The Manuscript-Reader

NOT long ago I read in the Club the confessions of one (to whom I am close of kin) who wrote of the trials and thankless efforts of the proof-reader. I said,

“ Why should not I, availing myself of the same blessed privilege, tell antiphonally of the lot. of a manuscript-reader for a Best Magazine ? ” Anonymity is a shelter, nay a necessity in my case, for I know that I am of all men least beloved ; the poet of passion and pain, the teller of fables, the discoverer of new solar theories, the peddler of threadbare humor — to my obtuseness and inexorability are all their ill fortunes laid. I do not complain; I have seen the troubles of an editor and rejoiced that I was unknown and undiscoverable. But it interests me to consider the contrary roles I fill — the role I play in my own eyes, and the role I play to an unappreciative gallery.

Among my friends I am considered an innocuous and mild-mannered person, intelligent, I believe, and kind-hearted. The ideal I entertain for my professional self does not greatly differ, save that it includes an almost pathetic eagerness to see good in everything. Through page after page of ineffective and futile manuscript 1 have patiently taken my daily way, hoping that somewhere among them I may vet find a child of promise. A few times in my career I have made real finds — those are the stars in my innominate crown; but more often — how tragically often! — my hopes have proved insubstantial. I think of the countless letters of encouragement that I have written (working on my sub-editorial level), of the criticisms and suggestions I have poured forth! In sentimental moods I like to picture myself a gardener, walking affectionately, though unrecognized, amid the growing things of the garden patch; propping some fragile annual here against a stick, banking the earth there about some too adventurous sprout, watering with waterpot of cheer the seedlings just peeping above the soil, and wondering if they will have strength and courage to persist through drouth and parasite until blossoming time. Tt is a splendidly vicarious occupation, that of manuscript-gardener. If there is a prize to be won at the exhibition, it is to be won by others than you; and your satisfaction must be that you have seen the process and had some inconspicuous part in it.

But the young aspirant, to whom I am merely a gateway, what a different view he takes of my case. “ If I can only get by the reader 1 ” he promises himself. That is why he so often sends a little letter under a separate cover to The Editor, with an underlined “ Personal ” in one corner. It is a brief resume of his career hitherto, a prospectus of his intentions, a key to the present parable, and a request that his manuscript receive personal consideration and a word of candid criticism. “ I have heard,” he adds, “ of the way hired manuscript-readers do their work! ” What dark suggestions are there of stupidity, indolence, — venality, even !

I am not blind to the inevitability of this view, and there is a certain grim humor in it, beside. Even the poorest of us, I suppose, who sends his story or poem to a magazine, believes that it is worthy of a place there. If the successful writer must believe in himself, how much more the unsuccessful writer! An adverse verdict upon his work is never taken, so far as I am aware, as “ implying any lack of merit ” (blessed phrase!), — merely as a failure to recognize its particular virtue; the writer knows what that is. and would like to explain; but the reader stands in the way! The reader comes to recognize this opprobrium as an inherent penalty of his position, and — yes, he does accustom himself to it.

Yet there is one of his duties, to which, I believe, if he is really a human being, he can never accustom himself. It brings every time the same pang of regret and pity, the more intense because there is no remedy. A few weeks ago there was put into my hands a book manuscript, containing over seven hundred pages of closely-lined foolscap. It was written in a fine though rather trembling hand, all the letters carefully formed, and the downstrokes delicately shaded; it was divided into chapters of about twenty pages in length, and each chapter was sewed at the side and bore an ornamental title-page, under the lettering of which were still visible the scrupulously erased rulings. And with the manuscript came a letter on ruled note-paper : —

DEAR MR. EDITOR: —
I am sending herewith an entirely original novel written by myself, Margaret, or, Tried an by Fire, which I hope you will find desirable for your esteemed periodical, same to be paid for at your regular rates for such contributions. . . . I may add that though some of the characters and events are real, I have changed all their names, and am sure that no feelings could be hurt. I am sorry I have no typewriter; but I hope that will not prevent you from giving the novel a consideration. . . .

One cannot help thinking of the dreams of fame and wealth that must have gleamed across the vision of the ambitious little woman as she patiently copied off word by word, line by line, the final transcript of her entirely original novel! Perhaps it was in the lonely kitchen of a Nebraska farm, across the wide-stretching acres of which she looked wistfully away toward a land where talent would not go unrewarded, where life would be something else than an endless cycle of uneventful months. And certainly she looked forward with trembling eagerness to the day when Margaret would be the talk of the season among the literary circles.

“What! ” she could hear them saying already. “ Did you say the author of that marvelous book was a Nebraska woman ? ”

“Yes, is n’t it incredible! No one had ever heard of her before. This is her very first work. It really looks as if the great American novel had come at last! ”

It was hard to send Margaret, or, Tried as by Fire back to its creator; and when I think of all the other blighted hopes and wounded hearts that lie along my path, I am very willing to remain unknown. These things I do as a function, not as a person; and surely, surely, they will not be charged upon my personal account — when, or if, the author of Margaret and I ever meet in Heaven.