"
I sent this manuscript to four other periodicals, and from
each of them it was returned with remarks to the effect that,
although it was not a bad story in itself, it was not what they
would expect from the author of "His Wife's Deceased Sister."
The editor of a Western magazine wrote to me for a story
to be published in a special number which he would issue for the
holidays. I wrote him one of the character and length he
desired, and sent it to him. By return mail it came back to me.
"I had hoped," the editor wrote, "when I asked for a story
from your pen, to receive something like `His Wife's Deceased
Sister,' and I must own that I am very much disappointed."
I was so filled with anger when I read this note that I
openly objurgated "His Wife's Deceased Sister." "You must excuse
me," I said to my astonished wife, "for expressing myself thus in
your presence, but that confounded story will be the ruin of me
yet. Until it is forgotten nobody will ever take anything I
write."
"And you cannot expect it ever to be forgotten," said
Hypatia, with tears in her eyes.
It is needless for me to detail my literary efforts in the
course of the next few months. The ideas of the editors with
whom my principal business had been done, in regard to my
literary ability, had been so raised by my unfortunate story of
"His Wife's Deceased Sister" that I found it was of no use to
send them anything of lesser merit. And as to the other journals
which I tried, they evidently considered it an insult for me to
send them matter inferior to that by which my reputation had
lately risen.
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