him. SO take warning
| Make your hero a real man-full Of i'm
perfections If need be-and let the
gods take care Of themselves"
Esther Lindsay read and reread the
editors letter. He had not intended
to make it unnecessarily pointed or
critical. but of all the characters she
had ever conjured up her last hero had
| been the object of her most sincere adj
miration. and the admonition to shun
him and his ilk touched her i'm the most
! vulnerable spot.
q want that man to understand mo,
dreamed over ehtno ctets shrdl eta0i
! dreamed over the contents of the letter