As the publishers did not ask for my resignation, I found it easy to forgive my adversary.
In view of the multitude of cases in which the writers of rejected contributions and the victims of adverse criticism are at pains to advise publishers to change their editors, I have sometimes wondered that the editorial fraternity is not continually a company of literary nomads, looking for employment. In one case, I remember, a distinguished critic reviewing a rather pretentious book, pointed out the fact that the author had confounded rare old Ben Jonson with Dr. Samuel Johnson in a way likely to be misleading to careless or imperfectly informed readers, whereupon not only the author but all his friends sent letters clamoring for the dismissal of a reviewer so lacking in sympathetic appreciation of sincere literary endeavor. When I told Mr. George Ripley of the matter he replied:
"Oh, that is the usual thing. I am keeping a collection of letters sent to Mr. Greeley demanding my discharge. I think of bequeathing it to the Astor Library as historical material, reflecting the literary conditions of our time."
In one case of the kind that fell to my share there was a rather dramatic outcome. I was acting as a literary adviser for Harper & Brothers, when there came to me for judgment the manuscript of a novel in which I found more of virility and strong human interest than most novels possess, together with a well constructed plot, a pleasing literary style, and some unusually well conceived and well portrayed characters. The work was so good indeed that it was with very sincere regret that I found myself obliged to condemn it. I had to do so because it included, as an inseparable part of its structure, a severe and even a bitter assault upon the work and the methods of Mr. Moody and all the other "irregular troops" in the army of religion, not sparing even the "revival" methods of the Methodists and Baptists. It was a rigid rule of the Harpers not to publish books of that kind, and I might with propriety have reported simply that the novel included matters which rendered it unavailable for the Harper list. But I was so interested in it and so impressed with its superior quality as a work of fiction that instead of a brief recommendation of rejection, I sent in an elaborate critical analysis of it, including a pretty full synopsis of its plot. The "opinion" filled many pages of manuscript--more than I had ever before written in that way concerning any book submitted to me.