And yet it is clear that if Scott were to
dabble in publishing at all, he really needed the check of men of
larger experience, and less literary turn of mind. The great majority
of consumers of popular literature are not, and indeed will hardly
ever be, literary men; and that is precisely why a publisher who is
not, in the main, literary,--who looks on authors' MSS. for the most
part with distrust and suspicion, much as a rich man looks at a
begging-letter, or a sober and judicious fish at an angler's fly,--is
so much less likely to run aground than such a man as Scott. The
untried author should be regarded by a wise publisher as a natural
enemy,--an enemy indeed of a class, rare specimens whereof will always
be his best friends, and who, therefore, should not be needlessly
affronted--but also as one of a class of whom nineteen out of every
twenty will dangle before the publisher's eyes wiles and hopes and
expectations of the most dangerous and illusory character,--which
constitute indeed the very perils that it is his true function in life
skilfully to evade.
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