The Average Man's Verdict

— It may be rather late in the day to open once more the vexed question of the infallibility of editors’ judgments, but I do so with serene confidence, because I am the one person who ought to be heard from. I am, in fact, the court of appeals who sits in banc to sustain or reverse the editors’ rulings. Do not confound me with the “ regular subscriber,” who has all the volumes of the magazine bound and ranged on his shelves, nor with the “ omnivorous reader,” who buys all the magazines and throws them away, little the worse, as he is none the better, for the reading. Those people are of little consequence. I am the average man, and editors know that my tastes must be consulted. Literature is written for me, not for the specialists nor for the illuminated.

Many years ago, when I was abroad, I found that an intelligent official had filled in the blanks in my passport with the one descriptive adjective ordinaire, which stood at the top of a long column of dittos. Thus, I was declared to be of “ taille ordinaire, bouche ordinaire, nez ordinaire, menton ordinaire, yeux ordinaire, cheveux ordinaire,” and so on, through a minute catalogue of my physical parts and qualities. I was young then, and, with my average knowledge of French, was deeply hurt to find that, to the official eye, there was nothing to distinguish me from my fellowmortals ; but I have since reflected that this very fact proves me to be “ myself alone,” and that my position as a typical man was a proud one, and now I glory in it. I am of average intelligence, average culture, average income, average prejudices. I hit the juste milieu. What prompts me to buy a magazine ? I approach the question the more readily because, as the Congregationalist ministers say nowadays, when they approach the discussion of the use of a ritual, “ my position on this point is, on the whole, a meliorating one.”I buy on impulse.

No doubt the craving for good literature influences me in the long run, and no doubt I am influenced by persistent advertising in a particular purchase ; but neither of these motives counts for much in swaying my average mind. I open the magazine on the counter of some book-store, or as it alights in my lap with a whirl from the deft hand of the train-boy. I take it up because I have some pleasant associations with the color of the cover, or with the name. If in the list of writers I see some name which awakens in me reminiscences of a pleasant quarter of an hour, I give my money. ’T is a little matter decides me.

Do not say that I buy for the sake of amusement, and must be guaranteed beforehand. I enjoy the flavor of delicate viands, but I am shy of new cooks. Nor can anybody predict that a new dish will please me.

Therefore, angry writer, blame no longer the patient editor who rejects your story, which you are sure I would like and buy. I am inscrutable. One can judge of extremes, but not of the average man. Consider well that if any one could predict my likings, such an one would not long remain an editor, nor even a publisher. He who could read a novel in manuscript and say, “ The average man will buy this. Print thirty thousand; ” he who could accurately cast the horoscope of a book, would be possessed of the “ potentiality of wealth beyond the dreams of avarice.” He would be daily more valuable than all writers, for he could forecast the literary future. Such a man is not possible, for he would be able to predict my action, which is more than I can do myself. Perhaps his coining would disturb the intellectual economy of the world. He will not come.

The other day you told me wrathfully that an editor told you that he would readily give Browning five dollars a line for a copy of verses which he would not print if he were forced to withhold the poet’s name at the bottom, and were certain that the secret of the authorship would not leak out. Blame the editor no longer as “ purblind, and sordid, and commercial,” but recognize that he frankly admits his human fallibility, and say, “ Brother, I too am fallible; ” for I myself, the arbiter of literary reputation, I the average man, say boldly that I should not read the verses unless the name were appended.