It follows them from an earlier date and could not easily be changed, and it may serve to recall to an elder generation than this the time when their author was breaking so many lances in the great, forgotten war between Realism and Romanticism that the floor of the "Editor's Study" in Harper's Magazine was strewn with the embattled splinters.
Not even yet, however, does the average critic recognize this, and such lesson as the "Editor's Study" assumed to teach remains here in all its essentials for his improvement.
"How much?" said the
Editor, sententiously, without looking up from his essay on the circularity of the political horizon.
The other men were Blank, the
Editor aforementioned, a certain journalist, and another--a quiet, shy man with a beard--whom I didn't know, and who, as far as my observation went, never opened his mouth all the evening.
When I sent off that first sketch I thought I had exhausted the subject, but our
editor wrote that he would like something more of the same, so I sent him a marriage, and he took it, and then I tried him with a funeral, and he took it, and really it began to look as if we had him.
"Yes--why not?" The
editor made no answer, but continued staring.
"Well, is it decided that Bev is to be
editor?" asked Felix.
"And if it is published I'll send that American
editor a marked copy.
By each window do you see there are standing three reporters and an old
editor, and this old
editor is the worst, for he doesn't understand anything!' but she only said this to tease Blockhead-Hans.
The emphasis on the history of thought also seemed to me very timely; and the number of important works promised for the Library in the very near future augur well for the continued fulfilment, in this and other ways, of the expectations of the original
editor.
Of course
editors were so busy that they could not afford the time and strain of reading handwriting.
And the
editor's letter had not ceased to crackle in his breast-pocket.
The
editor was at breakfast in a large, sad apartment.
At the time of the affair of the woman cut in pieces in the Rue Oberskampf--another forgotten story--he had taken to one of the
editors of the "Epoque,"--a paper then rivalling the "Matin" for information,--the left foot, which was missing from the basket in which the gruesome remains were discovered.
It was a feat of physical endurance and a brain storm combined to type a thousand words, and I was composing thousands of words every day which just had to be typed for the waiting
editors.
