The Birmingham age-herald. [volume] (Birmingham, Ala.) 1902-1950, 1924-03-22
Cutters and Inners

1 remember what the editor OF n magazine
once said to me when he declined one OF my
stories.
wThe trouble with your stuff ID" he said.
''that it is out of the way III you wish tn
know what we want, read our masazine- We
know the public wants that kind of mnrtsr
because the public buys it Matter OF a dr.
ferent kind we don't know whether people
want or not, and We can't afford TO make
experiments. Your story is good. but being
of an entirely different nature from our
usual stories, we cannot use II"
That remark awakened me to the fact THAT
everything is conventional, even the market
of the unusual. s
After a very amusing theatrical perform
ance / met, once upon a time. the acter who
had played the part of q clergyman
do you" 1 asked. honestly believe
preachers are like that?"
.'why, no." he answered: @'but have tn
represent a parson according to the conven-
tionSl standards or the people would mt nm
derstand; and they wouldn't care for u.
either. You've got to give the people whnt
they expect. Even if you surprise them Won
must surprise them in the way in which they
expect to be surprised"
Which contains food worth Illuminating.
All around you is a world of men who are
clothed in ideas, preiudices and opinions Hs
uniform as their coats and trousers.
If your mental investiture differs strongly
from the general yeu viii be regarded at
first as a curiosity, then as menace, finally
as a mailman,
If you profess to have no opinion or preiu.
dices at all you will be treated as one guilty
of improper exposure.
So in most matters it pays to conform.
But not wholly. Just snoueheto keep tina
peace and give you chance to make YOUR
originality of some service.
Agree with the public in nine-tenths fpr
the sake of getting it to take your individual
one-tenth, which, of course. is the only part
which is worth anything.
L am fond of come-outers and radicals Ind
all the uncompromising reformers, but I
rather think that those who are actually
doing as much to change the stubborn world
are they who are running with 1T as much Rs
they can. and giving it sly shove IN the
right direction once in a while.
There is something 70 be said for the mini
lister with advanced ideas who sticks 20 the
pulpit of his conservative church and gently
incnlcates his people with his deeper truth.
and for the school teacher who, although
he is thoroughly convinced of the wrongnsss
of eour educational system, yet continues at
his desk hoping gradually to impart some of
his leaven to the settled mass.
1t seems TO be rather a matter of tempera-
ment than of conscience or of efficinncv
Wendell Phillips and Garrison were all fur
extreme measures. Lincoln was more of q
politician, but we are hardly justified IN say
ing that the first two mentioned were more
useful or more honest than the last
1t is our duty to be independent and ~
live our lives IN our own way, to express an
utterly possible our personalities: still rs
Hammerton says, man hardly wants carved
upon his tombstone the sentiment
( Here lies q hero who refused to weHr hin
hat in the street and who insisted upon wsar-
ing his hat at the opera"