The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1833-1916, 1906-11-16
LITERATURE AND GOLD BRICKS
Confessions and Criticisms by an Ex.
nerteneed AuthOr.

/ 10 THE EDITOR OF lHE 6ON-fotFs inc
discussion that has been going on In your
columns regarding maya nine editors and their
methods has been OF great interest to me. and
] should think interesting to the general
public: valuable, too. since 1t has thrown
much light on a subject OF deep and real am
portance-namely. how literature is produced
to-day or. perhaps. how literature Is not
produced to-day, Such q discussion OF
literature was bound 20 centre around the
MAGAZINES. This Is the age OF magazine
literature. Even the books tf fiction and
| poetry, at leastD which do not frst appear
in the magazines seem as N they had been
written for the magazines. As one with
experience OF the way Of them that sit In the
seats OF the mighty in this modern realm or
literature. I desire to add a brief sketch Of
my adventures. It. may he possible that I
shall be of some service TO some young man
or young woman struggling along at points
on the road which | have passed.
I suppose that a writer like e" the Son
of Apollo" whose letter was p~Tintedsby You
this morning. may justly be taken as a rep
resentative OF one extreme Of literary work.
ers-the men Of a single ideal, OF impracticable
aims. Of Inc business habits. yet very
possibly Of real literary merit. A writer like.
well. say, R.W. Chambers or Winston Church.
i'll, or any 9th er Of perhaps a score OF sue
cessful writer's. may be taken as a represent
tativO Of the other extreme OF literary work
ers-the Woodworking. acute. orderly man.
who writes ss an entertainer. OF even at times
as an instructor: but who never writes purely
and simply as an artist. e" lives la the
Mills Hotel. Mr.. Chambers. Mr.. Churchill.
lives in a country house. with apartments In
town, and runs for Governorships. DC, Be-
tween those extremes there Ia a wide variety
Of types. a whole world OF character. The
Grub street Of New York alone would yield
material for a good book: and ! have found
TT n --.. 49,
lived in various Grub streets for more tina
ten years. or late ! have moved TO a fiat
iu Magazine RoW-oT Arcade, shall We say?
(Some word suggesting veneer should DO
used.l Not a luxurious one. there is no river
view. or park view. nor elevator service;
but at least there is steam heat. comforting to
bones in which still fingers the chill of winters
in which only Inalodorous oil or gas stoves
stoodgo or the hou fireside. In less than
three months I hs We earned nearly 81 600 by
my PENNY typewriter. rather. for no per
can go quickly enou gh-an amount much
greater than I have earned 10 any previous
twelve months. This ] have done by really
studying the needs and wants OF the ma ga
zines, and then giving them what they wanted
NOT what I wanted TO write.
The steps by which / reached this position
and this measure OF material success ] wish
10 tell you In order that ] may he Of some
service TO other yo0nR writers. ! have had
practically no schooling. az 7 was turned
adrift on the world when I was twelve years
old or SO. and circumstances had kept me
from regular atenda noe at public school as
Il young boy. I had TO 90 TO work. and for
the next ten wears was GRAND boy. clerk and
packer in y department store, &c. Mean
while, 7 read much, thou ght q little, and
dreamed a great deal of writing stories and
plays. As was natural. ! read much ma ga
zine matter, and began my writing career
by Offering my stories TO the rms ga zines;
but 1t happened that AZ the time when literary
ambitions began to stir me powerfully I
was living in Cana a, and the magazines that
cha nee las represented in the person of the
public hbrarian) put In my way were such
journals IN the NoD Rcrieu. then edited by
William Ernest Henley. which was introducing
such writer's as kipling, Joseph Conrad,
Mas Beerbohm. Charles whitley. the Celtic
poets like W. Il. Yeats, Norsh Hopper. SC. to
the public: and the Saturday Rerie1 and other
English periodicals. The Harmsworth and
the Newnes periodicals we're not then so
numerous. or 50 all pervading. And thus
il CHANGED that my mas ga zine reading really
supplemented my book reading. for. left to
my own likes and dislikes certainly a free
man then. intellectually. ii ever there was
onel. l browsed among the shelves in the
library whore reposed the books of Lamb.
Sir Thomas Browne, Jeremy Taylor, De
Quincy, Milton especial lily his prosel, Scott.
Dickens. Thackaray, Shakespeare and the
other Elizabethans. many of the Restoration
dramatists. and many poets. In American
literature ] had Poe. Whitman. Hawthorne
and Herman Melville. Passing from the works
Of the dead to the works OF the contemporary
men. ! read Swinburne. Pater. Stevenson.
Meredith, Hardy, James, George Moore Inc
Howels. There was then no conscious
avoidance of the new novelists-it Just hap
psned so: and when ] came to the United
States | knew no American writer's except
Ilowells. James and Mark Twain.
got a job in the basemen OF a department
store Tiny devotion TO literary reading had
precluded any attention being paid TO a bust
ness education. and so | was not equipped
at all to succeed in business), and began to
send out my stories to the ma gaines and
began to read them. Well, l con tiRued to
send out manuscripts. but I soon quit read
ing The magazines. l could not read them.
except to the extent of q story or an article
now and then. The American books we're
worse. The only decent reading l could find
was In the newspapers. In the newspapers
/ found here and there work with literary
style, with life and ideas, with something real
TO IL.
| did not succeed in the magazine field.
then: but | do not make some OF the COM
plants voiced by others of your oorrespon-
dents in the course of this discussions
that the magazine editors pay no attention
TO the work of unknown men. for instance.
On the contrary. my experience proves that
the magazine editors are consistently and
constantly anxious to discover new talent.
only the talent must be what they want:
profit making talent. talent that can pro-
duce matter that will be widely popular
and increase circulat ion. so that advertising
shall BIZ attracted. The criterion is purely
comnercial-frankly 40: but no, not quite
frankly. for there are hypocrites who babble
of their desire to find literary talent. Maya
zine editors wrote 10 me from all directions.
nearly always rejecting the story. usually
on the ground that II was not pleasant. " or
had an unhappy ending or was gloomy"
and the like. One editor said: please stick
to the realities of life" l talked with his
man. My story. ! believed. struck @ chord
OF real life. or at any rate wns an honest
attempt To do so, end p wondered what ne
meant by the realities Well, he found it.
hard TO explain: but by the examples of work
he mentioned | gathered that in his mind the
realities were the affairs of the body-ex-
terror happenings, bodily adventures always
decorous. however; matters that a clergy
man could view. or young ladies watch);
fights and wrecks and plots and counters
plots. / make IT, a rule not to discuss these