they deserve from the reading public. When a sale
of one or two thousand copies would be necessary to make good the cost
of publication, the publisher is confronted with the fact that he
could not secure a sale exceeding five hundred. Indeed, when one
considers the almost certain fate that awaits them, pathos of the most
genuine kind is closely associated with volunteered manuscripts--those,
I mean, which come from new writers. Hardly any form of endeavor to
which educated minds devote themselves should more often awaken
sympathetic feeling. Those who produce them almost always have their
rewards far to seek, and seeking will not find them, and yet they
"wrought in sad sincerity."

The public is familiar with stories of successful books which, in the
course of their peregrinations, were several times rejected by
publishers. This, doubtless, has been the experience of all authors
who have made notable successes with first books, and it doubtless
always will be the experience of new authors. But along with this we
must set down the further, but consoling fact, that probably no
meritorious manuscript, possessing the possibilities of a great sale,
ever yet failed ultimately to find a publisher. The best proof of this
seems to be the absence of any notable instance of a book which, after
being rejected by all the regular houses, finally was brought out
privately, or at the author's expense, and then made a hit.

It is a common impression that manuscripts are not carefully read in
publishing houses. Again and again has this fiction been exploded by
houses whose word should be accepted as final, but it now and then
lifts up its head as if untouched before. Of course there are
manuscripts which no one ever reads completely through from beginning
to end, chapter by chapter, and page by page, simply because it has
been found not to be necessary to do so. Every conscientious reader,
however,--and most readers known to me have been nothing if not
conscientious,--reads at least far enough into a manuscript to learn
if there be anything in it that in the least degree is promising. He
understands full well the danger of overlooking a meritorious work,
and experience has taught him to be careful. Moreover, he is usually
fired with the worthy ambition to make a discovery; but he acts
according to his light only, and hence makes mistakes. The conditions
in which his work is done, however, preclude the possibility of
careless reading.