Part 6

"You say now _I_ should propose a reference. Are you willing I should write to B. & H., and say that you have placed with me (or with R. and me, for we are partners in all law business, and have no separate names as lawyers) your claim for arrearages, with instructions to enforce them by law? If you are, I want the premier's opinion of the matter, and if we think you have a case, we will proceed. Now that you, after referring Mr. H. to me as your friend, and what has transpired under that arrangement, have had a personal interview with him, which you announce to your friends as a pacification, and have opened a new correspondence with him, proposing a reference, there is embarrassment all around. My office of friend or mediator, they will say, is finished. They cannot be expected to deal with you and me both. I think if they do not notice your proposition, we should make no further move, unless it is to be followed by legal proceedings, if necessary. There is no force or fitness in a proposition from me, unless we have something besides wooden guns behind it.

"Now, I wish you would come and see me. I don't eat raw chickens, so I can't go there. Here, there are good victuals.... As Mrs.----'s case bears on yours, it concerns me no further, except to save you from conspicuous folly in your attempts to help. Mrs.---- has Mr. Edwards for her friend, adviser, and legal counsellor, and although she is worrying his life out by constantly twitting him of his folly, in the contract he made as administrator, she wants no other. He is only skin and bone, poor man, and would die gladly, except for fear of meeting ---- in some place where suicide is impossible, and "twelve cents a volume" will sound forever in his ears.

"If B. & H. do not reply to your last letter, you may depend upon it that nothing but legal suasion will move them. This is not cross, though it seems so. I am your very amiable."

FROM B. & H. TO M. N., SEPTEMBER 8.

"Your letter of 29th ult., addressed to our Mr. Hunt, was duly received, and we now beg to reply on his behalf and that of the firm.

"In your letter you assume that we have but one set of terms with the various authors whose works we publish. In this you are in error. What we pay to any individual author is a matter quite between him--or her--and ourselves, and it is not our custom to make one author the criterion for another. Many elements enter into the case that would make a uniform rate impracticable. Independently of other considerations, the varying cost of manufacture caused by different styles of publication, would alone preclude such an arrangement. We must, therefore, decline to admit such an argument into the case.

"We have given our reasons in justification of our course towards you in full, and we see no occasion for repeating them here. As they were unsatisfactory to you, we offered, on May 29 last, in a letter to your attorney, Mr. Nathan Dane, to relinquish, at a fair price, the plates and stock to any publisher whom you might prefer. This offer we now respectfully renew.

"Touching arbitration, we may say that at an earlier stage of the proceedings we should have been willing to submit the matter to that test. At present, however, we do not wish to do so."

M. N. TO MR. DANE, SEPTEMBER 11.

"I am very glad you did not go to B. & H.'s, as the day after my letter to you went I received one from them, saying, 'In your letter,' etc.

"As the proceedings have been of an entirely private nature, without any cost of money, and with the outlay of but a few pages of note paper on their part, I do not see why the question of time is so important.

"What I propose now to do, is to have you, if you see no objection, send them by mail the note which I inclose to you for them.

"Legal proceedings I cannot, for a moment, think of instituting. Even if I should gain the case, it would be at a cost altogether too great. I think it would be far wiser for me to go on winning new laurels than to spend my energies in trying to pick up the withered twigs of last year's growth! The figure, I perceive, has serious defects, but you don't, so we will let it pass. I think now the whole thing would far better be suffered to remain quiet. I shall be gathering facts which will one day take shape, but I do not know what. Knowledge, however, is always useful, and certainly one cannot move an army unless one has an army.

"So I suppose there is no need of answering your other questions.

"I think it is as well to let the books be where they are.... Unless I find there is more advantage to be gained by a removal than I can see, the game would not be worth the candle.

"I feel more satisfied than I have done at any time since the trouble began. (While the child was yet alive, I fasted and wept. But now he is dead, wherefore should I fast?) Their refusal to refer seems to put me in open seas again.

"You say you are not cross, and I know you tried hard not to be. In fact, you have been an angel of patience all through, and I mean to reward you by conducting you honorably through some difficult Hell-gate of your own. I use the term in a marine and figurative sense.... From the beginning of your letter, I infer that you thought my last letter found some fault with you client-wise. I cannot recall the letter enough to know what may have given rise to the feeling, but I assure you nothing was further from the truth. And nothing can be more friendly and helpful than your whole course towards me has been. I shall never cease to hold it in grateful remembrance until you offend me, and then it will crisp up like flax in the flames, and I shall bear down on you just as heavily as if you had never done me a good turn in your life. Such, alas! is human nature."

M. N. TO B. & H., SEPTEMBER 11.

"I have received your letter of the 8th inst., declining arbitration.

"I suppose, therefore, the only resource left me is the arbitration of public opinion.

"The argument which you decline to admit into the case was introduced there by Mr. Hunt. I recognize with you its disastrous effects, and applaud your prudence in excluding it.

"Regarding your offer to sell the books to another publisher, I may say that as the cream of their sale is already gone, I do not see the brilliant advantage to be derived from taking the skim milk to another publisher. I will, however, consult my board of attorneys,--pray do not suppose I limit myself to one--and beg you meanwhile, to accept my thanks for the benefit you design me.

"Will you have the goodness to send me my accounts for the last half-year."

I supposed this was the end of it, but was surprised by a letter of September 14, saying:--

"We have your letter of the 11th inst.

"We think no occasion for arbitration in the matters at issue between us need ever have arisen. And we think, now, that a formal arbitration--as a means of settling the existing difficulties--would not prove a suitable or satisfactory method either to you or to us. We wish, however, to deal with you in a spirit of entire fairness, and we therefore propose another method, which will answer the same end in a much better way. Let us find a proper person, whose relations to both parties are such as to fit him to act as a confidential friend and adviser in the case. Let us confide the entire case, in all its bearings, to his intercession, and abide by his judgment. We have in mind a gentleman who, as we believe, would be in every way suitable and satisfactory to both,--Samuel Rogers, Esq., of this city. We understand Mr. Rogers to be a warm friend of yours, and we know him to be a just man, of sound judgment, and capable of taking a comprehensive view of the whole matter.

"If Mr. Rogers will accept the friendly office, we are quite ready to meet him in all fairness and candor, and to open our books and accounts to his inspection."

M. N. TO B. & H., SEPTEMBER 16.

"Permit me to acknowledge the reception of your letter of the 14th inst.

"I cannot, at present, give your proposal [I believe I said _proposition_, but proposal must be the right word] sufficient consideration to reply to it, but I will do so as soon as possible. Meanwhile, may I ask you to send me my accounts for the last six months? I suppose they can be made up independently of the question at issue between us.

"I most emphatically agree with you in the opinion that no occasion for arbitration need ever have arisen."

M. N. TO MR. DANE, SEPTEMBER 17.

"I thought I had pronounced my valedictory, but coming home after a few day's absence, I find the following note from B. & H. [then follows a copy of their last letter.]

"Now, this is a move which I do not understand. Why should they have declined so decidedly my proposal, and after they had received my note, why should they up and make another which, for aught I see, amounts to the same thing? I am inclined to accept the proposal, though I don't see why they should not have accepted mine. Would not Mr. Rogers be a good man?

"Isn't it vexing to have Monsieur Tonson come again?"

MR. DANE TO M. N., SEPTEMBER 21.

"'God moves in a mysterious way,' etc. B. & H.'s proposition does not much surprise me, though it is an entire change of base, not to say baseness. They now propose exactly what I wanted at first, a reference to some fair man; and had I made a list of a half-dozen for them to choose from, Mr. Rogers would probably have been one of them. He is quite deaf, but transacts business, and it is for him to say whether he is fit to _hear_ the matter. Of course you are at liberty to name another or others. I have great confidence that any man of such a character will do what he thinks is just....

"Now let me say this is getting to be a serious matter; and though you may doubtless look on it as very plain, you may be much embarrassed before you are through.

"I do not see how you can decline their offer, which is precisely your own, if you took the formality out as I suggested. I doubt now whether B. & H. will not find some way to avoid a hearing. I think you had better accept their offer, but with limitations that shall hold them somewhere. In any reference of this sort, it will be understood that you may have counsel and witnesses, unless the idea is excluded by agreement....

"You see I bear your burdens almost instinctively. In fact, I fear to trust you alone, you being, after all, but a poor little creeter, bless you."

M. N. TO MR. DANE, SEPTEMBER 23.

"Your letter did me heaps of good, yesterday.

"Mr. Robertson promises to find out the ways of the Corinthian publishers, and write or tell me.... What I want to do, if I do anything, is to make out a written statement, as you suggest, but appear only by that and you. I don't want myself to go on the stage. I should injure the case more than I should help it. Everything that is not in writing, you know as well as I, and I think it would be far better for me to stay at home, the sweet, safe corner by the household fire, behind the heads of children, la! In every other suggestion I agree with you.... I could make my statement, send it to you for decision and presentation, notify them of my acceptance and readiness, and then let the Union slide.

"Did I tell you I had a nice note from _Longinus_?... He says he wants to talk with me about this--that he thinks authors ought to have an understanding,--that generally with B. & H. he has such and such arrangements; but he marks that whatever arrangement you make, the publisher generally gets the lion's share.

"Now do you think there is any hurry? If not--and as they have wandered at their own sweet will hitherto, I think I might take my turn now; do you think it will be worth while for me to give up my visit? Considering the uncertainty of man, I should say not."

MR. DANE TO M. N., SEPTEMBER 24.

"There is no reason why you should hurry about your B. & H. matter. They have not been in great haste even to answer your letters. Wherefore, although I shall be glad to see you very soon, you may take your own time, and by thinking, perhaps, add a cubit to your mental stature.

"I am not quite sure you can be excused from being present. You can, however, fortify or fiftify yourself with Fritz or Fred.

"Now write down your claims against B. & H. like a lawyer."

About this time, the Athenian press seemed to have been seized with an unwonted interest in the book trade, and began to break out in sapient and significant little paragraphs like the following, which I copy from the "Athenian Tribune," of September 30, 1768:--

"BOOK PUBLISHING.--There is no class of business so liable to misconstruction and misunderstanding, as that of a publisher of books. It is difficult for an author to understand the business aspects of publishing a book. In the first place, the expenses of composition, correcting, stereotyping, paper, printing and binding, are very large, compared sometimes to the size of the book. Then the advertising bills, and two or three hundred gratuitous copies for notice and review, must be added to the cost of publication. Then, of course, store rent, clerk hire, and packing expenses, including paper, twine and boxes, should be reckoned as part of the cost of getting up an edition of a book; so that, in most instances, the sale of two or three thousand of a new work hardly pays the publisher for the labor and capital included in the outlay. Now all this the author, unless he or she happen to understand the business thoroughly, rarely comprehends. The elder John Murray, one of the most honorable and generous of publishers, used to say, that an author who thoroughly understood all the intricacies and expenses of issuing a book from the press, and properly launching it into the hands of the public, was as rare a prize to find as a phœnix or a unicorn."

Yes.

When I came to reflect upon the matter, the proposal of B. & H. did not seem so much like my own as it at first appeared. Partly, perhaps, I feared the Greeks even bearing gifts. And if the two plans were in substance the same, why did they suggest one so soon after rejecting the other? If they were not the same, the difference would not be likely to be in my favor. The superficial thinker might suggest that the person to judge whether formal arbitration would be satisfactory to me was myself. As I had proposed it, the information from Messrs. B. & H. that it would not be satisfactory to _me_, seemed to be premature, not to say supererogatory. But they not only set aside formal arbitration and brought up a "confidential friendly" plan--not with a suggestion that it might, but with the succinct assertion that it would answer the same end in a much better way; they also chose the confidential friend themselves; and this friend was a gentleman with whom I had no acquaintance, whom I had never so much as seen, and of whom my personal knowledge was confined to the interchange of some half dozen letters. Now a man may have a very high reputation, and be a very superior person, yet when you want a confidential friend, you would hardly take him, unless you had, at least, a passing acquaintance with him. Perhaps Messrs. B. & H.'s endorsement of any one as a "just man," ought to be enough; though, under the circumstances, it reminds one of the convicts in the Maine state prison, who drew up resolutions against capital punishment,--but regarding the confidential friendly way of doing business, I had become thoroughly disenchanted. It was confidential friendliness that made the trouble, and I was not homeopathically inclined. I languished for a little distrustful business accuracy, and cried, "Save me from my friends," or rather from Messrs. B. & H.'s friends.

What philosopher was it who maintained that life and death are the same? "Why do you not then kill yourself?" asked a skeptic. "Because they are the same."

If it was of no importance to Messrs. B. & H. whether we had one man or two, I would have two, since it was of no importance.

If it was important to them that we should not have two, then I would have two, because it was important.

M. N. TO B. & H., NEAR THE LAST OF OCTOBER.

"I accept your proposal, that the matter at issue between us should be submitted to Mr. Samuel Rogers, for decision, with this modification, that Mr. James Russell, of Stanton, be associated with him. If they have any difficulty in coming to an agreement, let us empower them to select a third person.

"I will present my statement at any time that suits your and their convenience.

"Permit me, however, to suggest that it is just as much work for me to prepare my case for two or three persons as it is for two or three thousand; and, after all, nobody can know it better than you. You know precisely what I want,--simply ten per cent. And you know also on what grounds I base my claims. Would it not be less troublesome to you, as well as infinitely less disagreeable to me, for you to decide the matter yourselves at once, rather than refer it to others, who, after the most careful study, can only learn what we already know? We shall also thereby avoid a publicity which is utterly distasteful to me, which can hardly be attractive to you, and which, beginning with two, will end, no one knows where."

HUNT, PARRY, & CO. (FORMERLY B. & H.) TO M. N., NOVEMBER 9.

"The preoccupation incident to the recent change in our firm (of which we sent you a notice) has prevented our giving your proposal due consideration earlier than now.

"We proposed Mr. Samuel Rogers' name, with the thought that he was a man who would be in every way satisfactory to both parties, and who could act rather in the capacity of a friendly mediator than that of a formal arbitrator.

"Our objection to the addition of Mr. James Russell, is, that by adding him we return to the idea of settling differences by a formal arbitrator, which we always objected to. We should prefer to submit the entire matter to Mr. Rogers alone, as we proposed. Still we are desirous to have the matter settled justly and equitably, and if you prefer to have more than one person, we are willing that Mr. Russell (of whom we know nothing, except by reputation) should be added, provided a third person shall be joined with the two, who shall be a practical publisher and bookseller. We would name a gentleman who would be perfectly capable of appreciating _all_ the points connected with the case, and to whom, in conjunction with the two already named, we are willing to submit it,--Mr. Henry Murray, formerly a partner in the publishing firm of Constable & Sons, and now the head of the firm of Murray & Blakeman. Mr. Murray is a highly honorable man, and from his many years of experience, fully qualified to understand the case.

"If you are willing to submit the case to these three gentlemen for decision, we shall await your and their pleasure as to time."

M. N. TO H., P., & CO., NOVEMBER 17.

"Your letter of November 9 has been forwarded to me from Athens. Your notice of the change in the firm was probably sent to Zoar and has not reached me. I did not know of the change when my letter was written.

"In proposing Mr. Russell I did not design to return to formal arbitration. I was, and am, quite willing to settle it by confidential friendliness, only I do not wish the friendliness to be all on one side. Mr. Rogers is your friend, but I never saw him; cannot judge of his fitness to act in such a matter, and therefore could not put implicit faith in his conclusions. I wish to associate with him a man whom I do know, and on whose conclusions I could rely.

"You say you know nothing of Mr. Russell except by reputation; neither do I know anything of Mr. Rogers except by reputation.

"You desire to join with them Mr. Murray of the firm of Murray & Blakeman, a gentleman whom you know so well that you vouch for his character and capacity, but whom I never saw, whom I scarcely know even by reputation, but of whom I do know this: Soon after the publication of 'The Rights of Men,' the firm, of which he is the head, issued an advertisement of one of their publications by Rev. Bishop Burnet, in which, by detaching sentences from 'The Rights of Men,' they made me speak in the highest praise of Bishop Burnet's book, whereas, in truth, I had spoken with the greatest censure. You say that Mr. Murray is a highly honorable man, but I say that this was a highly dishonorable proceeding.

"Observe now the position you take. _You_ are not even willing to trust to my friend, joined with your friend, but you want me to trust to your friend alone.

"Secondly, you are not willing to refer to the arbitrator, a lawyer, whom you have selected, and the arbitrator, a lawyer, whom I have selected, and the third person whom they two shall select, but you wish yourself to select the third person, and the person you select is a man of your own trade, a man of your intimate acquaintance, a man whom I never saw, and of whom personally I only know that he has been guilty of trickery toward me.

"If it is to be settled by confidential friendship, you wish to choose the confidential friend. If by formal arbitration, you wish to choose two out of three of the arbitrators.

"You consider Mr. Rogers quite capable of settling the matter alone, but incapable of settling it in connection with a friend of mine, unless another friend of yours be joined with him.

"I am quite willing to meet you on the confidential friendly platform, or on the formal arbitration platform; but if the former, which I also prefer, I wish to have a share in the confidential friendship. If the second, I wish the arbitrators to be selected in the regular way, each party choosing one, and those two selected choosing a third.

"You can ascertain from Mr. Rogers whether he has any objection to confidential consultation with Mr. Russell. So far as a practical publisher or bookseller is concerned you can state the case yourselves to these gentlemen,--or you can bring Mr. Murray or any other person you choose before them. We must assume that they are sufficiently fair-minded to judge according to facts, else there is no use in having any judgment at all, and Mr. Murray can present the facts as witness quite as well as if he were arbitrator."

H., P., & CO. TO M. N., NOVEMBER 20.

"The desire which you impute to us of having a one-sided settlement, or of referring the matter at issue between us to any 'confidential friend' of our own has never entered our thoughts. We named Mr. Rogers in the first instance because we thought he was a warm personal friend of your own, and one in whom you could put unhesitating confidence. We never had a word with him on the subject in any way. As for Mr. Murray, we certainly have no desire to press him, or any other person not agreeable to you.

"We very decidedly prefer that _one_ person shall take cognizance of the matter rather than _two_ or _three_; and to show that we do not desire that the person chosen shall be a partisan of our own, we suggest that the matter be submitted to the friendly offices of Mr. Henry Brook, of Corinth. We do not know Mr. Brook personally, and have never had any relations with him except a correspondence which he initiated several days ago. If he is willing to act in the matter we will accept any decision he makes."

M. N. TO H., P., & CO., NOVEMBER 23.

"Your letter of November 20 reached me Saturday night. So far as it disclaims any undue partisanship in selecting Mr. Rogers, it is germane to the case. I take the earliest opportunity to thank you for the disinterested kindness to me which governed your choice. I was not before aware of it, or I should have been earlier in my acknowledgment.