Part 7

"The remainder of your letter, you will pardon me for saying, is entirely irrelevant. The question of one or two is no longer open. We have already agreed upon two, and the question now is concerning a third. The point to be decided is simply this: Will you or will you not refer the matter to the friendly mediation or the formal arbitration of Messrs. Rogers and Russell and a third person to be selected by them in case a third person shall be necessary?"

H., P., & CO. TO M. N., NOVEMBER 28.

"Your statement, that 'the question of one or two persons is no longer open, and that two have already been agreed upon, and the question now is concerning a third,' is not correct. _We_ have not agreed to refer the matter to Messrs. Rogers and Russell except with our proposed addition of Mr. Murray, which addition you did not approve. By your non-approval of him the matter was thrown back to the original proposal to refer it to one person, and in that posture of affairs we must consider that our proposal of Mr. Brook as that person was strictly relevant.

"But in all this correspondence we seem to be playing at cross-purposes, neither arriving at a result nor succeeding in understanding each other. You are no doubt as tired of this as we are. A reference--should we ever reach it on mutually satisfactory terms--would take a long time and be a tedious mode of settlement. Would it not be better to close the matter at issue finally by a definite proposal which cannot be misunderstood. We estimate the time that would be occupied by a reference, and the trouble and annoyance it would occasion, at five hundred dollars, and we propose to send you our check for that sum that this unprofitable controversy may be closed. And we further propose to pay you hereafter ten per cent. of the retail price, in cloth, for all copies sold of your various books now published by us. Should you accept this offer, please advise us and we will send you check and draw new contracts at once."

I think, notwithstanding the modest disclaimer of Messrs. Hunt, Parry, & Co., we were getting to understand each other perfectly, except that so far from becoming tired of the controversy, _I_ was only just warming up to it.

M. N. TO H., P., & CO., DECEMBER 8.

"When I pointed out to you the impropriety of your imposing Mr. Murray upon me as arbitrator, you replied that you did not wish to press Mr. Murray. You now say that Mr. Murray was essential to the arbitration. Either he was or he was not. If he was, then, as I said in a previous letter, you refused arbitration unless you could choose two out of three of the arbitrators, and those two friends of your own and strangers to me, and one of them guilty of trickery towards me. If Mr. Murray was not essential, then, as I said in my last letter, we had already agreed upon two, and the only question is, concerning a third. Do I understand you to decide that you refuse arbitration unless you have power to make Mr. Murray third arbitrator?

"The reference which seems to you so tedious, seems to me a relief from tedium. Your definite proposal proposes to buy me off from arbitration, but does not touch my claim to ten per cent. on past sales. I do not even consider it, much less accept it.

"The cost of arbitration would, I suppose, be defrayed as usual by the losing party, and amounts to hardly if any more than one-sixth part of the sum which I believe to be due me."

M. N. TO H., P., & CO., DECEMBER 21.

"A week ago, last Tuesday, I sent you a letter from Paris, to which I have received no answer. To guard against any misunderstanding arising from a lost letter, will you be so good as to inform me by the bearer whether you have received such a letter from me, and if so, whether you have replied to it."

They evidently thought the enemy was preparing to move immediately upon their works, and they replied at once,--

"We duly received your communication alluded to in your note of this morning.

"Owing to the absence of one of the members of our firm and the great pressure of business incident to the season of the year, we have not had an opportunity since its receipt to give the question at issue the attention it deserves. In a very few days you shall hear from us."

On the sixteenth of December, appeared another of those paragraphs in the "Athenian Gazette," to which I have previously referred. Hitherto the dove had only gyrated around the whole heavens, spreading its white wings of praise over publishers in general, but now, loving, like Death, a shining mark, it circled down and settled squarely upon the modest brows of Messrs. Brummell & Hunt, in the following style:--

"MESSRS. B. & H.'S ANNOUNCEMENTS.--The attractive advertisement of Messrs. B. & H., which appears in our columns to-day, is interesting to those who watch the progress of events, as an indication not only of the success which this publishing house has achieved, but as an evidence of the literary supremacy of the 'hub.' Years ago, when Sophocles, after enjoying the entree into the leading social circles of the city, styled Athens 'The Modern Eden,' our neighbors of the other cities quoted the remark in derision. But time has proved that the title was not merely complimentary. A glance at the list of authors whose works are published by Messrs. B. & H., will at once surprise those unacquainted with the large number of the _Adriatic_ coterie who have residence within the shadow of the Acropolis. The Athenian authors who have their established headquarters with this publishing house are more widely known and more thoroughly read than any equal number who have acquired literary distinction, while the number of Roman authors who are represented in this country by Messrs. B. & H. include the Poet Laureate of Italy and the great master of fiction, Josephus.

"While we may congratulate the firm upon the success they have achieved in producing the most exquisite illustrated gift books of the season, and compliment them upon the typographical execution of all their publications, we think still higher praise is due to this house for their encouragement of Athenian talent, and their rare tact in introducing many who have become popular mainly by the discriminating manner in which they have been ushered into the presence of the reading public. Whatever share of prosperity this publishing house has reached, there are none to attribute it to any narrow or selfish policy. They have dealt with authors of all lands upon the broad ground of mutual benefit, and have never sought to make bread out of other people's brainwork and leave the worker without fair compensation. It is a credit to Athens that such an establishment has grown up and flourished in our city."

Which reminds me of a rural schoolmaster who taught the village school for several winters in succession, and whose specialty was writing. Years after, if the handwriting of any of his pupils was spoken of, the honest man would reply innocently, "Yes, he is a very fine writer, very superior. His writing is precisely like mine!"

Messrs. Brummel & Hunt's authors are the most widely known and the most thoroughly read in the country.

And we who belong to that Happy Family feel that the lines have fallen to us in pleasant places, and try to look unconscious of our preëminence, while we cannot wholly repress a glow of gratification.

But what is this? We, or rather you,--for just here I find it agreeable to follow the admonition of Mr. Guppy's mother, and "get out" of the company--_you_ have become popular mainly by the discriminating manner in which you have been ushered into the presence of the reading public! O, what a fall is here, my countrymen! Imagine the emotions of the belle on being told that the attention and admiration which she fondly supposed had been excited by her wit and beauty, were mainly owing to the discriminating manner in which she had been ushered into the ball-room!

Some little margin is left for grace of form, loveliness of feature, elegance of dress, but mainly it is the white-gloved usher to whom her success is due!

There are never wanting persons who, not content with writing history as it is, are always conjuring up what would have been if things had happened differently. If Charles I. had not lost his head, if Napoleon had beaten at Waterloo, if Booth's pistol had missed fire, events would have gone thus and thus. A fruitful field opens before such speculators in the history of our country's literature. Had Messrs. Brummell & Hunt gone into the grocery business, for instance, Homer would have been cobbling shoes in Haverhill, or at most, chronicling small beer in a country newspaper. Dante would have been a lawyer in chambers, drawing up wills and plodding through deeds, but leaving no foot-prints on the sands of time. Boccaccio would have been milking cows at Brook Farm, or growing round shouldered over his desk in the Jerusalem Court House. Miriam would have been writing children's stories for the "Little Cormorant," at fifty cents a column, and as Uncle Tom's Cabin would never have been built, the South would never have been provoked into rebellion; we should have had no war and no greenbacks, prices would never have risen, ten per cent. and fifteen cents would have been the same, and we should all have died comfortably in our beds.

But it is a theme for lasting gratitude not only that this house did not go into the "cotton trade and sugar line," but also that whatever share of prosperity it has reached, there are none to attribute it to any narrow or selfish policy. It has never sought to make bread out of other people's brain-work and leave the worker without fair compensation. But upon what meat hath this our "Athens Gazette" fed, that it is able to make so sweeping a negative, asks the unsanctified heart. By what authority saith it these things, and who gave it this authority? Has it had personal interviews with all the persons who ever had or sought business connections with Messrs. Brummel & Hunt, and learned from them that no narrow or selfish policy has ever been attributed to them? Even this would not establish its assertion, but surely nothing less than this would. It does not say that no narrow or selfish policy was ever indulged in, but that nobody so much as attributed it to them. Cæsar's wife is above suspicion. But has any one asked Cæsar?

It is not, of course, to be for a moment supposed that so great a house as the one in question would ever stoop to manufacture its own "puffs," if I may be pardoned the term. Such a course might befit the "parvenu hawkers and peddlers" of books, but not an hereditary aristocracy like this. Its "Poet-Publisher" has indeed distinguished himself by other figures than those of the day-book and ledger, but I have never heard that any member of the firm has been ambitious of a place among the prose writers of Greece. Nor is it I suspect any the more to be presumed because these paragraphs came to me conspicuously marked with blue and red lines, and superscribed in the handwriting with which many years of correspondence with the firm of B. & H. had made me familiar. For do we not all, as soon as we see ourselves complimented in the newspaper, send it around to all our friends by the early mail? But I am reminded of a story which I learned and recited many times in school. While the regicides Goffe, Whalley, and Maxwell were hiding in Connecticut, a rough fellow came from afar and terrified the simple villagers by challenging them to mortal combat. As they stood pale with consternation, a venerable man, unknown to all, appeared, gravely accepted the challenge, and immediately disappeared. At the appointed time throngs were gathered to witness the conflict. As the clock struck the hour, the mysterious combatant threaded the crowd and took his place in the arena armed only with a broom, and armored with a huge cheese fastened upon his person as a breastplate. The astonished bully began the fight by plunging his sword into the breast, or rather the cheese, of his opponent. The latter responded by dipping his broom into the neighboring mud-puddle and giving the bully a gentle swash about the neck. A second lunge into the cheese and the broom went higher, sweeping the fighter's chin. A third, and with a fresh baptism of mud the broom was drawn tenderly over the whole face of the baffled ruffian, who, unused to such warfare, threw down his sword in terror, crying, "Who are you? You must be either Goffe, Whalley, or the Devil!"

Moral: So I, viewing this paragraph and sundry others that follow it, and seeing how finely they are timed to the issues of the contest, cannot avoid the mental soliloquy, "Brummell & Hunt, or--Planchette!"

J. S. PARRY, OF THE FIRM OF H., P., & CO., TO M. N., JANUARY 1, 1769.

"The experience of the past few months suggests that it is likely to take some time to settle the details of the proposed arbitration by correspondence. A personal interview of half an hour would obviate much writing and delay. Will you see me at Zoar at such time next week (after Tuesday) as may be convenient to yourself?"

M. N. TO MR. PARRY.

"If you really think it worth while, by all means come; only the preliminaries seem to me so simple that they might almost be left to whistle themselves. I will see you, if you please, at two o'clock, P. M., Wednesday, the sixth,--day after to-morrow. A train leaves the Athens Railroad Station, I think, at 12.15. You must leave the train at Zoar. Probably there will be a carriage at the station if you prefer it to walking, but whichever way you come you will wish you had taken the other.

M. N. TO MR. DANE, JANUARY 4, 1769.

"Saturday I had a letter from Mr. Parry, proposing to come down and arrange with me the preliminaries for (or of) arbitration. I would much rather he should go to you and do it. Still, I fear if I suggest that, it will only occasion further delay, and if I can get any hold on them, perhaps I had better get it. But I don't know what the preliminaries ought to be. Maybe it is nothing in particular, only arrangements as to time, and so forth. Still, if there is anything I should stipulate for, or any boundary lines I ought to draw, or any precautions I ought to take, can you not advise me by letter? If there is any doubt on my part, I shall make no engagements, but say to him frankly, I wish to consult you first, and then I shall come to Athens bright and early, Thursday, and _consult_ you _nolens volens_."

MR. DANE TO M. N., JANUARY 5, 1769.

"A happy New Year to you. My opinion is that Mr. Parry will try to _settle_ matters with you, and have no reference or intervention. If he proposes to arrange a reference, you know what you want and can write it, perhaps, though my honest opinion is you need help. You may call it snubbing, or sneering, or flattery, but my opinion is you are not fit to meet these people in such a matter.

"Hunt fooled you just as he pleased when he went over, and you wrote me quite a penitent letter, which showed a good heart, but a feeble mind! If you arrange for any reference, they should agree to pay you any amount that may be adjudged to be equitably due to you for arrearages of copyright.

"You are [&c.] But as I have told you, there is not a lawyer in Athens who would undertake personally to manage a controversy of this kind, being himself the party, and you are not exempt from the laws of gravitation." ...

VIII.

ARRANGEMENT OF PRELIMINARIES.

AT the appointed time, Mr. Parry presented himself. But instead of proceeding, at once, to settling the preliminaries of the proposed arbitration, he wished to discuss the question at issue to see if we could not settle it between ourselves. I unhesitatingly declined, as I had from the beginning declined to do so. He said he had brought with him the papers and figures to show exactly how we stood. I declined to look at them, telling him that I was entirely incompetent to make a satisfactory examination of such a point, being unsound even on the multiplication-table. He asked if I would not be satisfied, supposing they could clearly prove that I had made more money out of the books than they had. I said not at all, that I had arrived at that point where I did not, in the least, care how much the publishers made; that if other authors had ten per cent., I wanted ten per cent., even if the publishers had to beg their bread from door to door. He seemed a little nonplused at such heartlessness; said he had come prepared to show that they had made only about seven tenths as much as I, and he had supposed that would satisfy me. As I affirmed it would not, he was somewhat at a loss how to proceed. I told him that in the beginning, that--and a great deal less, indeed--would have satisfied me, but that affairs had gone on so long, and feeling been so much aroused, that no sort of explanation would satisfy me; that I wished the matter to go entirely away from ourselves into the hands of unprejudiced and uninterested persons.

[After several months of profound reflection, I will here interpolate a remark which future commentators will please to remember does not belong to the original text, namely: that I do not see why the publisher's profits need be considered as the _ultima Thule_ of an author's. Is it the phantom of a distorted imagination that the author has a far larger property in the book than the publisher? Does it not cost him infinitely more than it costs the publisher? And even leaving the infinite, and coming down to finite matters, are not the fields which the publisher reaps so much broader than the author's one little close, that a far smaller share in the gleanings would give the publisher a far more heaping granary. An author, we will say, publishes one book in a year. His profits are a thousand dollars. But the publisher publishes twenty books a year, on which, in the same ratio, he gets twenty thousand dollars. Suppose five hundred dollars were taken from the publisher's profits and added to the author's. The publisher would still have an income of ten thousand dollars, while the author would have one of only fifteen hundred.]

Mr. Parry then suggested leaving it to Mr. Stanhope, one of my friends, a suggestion which I did not adopt. He asked me if I still continued to prefer that it should be left to more than one person, and I left him no doubt on that point. He then suggested that we should give up the two we had chosen, and select entirely new ones. I assured him that I was not in the least dissatisfied with their choice or my own, and I would prefer to make no change. He suggested that Mr. Rogers was very hard of hearing, and might not be able to act on that account. I asked if he was materially harder of hearing now than when they selected him to settle the case alone. Mr. Parry did not know that he was, and finally consented to go on as we had begun. This, in the telling, does not sound quite straightforward, yet Mr. Parry seemed so frank and fair that I was more than half convinced, in spite of all other appearances, that they meant no wrong. At least I did not see how any one could be conscious of wrong, and yet seem so honest as he seemed. He was certainly entirely courteous, though, perhaps, it is not parliamentary to put that in. One tenth part of his fairness in the beginning would have set my doubts completely at rest. He said--but tenderly enough, as if he loved me à la Isaak Walton--that they lost money on "Holidays," and that the books have not been selling very well for two years past. For all which I am very sorry. Still I remember that Mr. Hunt was always urgent for me to make books. The last two books were published in book form at his suggestion. My first notion was to publish them as magazine articles. The same was the case with "Old Miasmas." They grew into books, and I have just found an old letter in which Mr. Hunt says, "Come out with a bang. The book's the thing in which you will catch the conscience of the public." And again, "A volume by all means." Nothing could be more encouraging, and stimulating, and agreeable than his tone and bearing. I recollect his saying to me, when we were discussing the last book, "You ought to write only books." In a letter of October 23, 1767, he says, "I think you are quite right not to print your Burnet article at present, and I hope your thoughts will grow into a volume to be issued by B. & H., in the spring." In a letter of December 11, 1765, he says, "Your sermon is good, but I hope you will not print it till you put it into a volume. Ask Brother S., your neighbor, if I am not right. If you were here, I could tell you a thousand reasons _why_ your interest would not be served in the printing of this paper in a newspaper or magazine, nor the interest of the reading world, either. I speak as a fool, no doubt, but in your service.

"I hope you will give all your energy and time to 'Winter Work.' A new book from your pen in the spring will help the old ones, and is already asked for by our booksellers in the West and elsewhere."

In short, as I look back, it seems to me that Mr. Hunt's influence--always pleasantly and heartily exerted--was towards the production and not the repression of books. I deeply regret that they have not enriched him to the extent of his desires and deserts, and I should regret it still more deeply had I urged the publications upon him as warmly as he urged them upon me.

Although the firm lost money on "Holidays," this paper shows that they were ready to accept another juvenile book as soon as I told them of its existence. I suppose there is some occult reason for it, known only to publishers; but the carnal mind would naturally infer that having lost money on one, they would be shy of a second venture.

Mr. Parry repeated Mr. Hunt's assertion, that he replied with his own hand to my first letter of inquiry. Mr. Hunt, in speaking of it to me, could not recall the exact time of his writing it, but Mr. Parry said that Mr. Hunt told him that morning, that it was written directly after the reception of my letter. But in a letter written two or three weeks after mine was sent, Mr. Hunt says by his amanuensis, "I have _not_ answered your last letter touching the terms expressed in the contracts." Mr. Hunt apparently labors under the curious psychological infelicity of remembering the letters he does not write, and forgetting the letters he does write.

After Mr. Parry had told me that my books had not been selling well for a year or two, and that they had lost money on them, I hunted up old letters of Mr. Hunt's to see if they would not show that he had urged me to write in the form of books. In doing so I found a letter dated September 23, 1764, from which I make the following extract: "The contract has been delayed for a sufficient cause." (He then gives as a reason Mr. Brummell's absence.) "The percentage will read fifteen cents per copy, as the business times are fluctuating the prices of manufacture so there is no telling to-morrow or for a new edition what may be the expenses of publication, so we reckon your percentage in every and any event as fixed at fifteen cents per volume on all your works. If it should cost $1.50 to make the volumes you are sure of your author profit of fifteen cents. The price at retail may be $1.50, $2.00, or $3.00, as the high or low rates of paper, binding, etc., may be, but _you_ are all right. This arrangement we make now with all our authors."