Within these few years past we have from time to time given a word of
warning and of encouragement to Literary Aspirants. We do not use the
latter word in any disparaging sense; but simply as the only one which
fully embraces the great and constantly increasing class of persons,
who, as writers of matter good, bad, and indifferent, are now weekly
and daily knocking for admission at the doors of Literature. We have
always been favourable to giving encouragement to young writers of
ability, and never a year passes but we are able to introduce a few
fresh contributors to the world of periodical literature. But this
encouragement must necessarily be within certain lines, otherwise evil
and not good would accrue to many. We are from time to time reminded by
correspondents of what a popular novelist, possibly in a half-jocular
mood, advised in this matter. His advice to parents amounted to this,
that if they had an educated son or daughter with no particular calling
in life, but in need of one, they had only to supply him or her with
pens, ink, and paper, and a literary calling might at once be entered
upon. We fear too many have laid, and daily lay, this flattering
unction to their souls. In the majority of cases, disappointment and
heart-sickness can alone be derived from the experiment.
In order to give those outside the circle of editorial cognisance some
idea of the amount of literary matter sent in by outsiders, and which
falls to be adjudicated upon on its merits, we subjoin an abstract of
the number of manuscripts received by us during the twelve months from
August 1882 to August 1883. During that period we have had offered to
us in all 3225 manuscripts, of which 2065 were contributions in prose,
and 1160 in verse. These offerings varied from each other to the utmost
extent both as to size and subject, from a few stanzas of verse to the
bulk of a three-volume novel, and came to us from all quarters of the
English-speaking world, England, Scotland, Ireland, the Continent,
America, India, Africa, Australia, New Zealand, and elsewhere. Of the
2065 prose manuscripts, 300 were accepted by us for publication, or
fourteen per cent. of the whole. Of the 1160 pieces of verse, only
30 were accepted, or less than three per cent. of the total. Taking
the two classes of contributions together, of the 3225 manuscripts
received, 330 were accepted—that is, of every hundred manuscripts
received, ten were retained by us and ninety returned to their authors.
If we estimate this pile of contributions according to its bulk, and
allowing a very moderate average length to each manuscript, the whole,
if printed, would have filled 9125 pages of this _Journal_, or as much
as would have sufficed for eleven of our yearly volumes.
The lesson to be derived from this by literary beginners is, not to be
over-sanguine as to the acceptance of any article offered to magazines,
knowing the great competition that is constantly going on for a place
in their pages. It is true that those who possess the literary faculty
in a sufficient degree will, though not perhaps without suffering many
rejections and disappointments, ultimately assert their claims and
obtain the coveted place; but even in such cases, the early struggle
may sometimes be severe and long-continued. Nor must contributors go
away under the impression that all rejected offerings are necessarily
of an inferior quality. This is far from being the case. Great
numbers of the prose articles in the above enumeration of rejected
contributions, were articles with which no fault might be found in a
literary sense. But it must be borne in mind that a magazine is limited
in its space; and that when a definite part of that space has been
allotted to articles or tales which have been supplied under previous
arrangements made between author and editor, the remaining space may
afford but small room for the number of claimants thereto. An article,
therefore, which is perfectly equal to the literary standard of a
magazine, may have to be returned by the editor on various grounds,
such as that the subject of the paper does not come within the scope of
his present requirements, or that an article has already appeared or
been accepted on the same subject, or that some one has been already
engaged to write upon it; or, in short, a dozen reasons might be found,
any one of which would be sufficient to cause the rejection of a given
article. But what one magazine rejects another may be in need of; so
that a really good article is almost certain of finding its billet
somewhere.
In these circumstances, while there is nothing that need eventually
discourage a capable or promising writer, there is much to make parents
and guardians take warning before they set a young man or woman adrift
on the sea of life with only his or her pen as a rudder. Literature,
like painting, affords to persons of inferior or only mediocre powers a
very precarious means of livelihood. Besides, places are not to be got
in the literary any more than in the artistic world without evidence of
genuine capacity being given by the claimant. The number of aspirants
is no doubt from year to year being winnowed, until the grain shall
be finally selected from the chaff; but the process, we admit, is not
pleasant to those who do not come within the metaphorical category of
grain. Scarcely a week passes but we receive letters requesting us,
from the specimens of work inclosed, to say whether the contributor
might hope to become a successful writer for magazines, as he or she
is presently a clerk or a governess, and would wish to attain a better
position, which position, ‘kind friends’—often in this same matter, if
they knew it, very unkind—think, might be reached through the channel
of literature. It is not difficult, as a rule, to advise in such cases.
It is, stick to your present occupation, if it is only respectable, and
on no account throw it up in the hope of having your name engrossed in
the higher rolls of literary achievement. Even in the case of what may
be called successful minor contributors to periodical literature, it
can hardly be possible, we should think, for them to rely _wholly_ upon
the results for a livelihood. Nor is it necessary to do so. The kind of
literary work to which we allude can, in general, be carried on side by
side with the work of an ordinary occupation or profession, as it is
rarely that the articles of a writer of this class are in such constant
demand as to make it necessary to give his or her whole time to their
production. When this combination can be maintained, a useful source of
income is added, without in all cases necessarily detracting from one’s
professional industry otherwise.
What we have said is not with the object of repressing literary
ambition, but of preventing literary aspirants from setting out under
false ideas, or quitting the successful pursuit of their ordinary
occupations in the too frequently unrealised hope of rising to literary
distinction. It must not be forgot that the desire to write does not
necessarily comprehend the power to write well; or that, even with
those who succeed in demonstrating their literary capabilities, such
success is obtained without hard work and long practice. As we have
said on former occasions, writers must not start, as is too often done,
on the assumption that their possession of _genius_ is to be taken
for granted; genius only comes once in a while—once or twice in a
generation perhaps. It is always safer to begin upon the supposition
that your faculties are of the kind which, like granite, will only
shine by polishing; and if genius should be evoked in the process, the
polishing will not harm it. We would not wish to dim the roseate hues
which the future has for those who are young; but neither would we wish
to be responsible for encouraging within them hopes that are not likely
to be realised, or only realised under special powers of application,
or by the operation of special natural faculties.