The Complete Works of Artemus Ward — Part 1: Essays, Sketches, and LettersWard, Artemus
General
The Complete Works of Artemus Ward — Part 1: Essays, Sketches, and Letters
Ward, Artemus
American wit and humor
Before you go for an Editor, young man, pause and take a big think!
Do not rush into the editorial harness rashly. Look around and see
if there is not an omnibus to drive--some soil somewhere to be
tilled--a clerkship on some meat cart to be filled--anything that is
reputable and healthy, rather than going for an Editor, which is
hard business at best.
We are not a horse, and consequently have never been called upon to
furnish the motive power for a threshing-machine; but we fancy that
the life of the Editor who is forced to write, write, write, whether
he feels right or not, is much like that of the steed in question.
If the yeas and neighs could be obtained, we believe the intelligent
horse would decide that the threshing-machine is preferable to the
sanctum editorial.
The Editor's work is never done. He is drained incessantly, and no
wonder that he dries up prematurely. Other people can attend
banquets, weddings, &c.; visit halls of dazzling light, get
inebriated, break windows, lick a man occasionally, and enjoy
themselves in a variety of ways; but the Editor cannot. He must
stick tenaciously to his quill. The press, like a sick baby,
mustn't be left alone for a minute. If the press is left to run
itself even for a day, some absurd person indignantly orders the
carrier-boy to stop bringing "that infernal paper. There's nothing
in it. I won't have it in the house!"
The elegant Mantalini, reduced to mangle-turning, described his life
as "a dem'd horrid grind." The life of the Editor is all of that.
But there is a good time coming, we feel confident, for the Editor.
A time when he will be appreciated. When he will have a front seat.
When he will have pie every day, and wear store clothes continually.
When the harsh cry of "stop my paper" will no more grate upon his
ears. Courage, Messieurs the Editors! Still, sanguine as we are of
the coming of this jolly time, we advise the aspirant for editorial
honors to pause ere he takes up the quill as a means of obtaining
his bread and butter. Do not, at least, do so until you have been
jilted several dozen times by a like number of girls; until you have
been knocked down-stairs several times and soused in a horse-pond;
until all the "gushing" feelings within you have been thoroughly
subdued; until, in short, your hide is of rhinoceros thickness.
Then, O aspirants for the bubble reputation at the press's mouth,
throw yourselves among the inkpots, dust, and cobwebs of the
printing office, if you will.
* * * Good my lord, will you see the Editors well bestowed? Do
you hear, let them be well used, for they are the abstract and brief
chroniclers of the time. After your death you had better have a bad
epitaph than their ill report while you live.
Hamlet, slightly altered.
1.39. POPULARITY.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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