“As I receive so many hundreds of letters asking how I found my way into print, and through what influences, it may be pardonable for me to say a few words regarding my own experiences. In the first place, I never sent a manuscript to any human being in my life, to ask for an opinion or influence. I always send directly to the editors, and I am not aware that any influence was ever used in my behalf. I have often had an article refused by six editors and accepted by the seventh. An especially unfortunate manuscript of mine was once rejected by eight periodicals, and I was about to consign it to oblivion, when, at a last venture, I sent it to the ninth. A check of seventy-five dollars came to me by return mail, with an extremely complimentary letter from the editor, requesting more articles of a similar kind.” MERIT IS NOT ALWAYS DISCOVERED QUICKLY. “Very few authors have lived to attain any degree of fame without receiving back their cherished yet unwelcome manuscripts from the hands of one or more unappreciative editors before they met the public eye. “It is reported of ‘David Harum’ that six publishers rejected it previous to its final publication. “Archibald Gunter’s book, ‘Mr. Barnes of New York,’ went the rounds of the various publishing houses, only to be rejected by all. Then Mr. Gunter rose to the occasion, published it himself, and reaped a small fortune from its sales. “Many a successful short story and poem passes through the ‘reading’ department of a half-dozen magazines and weeklies without having its merit discovered until a seventh editor accepts it. “Poems of my own, which have later met much favor from the public, I have seen return with a dejected and dog-eared air, from eight or nine offices, whither they had gone forth, like Noah’s dove, seeking for a resting place. A charming bit of verse, written by a friend of mine, took twenty-one journeys from the maternal hand to the editor’s table before it found an appreciative purchaser. “If the young writer will stop and consider that each editor has his own individual ideas of what he wants, both in verse and prose, and that, just as no two faces are alike, no two minds run in the same groove,—he may be hopeful for the ultimate acceptance of the darling of his brain, if he will persevere. Of course, this refers to a writer who possesses actual talent.” EDITORS ARE ANXIOUS FOR GOOD ARTICLES. “No more absurd idea ever existed than that of the efficacy of ‘influence’ in literature. An editor will buy what he thinks his readers will appreciate. He will not buy anything which he feels will fall dead on his audience. He may purchase one—possibly two, manuscripts,—to oblige a friend, but it will end there; and one or two manuscripts, so purchased, can never make name or fame for their author.