212520_The_Adve ... _Way_Through_The_World.pdf - OUDL Home

INTRODUCTION xxxiii
interested—knock at publishers 1 doors, be refused, be accepted, as
all of us have done. I was a known and tolerably successful author
when I tried three or four publishers with ' Vanity Fair.' Of this
I am sure, that a school and college experience and education are
of great advantage to a literary beginner nowadays ; by the editors
of Household Words, Once a Week, Cornhill Magazine, Blackwood
articles are pretty sure to be read. I was staying with Mr.
Blackwood when the first of the ' Adam Bede' papers arrived from
an unknown hand. You may have to try once, twice, thrice before
you succeed."
To another applicant he writes:—
" PALACE GREEN, KENSINGTON,
"May 1,1862.
"DEAR SIR,—Only this morning I gave £20 to a literary
gentleman of your country. Had I read your letter first he would
have had but £10; but he is gone with the money in his pocket,
and your note was lying under a heap of others on the table, which
I have had to read on my return from abroad. . . . God help us !
how am I to answer to this perpetual cry of our brethren in
distress 1
" I send my mite, deeply commiserating you, and am your very
faithful servant, W. M. THACKERAY."
It was in the spring of 1862 that my father finally made up his
mind to resign the editorship. Many friends had advised him to
resign before, but for various reasons he had hesitated, until it was,
to his great relief, arranged, and he was able to settle down once
more quietly to his own work.
I have a yellow page, dated March 25, 1862, which breaks off
in the middle, and which is addressed
"To CONTRIBUTORS AND CORRESPONDENTS.
"Ladies and Gentlemen (who WILL continue, in spite of the
standing notice below, to send papers to the editor's private
residence), perhaps you will direct the postman to some other
house when you hear that the editor of The Cornhill Magazine
no longer lives in mine.
"My esteemed successor lives at No. ________ , but I will not