She had not an idea that never a soul
of them or of their guests cared a straw about what he wrote--
except, indeed, here and there, a young lady in her first season,
who thought it a grand thing to know an author, as poor Letty
thought it a grand thing to be the wife of one. Hail to the
coming time when, those who write books outnumbering those who do
not, a man will be thought no more of because he can write than
because he can sit a horse or brew beer! In that happy time the
true writer will be neither an atom the more regarded nor
disregarded; he will only be less troubled with birthday books,
requests for autographs, and such-like irritating attentions.
From that time, also, it may be, the number of writers will begin
to diminish; for then, it is to be hoped, men will begin to see
that it is better to do the inferior thing well than the superior
thing after a middling fashion. The man who would not rather be a
good shoemaker than a middling author would be no honor to the
shoemakers, and can hardly be any to the authors. I have the
comfort that in this all authors will agree with me, for which of
us is now able to see himself _middling_? Honorable above
all honor that authorship can give is he who can.
It was through some of his old college friends that Tom had thus
easily stepped into the literary profession. They were young men
with money and friends to back them, who, having taken to
literature as soon as they chipped the university shell, were
already in the full swing of periodical production, when Tom, to
quote two rather contradictory utterances of his mother, ruined
his own prospects and made Letty's fortune by marrying her.
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