Evening star., 1905-10-08

their writing Some plan to make their
travel letters, like Taylor's, stepping stones
to a literary career. Many of them are Wo-
men, some rich, some poor. and, of course,
the number Of those, both men and women.
who want to just write plain travel articles,
without doing any tramping. and are con-
tent to travel by steam, like the rest OF us,
Is very large Ttl.sesS -s, =, -y- -
fixed as regards this worlds goods that
they offer to pay to get the letters printed
These my editor divides into two classes,
plain idiots and grafters, the latter being
writers who have an advertising string to
their writing, who mean to give gratuitous
mention to this or that person. project or
commercial produet, and. depend, for, their
pay upon the person or thing advertised
They get thesshortest shrift of all, so far as
this editor Is concerned He sends them in
variably to the business manager of his pa
per. knowing full we'll that he will charge
full advertising rates for anything offered
under such conditions, and that the matter,
when printed, will be so marked that the
reader will know 1t for advertising as you
may have noticed. though there are papers
whose editors and managers sometimes for
get the marking.
All told, this editor gets travel letters of
every sort except those that fit to print,
by the ton, he says, and Of truth he
does not speak with much hyperbole when
he says II. The trouble with the travel let
ter writer's is that they write much more
commonplace stuff about foreign lands than
they would think of writing about their
own. Thus, one Of them, in a letter I saw
the other day about the Coliseum at Rome,
devoted lot of space to its dimensions.
Now, these figures may be found in the
schoolbooks. just as may the figures show
Ing the size OF the Capitol at Washington.
A good letter might be written about
either of these buildings letter that any
general editor would be glad to buy and
print, but 1t would have to have something
new In 1t to be of value.
+ II
There is nothing which the average editor
welcomes more heartily than copy that Is
really humorous. He may not need much
of It, especially when other things that
must be printed are crowding his pages but
he must have some of it-even IL he has
to steal 1t. Many editors, as you may have
noticed. do this occasionally.
The editor / have mentioned says that
the whole world must know how useful
true humor is and, what Is worse to be
prepared to furnish the article. At all
the load. 1t comes In bales and rolls and
boxes. Most of 1t is from utterly un-
trained pens, and, like the larger. part of
the contents of the humorous columns in
the newspapers, the bulk of ii Is stolen and
generally with extremely poor Judgment
On the whole, he says. 1t is about the most
sorrowful sort of realing matter ever put
before the eyes of the suffering manuscript
buyer.
If the alleged humorous matter that is
rejected Is much worse than some that is
printed. this EDITORS view of Its merits is
probably correct and in this my readers
are pretty sure to agree with me. After
the letters of travel fiends and the would-be
humorous writer's come those desirous of
writing fiction and general articles They
all run along parallel lines, my editor says:
not one Of them has new idea in a year
and not one in a hundred would be able to
dress new idea up In nervous, interesting
English IL he were fortunate enough to
corral one. Most Of those who essay fic-
tion choose the oldest, most hackneyed plots
and tell them in the dullest, most hack
neyed manner
Ninety-nine in a hundred of them pro-
claim, when personally visiting the editor
that the work offered is modelled on Kip
iings or Mrs Humphrey Wards, or An,
thcny Hopes. or whoever happens to be
uppermost in the book sales just then, ana
also that the imitation is, at least just as
good. If not better. than the work OF the
model. 1t rarely seems to enter their
leads that the cny way to write accept
aolc fiction is to study human nature hui
man passion. hume actions. first hand be-
fore writing story.
The unframed writer who would write