The argument was that which
Mrs. Musgrave had enunciated against the study of the law. Harry was not
much moved by it. If he had a new motive for prudence, he had also a new
and very strong motive for persistence. Christie suspected as much, but
the name of Miss Fairfax was not mentioned.
"You have made your mark in that review, and literature is as fair a
profession as art if a man will only be industrious," he said.
"I hate the notion of task-work and drudgery in literature; and what
sort of a living is to be got out of our inspirations?" objected Harry.
"It is good to bear the yoke in our youth: I find it discipline to paint
pot-boilers," rejoined little Christie mildly. "You must write
pot-boilers for the magazines. The best authors do it."
"It is not easy to get a footing in a magazine where one would care to
appear. There are not many authors whose sole dependence is a
goose-quill. Call over the well-known men; they are all something else
before they are authors. Your pot-boilers are sure of a market; pictures
have become articles of furniture, indispensable to people of taste, and
everybody has a taste now-a-days. But rejected papers are good for
nothing but to light one's fire, if one can keep a fire. Look at
Stamford! Stamford has done excellent work for thirty years; he has been
neither idle nor thriftless, and he lives from hand to mouth still. He
is one of the writers for bread, who must take the price he can get,
and not refuse it, lest he get nothing.
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