“May not the editor have been right in his revision of your ’Sea Lyrics’?” she questioned.  “Remember, an editor must have proved qualifications or else he would not be an editor.”

“That’s in line with the persistence of the established,” he rejoined, his heat against the editor-folk getting the better of him.  “What is, is not only right, but is the best possible.  The existence of anything is sufficient vindication of its fitness to exist—­to exist, mark you, as the average person unconsciously believes, not merely in present conditions, but in all conditions.  It is their ignorance, of course, that makes them believe such rot—­their ignorance, which is nothing more nor less than the henidical mental process described by Weininger.  They think they think, and such thinkless creatures are the arbiters of the lives of the few who really think.”

He paused, overcome by the consciousness that he had been talking over Ruth’s head.

“I’m sure I don’t know who this Weininger is,” she retorted.  “And you are so dreadfully general that I fail to follow you.  What I was speaking of was the qualification of editors—­”

“And I’ll tell you,” he interrupted.  “The chief qualification of ninety-nine per cent of all editors is failure.  They have failed as writers.  Don’t think they prefer the drudgery of the desk and the slavery to their circulation and to the business manager to the joy of writing.  They have tried to write, and they have failed.  And right there is the cursed paradox of it.  Every portal to success in literature is guarded by those watch-dogs, the failures in literature.  The editors, sub-editors, associate editors, most of them, and the manuscript-readers for the magazines and book-publishers, most of them, nearly all of them, are men who wanted to write and who have failed.  And yet they, of all creatures under the sun the most unfit, are the very creatures who decide what shall and what shall not find its way into print—­they, who have proved themselves not original, who have demonstrated that they lack the divine fire, sit in judgment upon originality and genius.  And after them come the reviewers, just so many more failures.  Don’t tell me that they have not dreamed the dream and attempted to write poetry or fiction; for they have, and they have failed.  Why, the average review is more nauseating than cod-liver oil.  But you know my opinion on the reviewers and the alleged critics.  There are great critics, but they are as rare as comets.  If I fail as a writer, I shall have proved for the career of editorship.  There’s bread and butter and jam, at any rate.”

Ruth’s mind was quick, and her disapproval of her lover’s views was buttressed by the contradiction she found in his contention.

“But, Martin, if that be so, if all the doors are closed as you have shown so conclusively, how is it possible that any of the great writers ever arrived?”