OUR SYNDICATE LETTER.
I have been greatly amused quite recently by two little items that were printed in one of those short-lived magazinelets. One article was by Neith Boyce and the other by Emma Eggleson, both of which ladies are subscribers toThe Homely Ladies Journal. If I am not mistaken one of these ladies raised a club for theJournal(not at it), and when Mr. Curtis and me offered to send her abroad to be educated, the amusing fact was discovered that she already had a lovely education.
But the articles that amused me so much wereabout the penchant of editors to monkey with manuscript. Both articles were on the same theme, but the article by Neith Boyce was the longest. As Mr. Howells has not improperly spoken of one of Neith Boyce’s short stories as a crackerjack, and as this master of letters has also referred to a poem by Emma Eggleson as hotstuff, I feel that I am justified in saying that both of these ladies are arriving successward in the merry and dizzy field of literature very rapidly.
I have sometimes thought in my thoughtful way that the reason an editor is called by that appellation is because he loves to edit. A young literary aspirant told me of a case in point the other day. He wrote a lovely triolet which was accepted on its seventeenth trip by a paper which shall be nameless. When he sent it out it ran thus:
TRIOLET.A nosegay of roses whiteStands on my loved one’s table.Would I were they tonight,A nosegay of roses white,Placed on her brow so bright,To deck her tresses sable.A nosegay of roses white,Stands on my loved one’s table.
TRIOLET.A nosegay of roses whiteStands on my loved one’s table.Would I were they tonight,A nosegay of roses white,Placed on her brow so bright,To deck her tresses sable.A nosegay of roses white,Stands on my loved one’s table.
TRIOLET.
TRIOLET.
A nosegay of roses whiteStands on my loved one’s table.Would I were they tonight,A nosegay of roses white,Placed on her brow so bright,To deck her tresses sable.A nosegay of roses white,Stands on my loved one’s table.
A nosegay of roses white
Stands on my loved one’s table.
Would I were they tonight,
A nosegay of roses white,
Placed on her brow so bright,
To deck her tresses sable.
A nosegay of roses white,
Stands on my loved one’s table.
This is how it was printed:
A nosegay of roses whiteIs quite a pretty sight,Upon my loved one’s table.(Far better than in a stable.)It would be pleasant quiteTo be those roses whiteAnd deck her tresses sable—That is if I were able.
A nosegay of roses whiteIs quite a pretty sight,Upon my loved one’s table.(Far better than in a stable.)It would be pleasant quiteTo be those roses whiteAnd deck her tresses sable—That is if I were able.
A nosegay of roses whiteIs quite a pretty sight,Upon my loved one’s table.(Far better than in a stable.)It would be pleasant quiteTo be those roses whiteAnd deck her tresses sable—That is if I were able.
A nosegay of roses white
Is quite a pretty sight,
Upon my loved one’s table.
(Far better than in a stable.)
It would be pleasant quite
To be those roses white
And deck her tresses sable—
That is if I were able.
You see much of the poetic effluvia was lost when it had been edited.
A very witty novelist, author of a novel, by the way, said an awfully bright thing to me the other day. He was speaking of the way that certain houses had of sending you a postal saying your manuscript would receive attention. “That,” said he, “keys you up to concert pitch. But there isn’t any concert generally. Your manuscript is refunded: that’s all.” I had to laugh, it was so witty.
A well known poet told me the other day that an editor should be a judge of good poetry. Said he, “when an editor cuts two or three lines out of your sonnet to a wild flower or a wild animal, or anything whatever, and retains the distinguishing label, it is like passing off XX milk for the XXX article and the real connoisseur is justly indignant. An honest and self respecting poet wishes to give full measure in his sonnets and it is an injury to his moral character that the editor works when he palms off ten or adozen for the usual fourteen or fifteen lines of a sonnet.”
Poets are not practical. Why didn’t he write that out himself and sell it for a dollar a line instead of giving me the chance?
I’m an editor myself in a small way.
I ask celebrated authors, actors, preachers, presidents, doctors, lawyers, generals, naval officers and the like to send in any old thing they happen to have on the hook and then I have it beautifully illustrated and print it just as it is; no matter how bad it is, I never change a line. It’s a matter of principal—not to say of interest. For above all things I wish to be honest and successful.
Edward W. Tok.