As I say, he gets his first reward anyhow. But let us be honest with
ourselves. How many of us would write our masterpieces on a desert
island, with no possibility of being rescued? Well, perhaps all of us;
for we should feel that, even if not rescued ourselves, our
manuscripts--written on bark with a burnt stick--clutched in a
skeleton hand--might be recovered later by some literary sea-captain.
(As it might be, Conrad.) But how many of us would write masterpieces
if we had to burn them immediately afterwards, or if we were alone
upon the world, the last survivors of a new flood? Could we bear to
write? Could we bear not to write? It is not fair to ask us. But we
can admit this much without reserve; it is the second reward which
tears at us, and, lacking it, we should lose courage.
So when the promising young dramatist has his play refused by the
Managers--after what weeks, months, years of hope and fear,
uncertainty and bitter disappointment--he has this great consolation:
"Anyway, I can always publish it." Perhaps, after a dozen refusals, a
Manager offers to put on his play, on condition that he alters the
obviously right (and unhappy) ending into the obviously foolish, but
happy, ending which will charm the public.
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