Rejection letters.

I got my latest rejection letter this morning. I'd had a really positive message last night from someone who's reading the book and then the postman arrived this morning. I heard the loud thud of my manuscript hitting the hall floor and guessed before I went to retrieve it that it would be my self-addressed envelope containing the first three chapters, pitch letter and summaries of the other chapters of "Martha's Vineyard". So it was but it also contained a standard form letter from the agent,

"Dear Neil Griffin," ( that is handwritten the rest apart from a squiggle at the bottom was a standard typed response)

"Thank you for your recent submission which we have considered with care. I fear we do not feel able to offer the representation you seek. We wish you every good fortune with your work in the future."

Don't get me wrong, it wasn't a crushing blow or anything, I mean there are a million worse things happening to millions of people as we speak but it always a little disappointing. Anyway I'm anticipating a large collection of rejection letters before I find an agent to represent the book, (that accounts for the blog really) and at least they'd had the decency to turn it around in three weeks but I do wonder what it is they "fear". Have they been stalked by rejected writers in the past or are they just naturally timid? It seems ironic that people with such influence in the publishing industry were terrorised by my submission. Rather than feeling angry at the rejection I feel guilty about frightening them so!
My initial reaction was anger of course. Nobody likes rejection do they? "What do they know? Everyone who's read it has really enjoyed it, even people who don't know me, why aren't they interested?" But I suppose one must be sympathetic in the end; they get a lot of manuscripts and there are so many variables, what time they pick your submission from the pile, how many they are already considering, what mood they are in when they pick yours up, Monday morning Friday afternoon syndrome and as I have often said sending off a submission is always an act of hope over expectation. Never mind, I'm still only on agencies beginning with "A" and there are plenty more on the list before I get on to the rest of the alphabet. And so I'm off to the post office as I want to catch the lunch-time post. See Ya!