Chapter XXX - Page 2

the
creative joy. She used the phrase - it was on her lips he had
first heard it. She had read about it, studied about it, in the
university in the course of earning her Bachelorship of Arts; but
she was not original, not creative, and all manifestations of
culture on her part were but harpings of the harpings of others.

"May not the editor have been right in his revision of your 'Sea
Lyrics'?" she questioned. "Remember, an editor must have proved
qualifications or else he would not be an editor."

"That's in line with the persistence of the established," he
rejoined, his heat against the editor-folk getting the better of
him. "What is, is not only right, but is the best possible. The
existence of anything is sufficient vindication of its fitness to
exist - to exist, mark you, as the average person unconsciously
believes, not merely in present conditions, but in all conditions.
It is their ignorance, of course, that makes them believe such rot
- their ignorance, which is nothing more nor less than the
henidical mental process described by Weininger. They think they
think, and such thinkless creatures are the arbiters of the lives
of the few who really think."

He paused, overcome by the consciousness that he had been talking
over Ruth's head.

"I'm sure I don't know who this Weininger is," she retorted. "And
you are so dreadfully general that I fail to follow you. What I
was speaking of was the qualification of editors - "

"And I'll tell you," he interrupted. "The chief qualification of
ninety-nine per cent of all editors is failure. They have failed
as writers. Don't think they prefer the drudgery of the desk and
the slavery to their circulation and to the business manager to the
joy of writing. They have tried to write, and they have failed.
And right there is the cursed paradox of it. Every portal to
success in literature is guarded by those watch-dogs, the failures
in literature. The editors, sub-editors, associate editors, most
of them, and the manuscript-readers for the magazines and book-
publishers, most of them, nearly all of them, are men who wanted to
write and who have failed. And yet they, of all creatures under
the sun the most unfit, are the very creatures who decide what
shall and what shall not find its way into print - they, who have
proved themselves not original, who have demonstrated that they
lack the divine fire, sit in judgment upon originality and genius.
And after them come the reviewers, just so many more failures.
Don't tell me that they have not dreamed the dream and attempted to
write poetry or fiction; for they have, and they have failed. Why,
the average review is more nauseating than cod-liver oil. But you
know my opinion on the