TLS, two pages, 8.5 x 6.5, personal letterhead, January 3, 1913. Letter to “Comrade Dowell,” the father of an aspiring writer, in part: “Now considering your boy Ivan’s work, the sample of which I am returning herewith. Please do not let him be downcast when I say that his present sample would not be publishable in any first-class magazine; because I wish immediately to add that Ivan has just precisely what I had before I succeeded in selling to the magazines. He has vision, passion, power, grip,—but it is all undisciplined. What he must do is to lick himself and his output into shape. He must learn discipline and form, and he must stay with it for at least as long a time as he would stay with learning the blacksmith trade, and during that time he must pursue his trade of writing with far more ardor than any boy ever pursued the trade of blacksmithing. Tell Ivan not to be downcast by repeated refusals of editors of his work. Even though these refusals extend through months and even years of his apprenticeship. Stay with it. Tell him to study, sweat, work, and burn the midnight oil, and he will win to success, because he shows all the unmistakable signs of power. He must not make the mistake of thinking that in a few short months he will win through the most overcrowded profession in the world to the top, where the successes find themselves members of the best paid profession in the world.” In fine condition, with light toning. Accompanied by the original hand-addressed mailing envelope.
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