On Saying Thank You to Editors

PERHAPS because I am the shyest of novices in the cloisters of literature, perhaps because I was taught from a babe to say ‘Please!' and ‘Thank you,’I am always impelled to speak out a very genuine and very much surprised gratitude to the editors who occasionally accept the frail offspring of my pen. From my side, the relationship of editor and writer seems rude almost to barbarism. To receive a kind letter of critical appreciation,— to receive also, presently, a neat check that means a trip to the city or a wider margin of extra delights for several weeks, — all in a glum silence, is wrong. The only witness, indeed, that the letter and the check ever came to me, is my greedy indorsement of the latter; while the joyful gleam and ambitious leap forward into fresh fields of hope and achievement go unrecorded as an hour of stupid sleep.

It is such a wonderful thing, to me, that my works should ever be accepted by a proud-spirited magazine. Not because what I write is not good enough! Of course, what I write seems, from one point of view, entirely excellent to me. I suppose I should n’t write it if it did n’t. But I realize that solely in the fact of its being my own does the virtue lie. What banners blow in that line of poetry, for me! What leaves are murmuring druid things! What souls of men long dead are calling mysteries to me over the dark! But it is only I that hear them, for they are mine, my dreams, my little singing words. How can they tell their secrets to an alien ear? It seems impossible that what I write should say in the least degree what I dream; and so I am astonished when thecooland crowded minds that keep the magazines astirring find my verses or my plain speech worthy of print (and the check). Each time that something is accepted, it is as if I had been climbing a great hill, and with a sudden effort and reaching out of friendly hands, had gained the top and looked forth across fair regions. ’Oh MY!’ I gasp. ’I did it that time: but the next hill — I can never get up that! This was the last: I shall never, never see the view beyond that farther ridge. Yet this is good!' and I sit down for a minute to breathe and contemplate. But before very long the lure of the horizon draws me to my feet, and I must journey away, till, amazingly, I am climbing the next hill, and the next, always without faith, and always with deep, shy joy at the conquest of the summit. Indeed, I do not often conquer. Most literary hills have slippery sides, and there are some all wrought of glass, whose glittering crests only the strong wings of genius can gain.

Such being my attitude toward my work and its success, it seems to me only ordinary good manners to recognize those who help me up the hills. I thank the policeman who steers me across Piccadilly or Broadway, although he has merely convoyed my body in safety through the hurly-burly of a minute. And shall I be dumb to the escorts of my spirit up the Parnassian heights?

But is it proper? That is what I am most desirous of knowing. Do the editors think a person very boresomely naïve if he or she writes a scrap of a note to say, ‘I am glad you liked my verses,’ — ‘Thank you for taking my story,’ — ‘Your criticism of my essay was a great help to me’? Do they grin, as much as to reply, ‘My dear verdant young friend, we don’t want your thanks. We take your stuff because it happens this once to be the sort that makes the magazine sell, and we don’t care a hang about you or your prim, earnest little schoolboy and schoolgirl courtesies. Please indorse your check and get a new hat or a new waistcoat: you probably need them; and correct your proof nicely when we send it to you, maybe in two or three years, — and then leave us alone, for we have bigger things to think about than whether you feel obliged to us or not. It is really embarrassing to have you around, all serious and round-eyed and thankful.’

Now if the editors feel like that, far be it from me to abase myself before them. Yet, if they are not quite human and quite kind, they would not write us such long and pleasant words of explanation, admonition, even praise. And being human, might they not bear with a little gratitude? It may come to pass, on a day in the far whirling of the future, that such as I shall grow arrogant and high and cool, and that the editors will fall at our feet and beg us with tears and gold to favor them. A humorous thought! But now — bless Heaven and the glad hazardous adventure of unsated Life — it is not so with me. Very humbly, though very gayly and proudly, I am moved to say, ’I thank you!’