It
is not only the labour of writing and the cost of stamps that anger you.
Your innate modesty is outraged. How is it possible for you to say all
those nice things about yourself which you know to be your due, and which
a third person might even exaggerate? What business have editors to
expose you to such inner conflict? A scholar I knew suffered agonies from
this source. He was constantly making learned discoveries which nobody
understood but himself, and so editors were always pestering him to write
leaderettes about them. He got over the difficulty by leaving blanks for
the eulogistic adjectives, which the editors had to fill in. As thus:
"Mr. Theophilus Rogers, the ---- savant, has unearthed another papyrus in
Asia Minor which throws a flood of light on the primitive seismology of
Syria." Once a careless editor forgot to fill in the lacuna, and the
paper lost a lot of subscribers by reason of its improper language,
whilst the friends of Theophilus wanted him to bring an action for libel,
unconscious that it would lie against himself.
But perhaps the climax of irritation is reached when, having troubled to
write down autobiographical details, having wrestled with your modesty
and overthrown it, having posted your letter and prepaid it, the ----
editor rejects your contribution without thanks.
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