notes; and one of these four, at least, was one of those stories he now described himself as reading elsewhere 'with a great deal of pleasure and envy.' How could this editor (not his readers, associates, or assistants, but this man himself) read with pleasure and envy in 1912 the identical story which he had not thought worth printing in 1911? I could n't understand; nor has he ever told me. For when I wrote, in the scientific and researching spirit, to inquire, he withdrew in a dignified silence, designed, I fear, to show me up to myself as merely a bothersome crank, too full of petty rancors to let bygones be bygones.

But I did not mind the editor's stately rebuff particularly. I felt that I had now learned to thread my way for myself. Like the little boy who had prayed for help from above when he seemed to be lost in the woods, I felt that I could say, 'Nem' mind, Lord. I can see Aunt Jinny's house now.'

Let no one misunderstand this, or misconceive anything I have here written about my present good friends, the editors. I appreciate, and sympathize with, their many difficulties. I know, of course, that they do their best to be a good wall; and the stereotyped reasons they assign for the rejection of manuscripts do apply, I need hardly say, in the large majority of cases. All that we have been seeking to discover here was whether there was not still another reason, not sufficiently published and admitted by the editors, which yet applied in an important minority of cases. And irresistibly the conviction has been forced upon us that such a reason does, in fact exist, and that it does apply decisively and unfortunately.

Our conception of the editor has necessarily shifted as we have approached him closer. We see him at last as man, with man's incertitudes. We observe him vacillating, doing strange things.

We watch him pursuing with fifteen cents a word the writer he kicked down stairs last year, showering encomiums to-day on the little tale he did not want at any price yesterday. And winning his confidence at last by the chance of success, we find him actually admitting certain little foibles, not mentioned in his public remarks on the dearth of good fiction; perhaps only conceding that his assistants are not infallible; perhaps going so far as to say that if a writer is very good, very original, the editors are apt not to notice his merits.

So we seem no longer able to avoid the truth of that unwelcome charge of the Rejected, namely, that the editor sometimes lacks the reasonable faculty of discrimination. By the authoritative evidences we seem compelled to state positively that the editor makes mistakes, no one knows how often: bad mistakes, which deprive us, the Public, of the 'earlier and often the best work'- as the editor wrote me of writers whom we should be very glad indeed to read; which deprive the editor himself of the new feather in his cap, the coveted pearl in his crown of glory; and which rob the meritorious unknown, not merely of the means to pay their keep, but of that recognition which is surely not less dear to them.

IV

And what then? To criticize people for being human, like the rest of us, is a waste of time, unless we are ready to point some remedy for their inadvertencies. What can good editors do to minimize their costly errors of judgment?

Obviously a difficult and delicate question, which I for one would not venture to answer with authority. And yet, from the evidences, certain suggestions for improvement do gradually

1. That the publishers should secure as their editors and readers the most discriminating men securable.

2. That these editors, when they recognize merit, however disguised, however struggling or faulty, should forthwith cease to sit and mourn over the short-story famine, but actually proceed to encourage and foster the merit in question, according to the theory of the Ideal Editor.

3. That the editors shall at all times treat the unknown with scrupulous courtesy and fairness, never taking advantage of him just because, in that year, he happens to be unknown.

It might be worth while to amplify a little these three possible clauses of a new compact.

A magazine being, not an eleemosynary patron of the arts, but a business institution conducted for profit, its proper task, on the whole, is to supply what the public wants; and it is quite true that nobody on earth really knows what the public wants. But at least we can say that one trained man intuitively comes a little nearer to the priceless secret than another. One possesses a little more imagination than his brother, a little wider outlook and greater sensitiveness, a somewhat broader ability to enter into the tastes and feelings of people far other than himself. This trained man, having large and sound standards within himself, would make a more discriminating editor than his colleague. And if he would be a more expensive man, he would yet not be so expensive in the long run as his cheaper rival. In most businesses the importance of the buyer is fully recognized and rewarded; the buyers of manuscript are exceptions to an established principle in being, I believe, for the most part small-salaried men. It would seem that the magazine

that goods well bought are half sold, rather than seek to economize at the source and origin of all his profits.

This more sensitive buyer of manuscript, free of the limitations and prepossessions of his narrower brother, would undoubtedly see merit sometimes where another would see nothing but an 'unhappy ending,' or 3000 words too long. And this merit-whether mathematically four-square with his so-called policy or not - would please him instinctively, and he would jump at the opportunity of encouraging and developing it. There is a contrary theory, I know well. Mr. Howells himself has told us that the editor, finding himself charmed by some unknown contributor, may hide his pleasure in a short stiff note of acceptance'; he speaks approvingly of the wholesome effects of a smart brisk snub'; while on the other hand certifying that 'the contributor may be sure that he [the editor] has missed no merit in his work.' If the contributor could indeed be sure of this, then doubtless the rest might follow. But unluckily there does not seem to be any such assurance.

From my own experience, and with due allowance made for the self-complacence usual to writers of the second and third grades, I feel sure that what the unknown of merit chiefly needs is direct editorial encouragement. He will get, doubtless has got, smart brisk snubs a-plenty; and an encouraging letter from the discerning editor will not only help to show him that the sanctum's choice among fictions is not altogether the sealed mystery it had sometimes seemed, but will directly aid him, by pointing out his errors, to do better, come nearer 'availability,' next time. And the editor, for his part, will be building up friendly personal relations with a growing circle of meritorious unknowns, a

few of whom will be pretty sure some day to reward him well for all his trouble.

When the editor is discriminating, when he is systematically encouraging to merit of all sorts, he might — thirdly be on his guard not to take too much advantage of the immense superiority of his position. This, unfortunately, does not follow axiomatically. Through strategic strength and association, the editors, as is well known, have evolved a code of procedure, binding as law and altogether in their own interests: a code under which, for instance, they take an unlimited free option on the young writer's capital, his manuscript, holding it up one month or ten, if they prefer, and paying him, in case of acceptance, after as long an interval as they like. These extremes, of course, have always been avoided by a few magazines of the better class; with the intensifying competition among publishers, to say nothing of such influences as the recently organized league or union of authors, they tend naturally to disappear. But unhappily there are other and subtler instances of an editor's willingness to take advantage: instances of downright bad treatment, I fear, bad faith even, understandings made and not keptthings the more galling to the unknown in that they so clearly betray the indifference of strength to the complaints of the weak and despised.

I have particularly not wanted to seem to be rolling up here a mere list of grievances against the editors, men who, I repeat, are usually doing the best they can under considerably perplexing circumstances. Citations are unnecessary; doubtless men's opinions will always differ as to what is just and equitable and what is not. I will merely risk the statement that if the now successful writers of the country chose to make public to-day some of the

experiences and correspondences of their undiscovered days, some of them might give well-known editors some considerably embarrassing moments. And that surely is a pity; it is a pity for any man, in any business, to leave behind him a wake of bitterness or ill-feeling. And it is so absurdly easy for an editor to make a friend of an unknown writer; and they do say that sometimes the unknown of one year is next year very well known indeed.

There is one thing more. In the struggle of the unrecognized writer to get a hearing, it has seemed to me that the great weakness of his position is that the editor has always found it so easy to bury his mistakes. The successful writer, that is, too readily disconnects himself from his unsuccess. The editor, forgetting how he kicked Robinson about last year, approaches the new-famous one with an air of hearty geniality and an offer of $500 for the story he could have had at one tenth the price last year, and thank you very much besides. And Robinson gives a few flattered laughs and pockets the check. It is, of course, the human and pleasant thing for him to do; but undoubtedly it makes things harder for the brothers he has left on the other side of the wall. What is there here to make an editor search his heart?

Suppose, instead, that Robinson felt strongly his own uninterrupted continuity; that he retained his 'classconsciousness,' so to say, as a writer; and that he therefore addressed his distinguished visitors somewhat as follows:

'Gentlemen, you come to me at last, impelled - may I say? - by the thought that you can make money out of me, and asking to share in a success which I should never have made if I had had to depend on you. I greet you and thank you for your few kind words. As a man, I must live, as a writer I

must write, and as a successful writer I must indeed have an outlet for my wares. But if you will excuse me, gentlemen, it is not my purpose to be bought and sold about like a sack of old potatoes. In short, such of my old stories as I still consider up to my best standard I shall now offer to the Favorite Magazine, which took an interest in me, was fair and friendly and kind to me, at a time when you made a different decision as to my general desirability as an acquaintance. Now, gentlemen - really, excuse me! There is no use telling me to let bygones be bygones, for, you see, nothing at all has really gone by. We're all the same men we were last year, and I am very much the same writer.'

I venture to say that the editors, after listening to such remarks as these, would return introspective to their sanctums, thinking Robinson indeed a queer grudging crank, yet unconsciously resolved to scrutinize all unknown manuscripts with a wider sympathy forever thenceforward.

Does that seem a fanciful hope? I have evidence that it is not.

From the record of the past as it occasionally comes to light here and there, I cannot doubt that there are today a considerable number of unknown young men and young women writing stories which you and I would be glad to read, who yet cannot succeed in getting these stories under our eye. Not by lack of merit, but only by somebody's misunderstanding of the secret

passwords, they cannot get over the wall. I have felt, and I feel, my kinship with these unknown young men and women. I remember that the manuscript of Queed, which was destined to change my personal fortune as a writer, was rejected by the first two publishers to whom it was offered; and I must realize that if two more publishers, or four or six more, had similarly refused me, I might to this moment have remained on the unhappy side of the wall. Hence I have felt it a matter of duty to contribute my experiences to my unknown brothers, believing as I do that with light alone comes better understanding.

The conflict between editors and undiscovered writers is age-long and irretrievable, like that of cattlemen and sheepmen. I have no hope of seeing a millennium in which editors shall speak fulsomely of the daily offerings of manuscript, and the Rejected praise with one voice the editor's justice, mercy, and acumen. Much smaller gains would be acceptable here; but these we have a right to hope for. One of those editors whom I mentioned above told me long afterward that my letters to him-commonplace enough letters, as we have seen, pointed only in stating plainly what every writer thinks or has thought—had furnished him with the jolt of his career. He said that he had always been a better reader of manuscript because of them. And I felt that this statement from that solitary man had justified all my researches, and rewarded me for all my pains.

THE Protestant whose eyes have been opened to the significance of the Catholic faith finds that he has gained not so much a revelation of new truth as a new point of view from which to survey the whole of life. His surprise is insidious, and frequently quite paradoxical. In the first place, he is astonished at the familiarity of the substance of what his Puritan training had taught him to regard as being flagrantly alien. In the second place, acting on the unexpected recognition of long accepted truths and proceeding joyously to make himself at home among them, he is brought up short by a counter current of inexplicable strangeness. It is all very bewildering to him. A double back action of wonder completes the spell of humility which the whole experience has laid upon him; and he stands off and holds his breath, afraid of blundering.

Well may he hesitate. It almost seems that there is a greater difference between two points of view of the same thing than between two different things. The Protestant and Catholic tempers are worlds apart; and the Protestant, bringing his native disposition to bear on Catholic matters, runs a risk of creating deplorable havoc and confusion. Much as they desire him, the Catholics must tremble a little when they see the Protestant coming. Get out the chains and the handcuffs of love, prepare the straight jacket, open the cell. The first thing to do with this zealous friend is to lock him up.

Part of the trouble seems to lie in the

fact that we Protestants do not always realize the nature of our own temperaments until we are startled into selfrecognition. The even tenor of our denominational life leaves us largely unchallenged. We think that we are, of all people, the most reasonable; but the truth is that we are very impatient and undisciplined. As a class, we have never been able to stand the not giving free voice and action to our beliefs the minute they were born in us. That is why we became Protestants in the first place; the assertion is in our name and in our blood. Moreover, in spite of our frequent boast to the contrary, we are generally tolerant only in such degree as we are likewise indifferent; and those of us who are deeply in earnest are as eager as human nature would have us to share our convictions with all the world.

Luther was not very tolerant, or Calvin, or John Huss. Therefore it happens that, just as we would once have had everybody protest with us, so now, in these latter days, when we surprise ourselves by rediscovering the beauty of Catholicism, our rapid instinct is to run and show it to all the people we know, crying, 'Look! look! It is not paste and tinsel, it is the real thing; it is the same thing we cherish, only richer and brighter because of the work of the countless generations, because of the noble old setting. Look, and love and worship.'

Whereupon, of course, our astonished friends turn away with as much distrust of us as of our incredible discov