, and they
generally pounce on a good manuscript in fiction, whether the writer be
known or unknown. It is much more easy to predict whether a novel will
pay or not than to prophecy about a drama. Thus the most obscure author
(in spite of the difficulties faced by "Jane Eyre" and "Vanity Fair") may
rely on it, that if his MS. is not accepted, it is not worth accepting.
He should not, if he has decently sound reasons for self-confidence, be
disheartened by two or three refusals. One man's taste might be averse
to "John Inglesant," another's might turn against Ouida, a third might
fail to see the merit of "Vice Versa." But if half a dozen experts taste
and reject a manuscript, it is almost certain to be hopeless. Then the
author should take the advice once offered by Mr. Walter Besant. "_Never_
publish at your own expense." If you do, you stamp yourself as an
amateur; you add to the crowd of futilities that choke the market; and,
if you have it in you to write a novel which shall be a good piece, you
are handicapping yourself by placing a bad novel on your record. People
sin out of thoughtlessness, as well as depravity, and we would not say
that every amateur novelist is, _ex officio_, infamous, nefarious, and
felonious. He or she may be only rather vain, conceited, and
unreflecting.

Where, then, is the remedy if homilies fail to convert the sinner, as,
indeed, it is the misfortune of homilies to fail? The remedy will be
found in a Novelists' League, with tickets, and boycotting, and strikes,
and rattening, and all the other devices for getting our own way in an
oppressive world. There will be a secret society of professionals. Lady
novelists (amateurs) will be rattened; their blotting-paper and French
dictionaries will be stolen or destroyed; their publishers will be
boycotted by all members of the League, who will decline to publish with
any man known to deal with amateurs. Nay, so powerful is this dread and
even criminal confederacy, that amateurs will not even be reviewed.
Neither the slashing, nor the puffing, nor the faintly praising notice
will be meted out to them. There will be a conspiracy of silence. The
very circulating libraries will be threatened, and coffins (stolen from
undertakers who dabble in romance) will be laid at Mr. Mudie's door,
unless he casts off the amateur in fiction. The professionals will march
through rapine to emancipation. They will strike off the last gyves that
fetter