ad never seen, just like a baseball
pitcher, or a tenor; there was a rich man who ate meals at the Century
Club had him there to dinner, because he thought him funny; he got a
note from a Literary Adviser asking him for a book manuscript; and two
persons wrote him from San Francisco. I myself have had courteous
letters thanking me from authors here and in England. That fellow of
whom I just spoke undoubtedly was on the threshold of a brilliant
career; he was full of courage and laughter, though very poor. Then a
great man offered him a Position as a literary editor. His name ceased
to be seen; I heard of him after a year, and it was said of him that he
was dreadfully bald and had a long beard, I mean of course
metaphorically speaking.

Whether signed reviewers are conducive to honesty I am not sure. There
was a man (I know him well) wrote a book on Alaska or some such place,
claimed he had been there. There was another man, his friend, who was
a reviewer. Now the Alaskaian said to the critic: "Why don't you get
my book from the paper? I'll write the review--I know more about the
book than anybody else, anyway; and you sign it and get the money."
And this was done; and it was an excellent review; and the paper (which
you read every day) was no wiser.

The literary editor who signed my reviews for me was a youth of an
independent turn of mind. He encouraged the expression in reviews of
exactly what one thought; he liked an individual note in them; he had
an enthusiasm for books of literary quality, somewhat to the neglect of
other branches of the publishing business; he gathered about him a
group of writers of a spirit kindred to his own; and he was rapidly
moulding his department of his paper into a thing, perhaps a plaything,
of life and colour.

But he lacked commercial tact. He wanted to make something like the
English lighter literary journals. He offended the powers behind the
man higher up. I saw him last on a Wednesday; he outlined his plans
for the future. On Friday, I know he "made up" his paper. Saturday I
looked for him, but he had gone from that place. There was in it a
dried man of much hard experience of newspapers, who reigned in that
youth's stead. The wrath of authority grinds with exceeding quickness.

This which I have written is history, as many excellent of mind know,
and should be put into a book: for it reveals how close we came to
having in this country a Literary Doings that c