s
Grief. At last one morning came a letter from my editor. "The story has
force, but I cannot stand that doctor," he wrote. "Let her cut him out,
and I might print it." Just what I myself had said. The package lay
there on my table, travel-worn and grimed; a returned manuscript is, I
think, the most melancholy object on earth. I decided to wait, before
writing to Aaronna, until the second letter was received. A week later
it came. "Armor" was declined. The publisher had been "impressed" by
the power displayed in certain passages, but the "impossibilities of
the plot" rendered it "unavailable for publication"--in fact, would
"bury it in ridicule" if brought before the public, a public
"lamentably" fond of amusement, "seeking it, undaunted, even in the
cannon's mouth." I doubt if he knew himself what he meant. But one
thing, at any rate, was clear: "Armor" was declined.

Now, I am, as I have remarked before, a little obstinate. I was
determined that Miss Grief's work should be received. I would alter and
improve it myself, without letting her know: the end justified the
means. Surely the sieve of my own good taste, whose mesh had been
pronounced so fine and delicate, would serve for two. I began; and
utterly failed.

I set to work first upon "Armor." I amended, altered, left out, put in,
pieced, condensed, lengthened; I did my best, and all to no avail. I
could not succeed in completing anything that satisfied me, or that
approached, in truth, Miss Grief's own work just as it stood. I suppose
I went over that manuscript twenty times: I covered sheets of paper
with my copies. But the obstinate drama refused to be corrected; as it
was it must stand or fall.

Wearied and annoyed, I threw it aside and took up the prose story: that
would be easier. But, to my surprise, I found that that apparently
gentle "doctor" would not out: he was so closely interwoven with every
part of the tale that to take him out was like taking out one especial
figure in a carpet: that is, impossible, unless you unravel the whole.
At last I did unravel the whole, and then the story was no longer good,
or Aaronna's: it was weak, and mine. All this took time, for of course
I had much to do in connection with my own life and tasks. But, though
slowly and at my leisure, I really did try my best as regarded Miss
Grief, and without success. I was forced at last to make up my mind
that either my own powers were not equal to the task, or else that her
per