Part 16

And almost simultaneously, in another quarter of the heavens, appears a similar turtle-dove, its pin-feathers developed into well-defined plumage, but unquestionably a bird of the same brood:--

"M. N., once more famous than now, had a little 'unpleasantness' with her publishers, Hunt, Parry, & Co. In plain words, she accused them of cheating her out of some thousands of dollars by making false returns of sales of her books. Like many authors, she had become inordinately vain, and had extravagant ideas of the popularity of her books, and was, as is too often the case, unmindful of the fact that a large portion of what fame she then had (but has now lost) was made for her by these self-same publishers. She had a quarrel with them of eighteen months standing, but they would not even appear in self-defense; what man would want to have an open quarrel with a woman? To any one acquainted with the details of book publishing, the charge she brings against H., P., & Co. is simply absurd; and besides, no business man would ever dare to suspect this publishing house to attempt such a system of petty cheating, and which, if attempted, would involve an amount of detail inconsistent with the end to be reached. H., P., & Co. are above the taint of suspicion. The truth is, M. N.'s books did not sell so well as she expected, and her pride (and her pocket) had a fall. It is known to us that an enormous outlay in advertising failed to make a remunerative sale on her last book. It fell dead on the market. It is now very quietly rumored that she has written a little volume which she proposes to call 'Little Men,' in which she describes her tribulations with the house of H., P., & Co.... M. N., you had better not! the public will not believe you."

The public will at least believe that, though a once redoubtable author, like Giant Pope in the Pilgrim's Progress, by reason of age, and also of the many shrewd brushes that he met with in his younger days, be grown crazy and stiff in his joints, he can at least sit in his cave's mouth, grinning at publishers as they go by, and biting his nails, because he cannot come at them!

It is not probable that these later paragraphs were actually written by the rose, but by some one who lives near the rose, and who takes roseate views of the situation.

When one has been introduced behind the scenes, these little touches go for what they are worth, but outside, they unquestionably, if imperceptibly, affect public opinion, and like an army of moral polyps build high the walls of lofty Rome. (A new species of polyps, the naturalist will say, but it answers my purpose.)

But while recognizing, to its fullest extent, the great power and prestige of a flourishing publishing house, and the great risk a writer runs in opposing it, I cannot bring myself to accept its invincibility, or its infallibility, or its indispensability. Of course a good reputation is, or ought to be, the sign of a good character; but a thing which is wrong is wrong, whatever be the reputation of him who does it. A charge of wrong is to be met by denial. It is not to dazzled out of sight in a general brilliancy. When the course of our true love ceased to run smooth, I supposed my pebble was the only obstacle which my publishers' rivulet had ever known, and I was dismayed accordingly. But if all the rocks I have since discovered could be cast into one heap, we should have a bigger monument than Joshua made to mark the passage of Jordan. But the monumenteers suffer in silence or speak with a bated breath that cannot be heard outside their own circle, while the flourishing firm keeps up such a continuous tooting with its rams' horns as would have flung flat the walls of Jericho had they been twice as stout as they were. Undoubtedly it is not wise always to make an outcry over your follies or misfortunes. Neither is it wise always to go through the world with a chip on your shoulder, challenging people to fillip it off. Yet we all admit that there are times when short, sharp, and decisive resistance to aggression is the wisest plan. So also is there a time to speak as well as a time to refrain from speaking. There may be dignity, there may be generosity, there may be prudence, or pusillanimity, or selfishness in silence. There may be all in speech. Of this I am certain, if any of those writers who have escaped harm by their own skill, or any of those who have thought to escape further harm by silence had but given warning of the existence of rocks, some of us, with less skill, would have avoided that vicinage and might have had smooth sailing through the whole voyage. By their silence they have not only indirectly contributed to our disaster, but they have actually strengthened against us the hands of our natural foes, the publishers. They make it possible for a newspaper to say, in reference to the present difficulty, "As the house (of H., P., & Co.) has been in thriving existence for more than a quarter of a century, and has never before quarreled with an author,--or more correctly speaking, never had an author quarrel with it,--there will be a general disposition," and so forth. They thus directly increase the resistance which any succeeding author must overcome. "Nothing," says "The Nation" newspaper of January 13, 1770, in harsher language than I care to use, but we must take language as we find it,--"Nothing so promotes swindle as the readiness of the victims to pocket their losses, go their way with a sickly smile, and let the rogues begin again." But of course this must be left for each person to decide for himself. It is only that if one feels moved in the spirit to bear witness against wrong in any of the relations of life, there is nothing in the height, or depth, or breadth, or brilliancy of any reputation to overawe him. Nothing is real but the right. There is no life but in truth. When faith is lost, when honor dies, the man is dead. Dead? He never was born. There never was any such person. He was a mirage, an apparition. The stars dim twinkle through his form.

As to the harm that may accrue to an author from adopting the course which he counts wise, it seems to me entirely insignificant. Nobody expects to go through the world intact, but we all expect to do that which presents itself to be done. If a writer has life in himself he will not easily die. If he has not life in himself the sooner he dies the better. If there is no life outside one charmed circle,

"Then am I dead to all the globe, And all the globe is dead to me."

Nothing is indispensable but a mind at peace with itself. It is pleasant to celebrate the glory of those you love, but better trudge comfortably across country on foot and alone, with all your worldly goods knotted up in a yellow bandana than ride unwillingly behind anybody's triumphal car.

So then, while it is undoubtedly best as a general thing for an author to live at peace with publishers, and sinners, there is also no reason why he should not make war if it is borne in upon him to do so.

But the only royal road to justice is for authors, in the beginning, to be intelligent, prompt, exact and exacting on all business matters which come within their scope. This seems a little thing, but it would work a revolution in the literary world. Let writers deal with publishers, not like women and idiots, but as business men with business men. If an author chooses to relinquish all pecuniary rewards from his books and to make an outright gift of the profits to his publishers, he may leave the whole matter in their hands; but if he condescends to take any part in the spoils, he thereby becomes a business partner, and the only question is whether he shall be a good business man or a poor one. By not being prompt and intelligent, by neglecting to secure or to examine his accounts, or to correct them when they are wrong, or to understand them when they are obscure, he does not approve himself an unmercenary person; he simply shows himself to be shambling and shiftless, and puts a direct temptation in his publisher's path. Many a servant would be honest if her careless mistress would not leave money lying about. Had I but used the ordinary care and caution which a lawyer, or a merchant, or a marketman brings to his business, this trouble doubtless would never have happened, and we should all have been the happier for it. The simple consciousness on the part of a publisher, that an author is observant of what is visible, will have a tendency to make him exact and upright concerning what is invisible. An author should so order his affairs that a publisher must make an effort to be dishonest. On the contrary, he so neglects them that a publisher must make an effort to be honest. Confidence and trust are excellent things and never more excellent than when they have a solid basis of paper and ink. Do the best he can there will still be points enough for the author to exercise his trust on, but to do business wholly on the trust system is utterly childish. No confidence can be more complete than was mine, and none apparently can be founded on a more honorable reputation. The confidential, friendly way of conducting affairs is pretty and sentimental, grateful to one's indolence and vanity and over fastidiousness, and confirmatory of one's conviction that he is too dainty and delicate to touch a bargain with the tips of his fingers. But in fact we all do take money for our work when we can get it; we want just as much money and money just as much as other people--rather more--and, in sober truth, the friction, the sacrifice of delicacy in keeping your money affairs straight from day to day, is not for a moment to be compared to the delicacy which may be sacrificed by leaving them at the mercy of others. You run well for a while, but a day of reckoning is almost sure to come. The thriftless, hap-hazard way of bargaining or not bargaining, common among literary people, is the fruitful parent of uneasiness, anxiety, disappointment, and bitterness, before which delicacy must be rudely and ruthlessly brushed.

It is the same with women as with men, for in literature as in the gospel, there is neither male nor female. When a woman does any work for which she receives money she becomes so far a man, and passes immediately and inevitably under the yoke of trade. She has no right to demand a favorable judgment of her work because she is a woman, nor has she the least right to require that chivalry shall come in to help fix or secure her compensation. Trade laws know no more of gallantry than trade winds--and it is well they do not. Individuals and societies wheedle and flatter and threaten and torture according to the fashion, or passion, or panic of the hour, but under it all, the great, pitiless, unseen, inexorable law of the world holds from age to age, never relaxing its grasp, never revoking its decree, deaf to the wail of weakness, dumb to the cry of despair, forever and forever teaching with unrelenting persistency, _by_ unrelenting persistency, the good and wholesome lesson that will be taught no other way. Under this law there is no sex, no chivalry, no deference, no mercy. There is nothing but supply and demand; nothing but buy and sell. To him who understands it, and guides himself by it, it is a chariot of state bearing him on to fame and fortune. To him who does not comprehend it and flings himself against it, it is a car of Juggernaut, crushing him beneath its wheels, without passion, but without pity.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] The most casual observer will readily see that this strain of remark can refer only to a far distant past. If our age is remarkable for any one thing, it is for a delicate reticence regarding what is not lawfully, and by divine right, its own.--_Note by Editor._

[2] A circumstance which at once relegates this story to the last century.--_Note by Editor._

[3] Proof that this paper belongs to an age when people had time to pronounce long words.--_Ed._

[4] This was in reference to Mr. Hunt's repeated injunctions that I should write only books.

[5] The editor cannot allow this sentiment to go out into the world unchallenged. To him few things are more marvelous than the amount of provender which the ill-favored and lean-fleshed kine will consume without giving any sign of feeding. Poverty, or incapacity, which in this country is the almost inseparable companion of permanent poverty--poverty is a sort of Chatmoss into which cart-loads of gravel may be upset without giving any solid foundation to build on. Horace Greeley was as true as the multiplication-table when he said that people generally earn money as fast as they have the ability to expend it judiciously.--_Ed._

[6] A "Common" is a tract of ground which belongs not to individuals but to the public. Probably the bookstore referred to was on the outskirts of the city, and the "Common" was the land as yet unappropriated by builders, and on which, doubtless, sheep and cows grazed undisturbed.--_Note by Editor._

[7] "The dickens!" is an exclamation of playful surprise. Probably the word as here used, is a corruption of this phrase, and was merely a strong way of expressing, on Mr. Hunt's part, that he had written no other letter at all. But after so great a lapse of time it is impossible to get at the exact truth.--_Note by Editor._

[8] The Editor trusts that it is not necessary for him to point out to his youthful readers that this spirit is not presented to them for an example.

[9] Here the narrative seems to deviate into prophecy.--_Note by Ed._

[10] The editor considers this levity highly unbecoming so solemn an occasion.

[11] I think this matter in detail came up subsequently in connection with the diminished price paid me for copyright, but as it belongs here also, I put it in all at once.

[12] These letters do not appear in this publication.

[13] The "jubilee house" seems to be a reference to the institution of the jubilee year among the Hebrews,--a year in which impoverished families might redeem the property from which, at any time during fifty years previous, they had been forced to part. Thus we are told that if a man purchased of the Levites, the house that was sold should go out in the year of jubilee. Such a house might long be known in the neighborhood as the "jubilee house." The hammering spoken of was probably connected with the repairing of some such lately redeemed house, and seems to point to an Eastern origin and locality for this narrative.--NOTE BY EDITOR.

Transcriber's Note.

Variable spelling and hyphenation have been retained. Minor punctuation inconsistencies have been silently repaired.

Corrections.

The first line indicates the original, the second the correction.

p. 145:

Appropos to what? Apropos to what?

p. 159:

Emeruit Danai; Eruerint Danai;

Quanquam animus meminisse horret Quamquam animus meminisse horret

p. 182:

Your book will keep, wont it? Your book will keep, won't it?

p. 195:

to buy my my book! to buy my book!

p. 278:

similtude of evil-minded similitude of evil-minded

Footnote 8:

not presented to them for an ensample not presented to them for an example