The Birmingham age-herald., 1907-07-11
STRUGGLES OF AUTHORS

From the Chicago Chronicle.
 ne rejected manuscript Is often the foundation of writers fame, when the author perseveres in the face of discour- agement until he finds an editor to ac- cept his contribution.
 Dickens never had a manuscript re- turned, and the same good fortune s claimed for Bret Harte, but Anthony Trollope has frankly confessed the dis appointments which confronted him at the outset of his career. Some magazine editors rejected his manuscripts; others accepted and published, but did not pay for them; and some publishers remuner- ated him with pittance. 50 that his gross income from literary occupations in one year was little more than s60 and in another year a trifie over s10O.
 Robert Barr, the popular novelist, tried every paper in Canada with his first ar ticle before he submitted 1t to the De- troit Free Press. He spent an entire year In quest of an acceptance in his own country. His first book. Tn a Steamer Chair" was offered to every publisher in New York and declined. Then 1t was tdhCu lo l1OiNoi utScptSu Dy tiio first firm to which 1t was submitted. Four New York houses then entered into competition for the American rights of the volume.
 'Marse Chan" Thomas Nelson Pages s delightful story, rested several years in the safe at the Century office before it was published.
 Edward Moves Westcott offered "Da- vid Harum' to half a dozen publishers before his last days were frightened by the pathetic thought of posthumus pub lication for his book
 Rejection and delay are not confined to the young literary aspirants. Veterans of distinction like Henry James and Will liam Dean Howells have been obliged to experience that humiliation in these days wAen the quasi-hstorical novel of action and brute force has almost driven the novel of subtle art and literary realism from the markets.
 Carlyle encountered numerous difficult ties be fore obtaining hearing. In trying to escape from his drudgery as a tutor ana translator he sent an article to the Edinburgh Review and it was never ac- knOWlcuBeu or HOtlceu. II was only when Jeffrey discovered his own relationship to Cailyles young wife and became at- tacheJ to her that he accepted her hus- band articles. but even then they were slashed and altered and mended to suit the editors head.
 s 10 publisher of books would accept "Sartor Resartus'' and when the author finally succeeded in getting 1t printed in Frazer's Magazine the work was paid for at less than the regular rate per editor was convinced he had made a bad bargain, because the life and opin- ions O. Herr Teufeisdroch excited the most unqualified disapprobation." Follow ing that experience Carlyle, notwith- standing his growing reputation became as familiar with editorial messages of declined with thanks" as he had been in the beginning of his career.
 Thackaray. too, had his period of strug- gles and humiliation. His manuscripts were sent back to him frequently. and when he wrote an article for the Edin- burgh Review in the style of the Vel lowplush Papers the editor revised 1t with a thoroughness which made the author vince.
 Thiomas Hoods experience with the Song of the Shirt should be remem- bered. A poem that by its pathos stirred the whole English-spealdng world was declined with thanks" again and again.