Still on Rejection (Paranoia?)

I received this email on Monday:

Date: Mon, 13 Nov 2006 13:12:12 -0500

From: [American Print Journal]

To: [ME]

Subject: Re: Fiction Submission (Novel Excerpt)

Hi ----

I wish I could tell you great news. If you consider that I really liked what I read and would probably read the entire novel great news, then maybe you'll be okay. I don't feel like this is quite self-contained enough, so we're going to have to pass. But I hope you'll send us more work in the future. Your writing is sharp and lively.

---

Can I trust you to keep a secret? I have been getting some quite "nice" (quite detailed, quite encouraging, "We'd like to see more of your writing") rejection letters lately; I almost forget the fact that a NO is a NO is a NO :))

If I remember well, the novelist Chimamanda Adichie once said that, during her early days in the submitting business), she discovered that as time went on, the rejections ("They come with the territory" she says) moved away from impersonal, form letters, to custom-made, kindly notes (from what I guess we'd call "truly-saddened" editors...)

Whoever said a rejection always had to make you sad?