pretending that it is. Its serious interests
are political and moral. Personally, I fail to see how politics and morals
can be separated from art. I should be very sorry to separate my art from
my politics. And I am convinced that the conductors of the new organ will
perceive later, if not sooner, that political and moral altercations must
not be kept out of their columns. At any rate they will have to be
propagandist, pugilistic, and even bloodthirsty. They will have to
formulate a creed, and to try to ram it down people's throats. To print
merely so many square feet of the best obtainable imaginative stuff, and
to let the stuff speak for itself, will assuredly not suffice in this
excellent country.

* * * * *

My mind returns to the exceeding difficulty of obtaining the right
contributors. English editors have never appreciated the importance of
this. As English manufacturers sit still and wait for customers, so
English editors sit still and wait for contributors. The interestingness
of the _New Age_, if I may make an observation which the editorial pen
might hesitate to make, is due to the fact that contributors have always
been searched for zealously and indefatigably. They have been compelled to
come in--sometimes with a lasso, sometimes with a revolver, sometimes with
a lure of flattery; but they have been captured. American editors are much
better than English editors in this supreme matter. The profound truth has
not escaped them that good copy does not as a rule fly in unbidden at the
office window. They don't idiotically pretend that they have far more of
the right kind of stuff than they know what to do with, as does the
medium-fatuous English editor. They cajole. They run round. They hustle.
The letters which I get from American editors are one of the joys of my
simple life. They are so un-English. They write: "Won't you be good enough
to let us hear from you?" Or, "We are anxious [underlined] to see your
output." Imagine that from an English editor! And they contrive to say
what they mean, picturesquely. One editor wrote me: "We want material that
will hit the mark without producing either insomnia or heart-failure." An
editor capable of such self-expression endears himself at once to any
possible contributor. And, above all, they do not fear each other, as ours
do, nor tremble at the thought of Mrs. Grundy (I mean the best ones). A
letter which I received only a few days ago