 CHAPTER VIII. Preliminaries At the appointed time Mr. Perry 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 percent, I wanted ten percent, even if the publishers had to beg their bread from door to door. He seemed a little nonplussed 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 hear 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 ultimate duly 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 gleaning's 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. Perry then suggested leaving it to Mr. Stan Hope, 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. Perry 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. Perry 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 anyone could be conscious of wrong, and yet seemed 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, Allah Isaac 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 Myasmas. They grew into books, and I have just found an old letter in which Mr. Hunt says, Come out with a bang, the books 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 and 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 rest, 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. Though 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. Perry 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. Perry 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 eminuences, 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. Perry 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 the letter dated September 23, 1764, from which I make the following extract. Quote, the contract has been delayed for a sufficient cause. End quote. He then gives as a reason Mr. Brummel's absence. Quote, the percentage will read 15 cents per copy as the business times are fluctuating the prices of manufacture, so there is no telling tomorrow or for a new addition what may be the expenses of publication, so we reckon your percentage in every and any event as fixed at 15 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 15 cents. The price at retail may be $1.50, $2 or $3, 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. End quote. If I had discovered this letter sooner, it would have simplified matters greatly. But I did not find it till this statement had been, as I supposed, finished. I therefore thought best to put it in here in a sort of chronological order. What I had previously said touching its substance I said from memory solely. I could not even have declared whether its assertions had been made by pen or lips, but I think it not only fully bears out all that I have alleged, but shows more than my memory had retained or my perception divined. The letter before its close says, quote, as I write, the contracts are reported ready so I enclose them. Sign both and send back the one marked with red X. You keep one and we the other. End quote. I see now that in case the books had gone up to $3, I should have been sure of my author profits of 15 cents and all right, even if I had continued on the old terms of 10 percent. But I did not see it then nor anything else for that matter. The reasoning of this process is not a little remarkable. Books of all kinds are changing, therefore your price shall not change. And what kind of percentage is that which is no percentage at all but an unchangeable quantity? I made direct inquiries of all the authors accessible to me whose works were in the hands of messers Brummel and Hunt at or about that time. I received information from some 15 different persons. With no one of them did messers Brummel and Hunt make the arrangement they made with me. Nine reported receiving 10 percent. Some received half profits. One received 12 cents on a book that retailed at a dollar and a quarter. One said that he received 12 cents on a dollar and a half book and 10 cents on a dollar and a quarter. Another that he receives 10 percent sometimes but not always. Mr. Hunt often urged upon me the advantage and importance of my writing only for them, so that, with the exception of the segregational issue most, for which I was writing when I began with messers Brummel and Hunt, I have neither in periodical or book written for any other house than theirs. It might seem as if this injunction of his, all friendly and judicious as it may have been, did put them under something like an obligation to do as well by me as any other house would do. When City Lights was published, its retail price was a dollar and a quarter, and the first account allows me 12 and a quarter cents of volume. Mr. Perry said that the retail price of the books was changed five or six times after my percentage was changed to a fixed sum. The latter change was made in the autumn of 1764. In a copy of Rocks of a Fence, date 1764, the advertised retail price of all the books is one dollar and a half. Old Myasmas was published in the autumn of 1764 and was, from the beginning, sold at two dollars. These are the only prices that I have seen or heard of since the first. Mr. Perry, however, says they have at two different times been held at one dollar and seventy-five cents. I think those times must have been a very short duration as I never saw those prices advertised and never knew of their existence. I have inquired incognito of the principal booksellers in Athens, and not one of them was aware that the price had ever been put down since it was put up, but with all the changes the difficulties of computing percentage can hardly have been insurmountable. Mr. Perry at this time told me what I did not know before, that the publishers reserved to themselves in the first contract for City Lights fifteen hundred books. The contract specifies only the first edition. I suppose an edition has no prescribed size, but I have never in any other case known more than the first thousand being reserved to the publishers. City Lights was published September 1762. On the first of December of the same year Mr. Hunt reported that before January it would have gone to a fourth edition. I should like to know if each of those four editions numbered fifteen hundred volumes. What, for instance, was the size of the second edition or the third? For careful inquiry I found no one in the regular line paying or receiving less than ten percent, with the possible exceptions I have mentioned. Mr. Dixon was assured by a prominent member of the firm that the troubadours never think in any case of offering less than ten percent on the retail price, and that in some cases they paid twelve-and-a-half or fifteen. He is confident that there has been no change within the last few years, and that ten percent is the current copyright with all reputable publishers, not only in Corinth, but in other cities. He says an instance occurred with one of their writers, in which they agreed to pay a certain amount per volume. But as there was an implied understanding that it was so much percent on the retail price, the matter was compromised between publishers and author when prices went up. M.N. to Mr. Dane, January 7, 1769. Your letter made me laugh, and so did me good, like a medicine. By turning to the latter pages of my bulky book, you will find the gist of Mr. P's errand here. He desired first to explain the matters to me, then to refer to Mr. S, then to take two new men, but I persuaded him out of them all. He was to communicate with Mr. Russell today, and I expect to hear the result tomorrow. I am in hopes to have the thing begun on Saturday, if we can make forty ends meet. Mr. Perry thinks it will take several days, as he says they shall bring out their books for examination, shall not confine themselves to the prescribed custom of publishers to pay ten percent, but shall bring in other things I don't know what, their figures I suppose, to show what an unprofitable thing publishing is. He was uncertain whether Mr. Rogers would consent to act. I begged Mr. P. to say to him that I should not consider it any hostility to me. Mr. P. suggested that I write it to him, and I did. Can you appear on Saturday in case they agree to meet? I don't want to come out myself. I send you here a little book for you to look upon, like John Rogers, and I think that will answer far better than I could. I will send you also my accounts in case you might want them. I believe you have the contracts. You can read the statement, I suppose, or simply present it and let them read it themselves. I would have preferred that you should see Mr. Perry, but I could find no sufficient excuse for not seeing him myself, and I feared it might be offensive to insist upon your presence. But as it was Mr. Perry apparently had no mischievous intent. He said they should pay if the arbitrator so decided, but seemed particularly desirous that I also should agree to accept the decision and fully to exonerate, be, and age in case the decision should be for them, and that I should say so to my friends and those who had been made acquainted with my dissatisfaction. Of course it would be infamous not to do that. I was very favorably impressed. It seems as if they must be honest, or he could not appear as he did, but I assure you I did not gush in the least. I told him I should accept the decision as far as regarded the past before this year, but all the world could not convince me that they had met me fairly and satisfactorily since I began to investigate, that I thought their course had been such as to aggravate and even to originate suspicion. Hunt, Perry, and Company, to M. N. January 7, 1769 We have had an interview with Mr. Russell this morning. He agrees with us that it would not be wise to enter into the business of the reference without ample time to consider all the points involved, especially as Mr. Rogers declines positively to act, and we are now compelled to choose another referee. Mr. Russell is obliged to leave for London on Saturday night, and he on the whole prefers to come to Athens some four weeks hence if need be, or on his return from the Witton Nagamote the 1st of March. We trust this will be satisfactory to you. For the associate of Mr. Russell in the case, we select the honorable G. W. Hampton, late member of the Witton Nagamote from this city. The two gentlemen are well known to each other. Please inform us if he is satisfactory to you, and also please inform us if it is your wish that a third person should be chosen by these two before a hearing be had, or only in the event of their disagreeing. M. N. to Mr. Dane. So here it is, you see, apparently as far off as ever. What do you say? I think I have heard that Mr. Hampton is a large paper manufacturer, and also that the house have their paper of him. If so, I think it would not be best that he should be the one. But I don't wish to be cantankerous. I will not answer them till I hear from you. Mr. Dane to M. N., January 9. When you have practiced law thirty years, man and boy, as I have, you will know that any business that requires the presence of five or six businessmen at a given time and place is of indefinite duration, and if those men are five hundred miles apart, the indefiniteness becomes definitely long at least. You know there is to be an organization of the new Witten Agamot after March 4, so that if we wait for Mr. Russell we can have no hearing this winter. I know of no objection to Mr. Hampton. M. N. to H. P. and Company. I cannot say that it is satisfactory, because nothing can be really satisfactory to me but an immediate and pacific settlement of my claims. To Mr. Hampton I have no personal objection whatever, but I seem to recollect when we were all living in paradise before the fall, having heard Mr. Hampton spoken of by Mr. Hunt as a paper manufacturer, with whom you had large dealings. If so, would it not be almost too much to expect of human nature that it should be strictly impartial under such circumstances? I simply make the suggestion, not even being sure that it is founded on fact. The choosing of a third person I should leave entirely with the two chosen. If they think a third unnecessary, so much the better. I should certainly think two fair-minded, unprejudiced persons might get at the truth without recourse to a third. H. P. and Company. To M. N. January 26th. Our business relations with the firm of which honorable G. W. Hampton is the head have been for the last three or four years of the most insignificant amount, certainly not of a nature to warp his judgment in our favor. Besides, Mr. Hampton is, like Mr. Russell, too honorable a man, still harping on my honor, to accept the position of a judge where his prejudices are enlisted. We do not understand from your letter that you object to Mr. Hampton. On hearing from you, we will write to Mr. Russell and say that the reference only waits his convenience. M. N. to H. P. and Company, February 1st. I am advised, and the advice is in accordance with my own opinion, that I have no right to object to your choice unless the person chosen be so undesirable that I decline arbitration rather than accept him as arbitrator. This certainly is not true in the case of Mr. Hampton. I have given you my only reason for objecting to him. Since you assure me this reason does not exist, I withdraw my objection. H. P. and Company, to M. N. February 11th. We have written to Mr. Russell to say that Mr. Hampton will meet him in London during the week of inauguration, and that the two gentlemen can then fix such time for hearing the case as may suit their own convenience. M. N. to Mr. Dane, February 11th. I believe that you have gone on a mission to the King of the Cannibal Islands. Otherwise, as Cicero says, where in the world are you? Writing is more evident than that you have given the world a quit-claim deed of me. And that is why I am writing. About a fortnight ago Mr. Woodley, the Grand Vizier, wrote to me saying that he should be off duty on the 4th of March, and if I liked would be very happy as a friend to present my grievances to the referees. Mr. Woodley is an intimate friend of mine, and when he was down to see me last summer, I renault varied my Dolores at his own request. I wrote to Mr. Woodley at once that we must not swap horses in crossing a stream, even though the horse was a poor one. I did not use those words, but that was the substance of doctrine. The poor horse, my love, meaning you. He did not know your connection with it, or did not remember. Since then your intense and aggravated silence has led me to think that perhaps you are so utterly weary with the whole thing and me into the bargain that you would hail with delight any opportunity to bid farewell along farewell to all my greatness. If you do, here is your chance. If you write to me and say that you should be happy to wash your hands of me with castile soap and three waters, I shall weep salt tears from the briny deep and send on to London by next mail. You have had a rich time of it with me, I know, if I only meant to pay you. Well, truly I do mean to pay you, a little, not much, say, seventy-five cents or a dollar, not half as much as you deserve. But I tell you now, so you need not think I am leaving your family penniless. And what I do not pay in money I shall make up to you in appreciation, for I think you have managed the case with clear insight and much skill, that is, under my supervision. I have held you back from what was rash and inaccurate, and between us we have got matters pretty well in hand. Now it seems to me that if you have held out so long it will be better for you to hold out to the end. The making up is about made up. To be sure I am going to rewrite my statement and shall probably continue the process so long as it remains in my possession. But the main points will be the same, so you will apparently have little more trouble with it. Now please to tell me just how you feel about it, or rather, for that is too much to ask, just how you propose to feel. I think you have had my statement about long enough for your share, so I will take my turn at holding the baby. You may send it down by express, if you please, together with the bills and contracts thereunto appertaining, and let me see if it has improved with age. Mr. Dane to M.N. February 18th. Ungrateful female, after all my trials and tribulations and fault-findings at your course, you now purpose to swap me off. Well, I will free my mind if I die for it. My opinion is that neither Mr. Woodley, nor principalities, nor powers, nor any other creature, can do so much for you in your trial as I can. I believe Mr. Woodley is a few years younger than I, and so has a greater chance to live to the end of it, Keterus Paribus, but Keterus are not Paribus, because he lives away from the scene, and there never could be a conjunction of Hampton, Woodley, Russell, etc. If I were to fly up and say I would have nothing more to do with your case, because you won't follow my advice, there would be reason in it. But for you to take a new advisor, why you don't know how much Mr. Woodley must go through to be as familiar with the matter as I am? And don't you see that you must not tax these far-off friends in this way? I, who am your real friend, you may do anything with, but Mr. Woodley and Mr. Russell never will leave all and follow you to Athens and spend days on this trial. Do not be foolish unless it is really necessary. I want to make H. P. and Company do right, and I want to do all for you that is possible. As the matter must be heard at Athens, I am the person to do it with least trouble. Your letter found me at Marathon yesterday, I shall be home next week, and your paper shall be sent. In the meantime, the Lord restore you to reason. Swap me off, indeed, your only friend. M.N. to Mr. Dane, March 8. I am bright, but not quick. In short, I am slow. When you in—ex—well, asked me in Oxford what I was writing my statement for, I suppose you saw what I only just now see—that a large part of it was not necessary. I had in mind the justification of my mode as well as of my claim, and for that the whole case needed to be unfolded. But since that letter was found, my mind has somehow clarified. The brown sugar has all turned white, and if you want to eat me while I am sweet, now is your time. Now then, as you are a man and inexperienced, let me briefly jot down for you an outline of my proper mode of defense. The brief is a perfect Troy in a nutshell, and all you need to plume your wings with. Read that in the Valley of Decision, and immediately walk across the room to the corner where H&P will be cowering, and shake your fists in their face. They will reply that they do not make one author the criterion for another, where at you will take a flying leap over all the intervening pages to the letter which says, this arrangement we now make with all our authors. They will then bring forward their books to show that they cannot pay me more without starving themselves. You will immediately rule that out of court as not germane to the case, and the arbitrators will at once award me three thousand dollars due, and three thousand more damages, which you will bring me in gold to Zohar, and I will buy two pounds of New York candy and give a party in honor of the event. I don't see why the rest of the statement need to be brought in at all unless, first, they deny that they have not made the same arrangements with all their authors. If they do, you must turn to my declaration and proof, or, second, they say that my mode of making my claim was so offensive that they could not notice it. This I have heard of in substance privately. If they do this, then I insist upon the whole statement being laid before them. MN to Mr. Dane, March 10. The Sense of the Deer, as Pegadie said, when Davie gave in his adhesion to her marriage on the ground of her being able to come and see him without cost of co-chire. Apropos to what? Why to your letter, of course, and a two-month session, and dark care sitting behind the horseman in general. Isn't the 10th of March the Prince of Wales wedding day? The advantage of Halliday being in the cabinet is that I shall control you, you will control him, he will control Grant, and for once we shall be sure of having the government well administered. For my private fortunes, if I have the Lord High Chancellor for my judge, the Co-Secretary of State for my fighting corps, and the Grand Vizier Souserain for my reserve force, I shall at least fall into, as well as in, good company. Dr. Edwards used to say that if Mr. Springfield were not a sharp New England lawyer, he would be the first statesman of the day, mutato, nominé, de te fabula, et pluribus unum, et cetera. It seems impossible to get the kink of the law out of your brain. I can stand it very well, because I have you only in spots, but poor F, who has the whole vast sandy plain destitute of vegetation on her hands, must have a life of it. Behold a few of the holes which I am about to punch in your case to let in the light. We claim ten percent, right. H says it is more than you were worth, and besides you agreed to less. Very well put, and very probable. We reply, ten percent is the least anybody is worth. No, we don't. We decline to enter into the question of worth, and demand the pound of flesh. They say, very well, here is the bond. And then we say, you deceived us into our assent by, et cetera, et cetera. As for their cruelty, not a bit of it. It is legitimate warfare. They made my fame by advertising, they say. Very well. I reply, first, they didn't, and second, what if they did? If they made my sales by advertising, why did they not make A's in the same way? He has never yet received a penny for the B treatise. Why not C's books, of which he says all that have been sold, a cat could carry, and so on. On the other hand, that they have done a great deal towards circulating them, I readily admit. What do I pay them ninety percent for, I should like to know, if not that? Advertising is their business. That they have done more than another publisher would, I deny. They have simply transacted their business in the way they deemed most profitable to themselves. I deny that they have done anything for me out of the usual course of trade. About the advertising, I am indeed not fully persuaded. Only the books have had their day and would have fallen off any way. Of fortnight or so ago, perhaps more, Mr. Smith applied to me to write for his paper. I named my price. He rather recalcitrated. I wrote a letter that tickled him, and he then proposed to come down and see me and make an arrangement. He was to be in Athens, the guest of his friend, Mr. Blank, but in Athens he heard from two different sources that I was less popular than I had been, and so he beat a retreat to Corinth without seeing me at all. Isn't there a wheel within a wheel? Is this wearing away my soul? And my soul must be like the liver of Titius, forever spent, renewed forever. If you think I don't value money, send me down a hundred dollar note and see. The manner of my making my claim is not material to the issue, no, but there is no use in wasting the time and temper of the men by unnecessary words. Now I beg you to disabuse your mind of the supposition that we are a court. The special advantage of this way of settlement is that we are not a court. You will probably little relish this letter, but it is for your good. MN to Mr. Dane, March 20. I do not know whether your letter requires an answer, but as the old philosopher said, I have often been sorry I kept still, but never was sorry I spoke, so I will give you the benefit of the doubt. Ellingwood and Samson are respectable, so far so good. I suppose they stand first in New England, don't they, by all odds. But they are in New England, and I have conceived a distaste for New England publishing. Also, they don't publish solid books such as mine, but weightly, bacon, wheaten, and similar light literature. Would they be as likely to do well by me as a big New York Mandarin, like the Troubadours or Pairvilles? Do they know that my popularity is like that retired clergyman whose sands of life are nearly run out? They will take a new book, but shall I let the old go to waste, and ought not the new to go with the old to communicate an impulse thereunto? And is it not better to let the whole be till after arbitration, or the overthrow of the existing order of things? I should like H. P. and Company to be as little exasperated as possible, before Gog and Magog come to close quarters. Homer had to pay an immense sum for one of his books, which was quite out of print and of no use to the publisher. If Mr. Campton testifies that the cost of making my books is so much, and the profits so much, they must admit or deny it. If they admit his figures, they admit the profits which they have here to fore denied. If they deny his figures, they deny profits. And how can they ask high prices for unprofitable property? If mertens have personal grievances to redress, they would be more likely to take me up conamore, and so I make friends of the mammon of unrighteousness. But I shall be a troublesome person hereafter to transact business with. Having once wasted my sweetness on the desert air, I shall be henceforth only the mother of vinegar. Where I see a publisher coming in at the front gate, I shall drop the cake-basket into the wash-boiler, slip the spoons into my pocket, and keep my hand on my watch all the time I am talking with him, which might not look conciliatory. Be sure and tell Mr. Campton this, and also that there is no sale for the books, that is, if you ever say more to him about it. I don't wish to sail into anybody's good graces under false colors, and am willing to take for granted Butler's Samuel Declaration that the pleasure is as great in being cheated as to cheat. I am not sure I shall not write a book and call it Harry Carey or a Curiosity of Literature. And put the whole devil-tree of man into it. Is not he who compounds with wickedness as bad as he who commits it, and oughtn't I to hold up my beacon as a warning to all future generations? If I am not only to be fought above ground, but am also to be undermined, shall not I counter mine? And shall Trelawney die, and shall Trelawney die, than thirty thousand Cornish boys will know the reason why. I am that thirty thousand Cornish boys. You are not expected to answer my questions. You can ponder them as a theme for meditation in the night watches. Mr. Dane to M. N. March 22. Mr. Hunt proposes to pass the season abroad. Probably will go about the time the Lord High Chancellor and Company are ready to hear us. Hunt Perry and Company to M. N. April 12. We are in hopes of getting a meeting of our referees early next week. Mr. Russell has advised us of his intention of being in Athens some time next week, and we have requested him to appoint as early a day as possible in order to accommodate Mr. Hampton. We trust you will be prepared to meet the referees on any day they may appoint. M. N. to H. P. and Company. April 13. I have been ready to meet the referees for five months, and I trust nothing will hinder me from meeting them on any day they may appoint. A conjunction of the heavenly bodies was at length agreed upon for April 22, 1769. I mentioned the year for the benefit of future ages. Mr. Dane to H. P. and Company. April 16. To any right understanding of the questions involved in the proposed reference, it seems necessary that the referees should have information such as is indicated in the interrogatories herewith enclosed, which can come only from yourselves. If you can send me the answers before the referees meet, it may prevent delay. The interrogatories were as follows. 1. How many copies of each of the works of M. N. have been printed by your authority? How many additions of each, at what dates, and how many in each addition? 2. How many copies of each of said works have you accounted to her for, and at what rate of compensation for each, respectively? 3. How many copies of each of the works of the author's name below have you accounted for to said authors, respectively? And at what rate, per cent, on the retail price of each, when reckoned by percentage? And at what price in gross, when paid in gross? And upon what contract, if any, with each, for each of their works? That is to say, A-B-C-D-E-F-G-H-I-J-K-L-M-N. 4. Had you with either of the authors named above, on the day of the date of your last contract with M. N., or to it, on September 4, 1764, or afterwards? And when any, and if any, what agreement with either, and which of them, that such authors should receive any, and what some, in gross, instead of a percentage, and was such agreement written or verbal? 5. What were the net profits of the Adriatic each year from 1762 to 1767 inclusive? 6. What were the net profits of the firm of Brummel and Hunt each year from 1762 to 1767 inclusive? HP and Company to Mr. Dane, April 19. We are in receipt of your note addressed to Brummel and Hunt of the 16th instant with its enclosure. It seems to us premature to now consider the evidence to be used before the referees, as the ordinary preliminaries to the reference itself have not been completed. Mr. Dane to M. N., April 19. Your package came an hour ago and while I was reading it came this note from HP and Company. It means delay, I suppose, or perchance it means if M. N. has a lawyer, we will have one and put all in legal shape. HP and Company to M. N., April 21. On the 16th we received a communication from Mr. Nathan Dane which led us to suppose he was acting as your attorney and had charge of the matter of reference on your behalf. We replied to his communication and we have heard nothing from him since. I did not see that there was any point to any of these letters and I did not reply to them or give myself any trouble about them. If Messers Hunt, Perry and Company wanted further delay, why had they agreed upon a day and what should they want of further delay? As they had frequently had communication with Mr. Dane concerning this matter and had themselves spoken of him as my attorney without contradiction from me, I did not quite see how they could have waited for the interrogatories to be led to any new supposition in that respect. As to their having a lawyer, while I did not see why they should want one, I certainly had no objection. I thought Mr. Perry had come down to Zoar on purpose to arrange the preliminaries of the reference and that they were sufficiently arranged at that time, but I apprehended no trouble on that score and took no thought about it. End of Section 9. Section 10 of A Battle of the Books. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. A Battle of the Books by Gail Hamilton. Battle of Gogh and Magogh, Part 1. We have now reached a point in the tragedy where the English language breaks down and Pius Aeneas must rescue and tell Trojanus Ut-Opes at Lamenti-Blairegnum, Erewind Denei, Kike Ipsae, Miserima Vidi, and Quorum Pars Magnafui, Quistalia Fando, Mirmidomum, Dolop Pumve, Out Dury Miles Ulesie, Temporate Al Lacrimis. Said C. Tantis Amor, Cagnoscare Nostros, and Breviter Trogi, Supremum Audire Liborum, Quam Quam Animus Meminise Horit, Luc de Refugit in Cepiam. And giving the Aeneid with some variations I might go on, Est in Conspectu MN, Notissima Fama, Insula Divis Opum, Agrorum et Osboni Dum, Regna Meneband. I consented to be in Conspectu in Mr. Dane's earnest representations that matters might come up on which I was better informed than he, and on which my statements might be important. Of course, after all this trouble, it was not worthwhile to run any risk through mere personal feeling. At the appointed time, accordingly, the combatants appeared upon the arena at Mars Hill House in Marshal Array. Messers Hunt, Perry and Co. were led by a lawyer, Mr. Sudlow, whose purpose, it soon appeared, was not to open but to postpone the battle. I must admit I listened in amazement. Here, after sixteen months of backing and filling, three months after an arbitration had been agreed on, and more than a week after the day had been appointed by them and accepted by me, they appeared for the purpose of saying that they could not go on with the case. I remembered with astonishment that on the thirteenth of November preceding, the affair had seemed so simple to Mr. Hunt that he had written to one of those friends of mine to whom he had wished, and I had declined to refer the case, quote, if you and I, businessmen, could have had a chance to talk together, and M. N. would abide by your decision, I think that half-hour would be sufficient to settle the whole thing, end quote. Whereas now, before the man whom I had chosen, three months did not seem long enough. The reasons presented by Mr. Sudlow were, first, that the preliminaries were not arranged. The referees themselves averred in substance that this could be done in five minutes on the spot, and there need be no delay on that account. Mr. Sudlow said, secondly, that at an early stage of the affair I had waved all legal claim, or had never made any, yet that I know appeared with a lawyer as if to establish a legal claim, that this was an entirely new phase, and one which they could not meet without due preparation. It was alleged in reply that our courts do not distinguish between legal claims and claims in equity, and that however I might present my claim it was as a debt and not as a gift, that it surely would not be held by Mr. Hunt, Perry and Co., that the reference had been called to arbitrate upon a gratuity. After a good deal of talk Mr. Dane called for the authority by which they said I had waved all legal claims, and they produced the letter sent them by me on the 29th August 1767, about eight months before this time, which said, quote, of course I know that legally I have no right to go behind a contract, and therefore no legal claim upon you for additional money on those books that are named in the contract, end quote. Mr. Dane pointed out that even on this ground there was no waving of legal claims, except on those books named in the contract referred to. As only three books were embraced in that contract, as one was published under a different contract which we wished carried out, and five were published without any contract at all, the postponing of the case on this pretext was simply preposterous. It seemed to me, moreover, though I said nothing, that even had supposed eight months ago that I had no legal claims, I might have subsequently learned otherwise, and that any person who really wanted the case looked into and satisfactorily settled would never have been deterred by so slight an obstacle. But the contest as it stood was two-thirds legal, and it would seem as if an enterprising firm of four shrewd businessmen might have been prepared to illustrate it in eight months if they had given their minds to it. Mr. Sudlow affirmed, thirdly, that Messers Hunt, Perri and Co. had supposed they should meet me alone for a friendly reference, that on such a supposition they had arranged to be represented before the referees by one member of their firm, Mr. Markman, who had accordingly prepared to present the case, that until they received Mr. Dane's letter of interrogatories of the sixteenth instant, they had not supposed I should employ counsel, but if I employed counsel they should also employ counsel, that they were not prepared to appear with counsel, and must have a postponement for the purpose of making such preparation, and as Mr. Hunt was to leave for Europe on the following Monday, the postponement must hold till after his return from Europe. Mr. Dane asked them if they meant to allege that they had stipulated that I should not employ counsel. They said they had not so stipulated, but that they supposed I would not employ it. Mr. Dane then said that he had been my advisor from the beginning, both as my friend and as a friend of Mr. Hunt, Mr. Hunt having done him the honour to speak of him as an old friend, that he had had frequent communications with them on the subject, as they well knew, and that they had made no objection to his connection with it, that it made no difference except in name whether he was called my counsel or my friend. That, although he was a lawyer, he trusted he was not on that account to be excluded from the circle of my friends, and that, under the circumstances, it might be proper for him to state that my name had never been on his account books, and that he had all along counseled me only as a friend. This thing, he said, is not to be misunderstood. We want to be definite. Will you say that you will not proceed because MN has counsel, if you choose to call it so, when she never said that she would not have counsel, nothing ever having been said about it? They still reiterated their assertion that under the circumstances they could not go on with the case, as the business had looked to Mr. Hunt so simple that two businessmen could settle it in half an hour. It would seem as if almost any kind of a lawyer might have mastered it in the time between the sixteenth of April, when the idea of my having counsel first dawned upon the unsuspecting minds of Messers H. P. O., and the twenty-second when the hearing was to be had. The firm must rank law far below commerce, if a lawyer could not understand in six days, with three men to help him, what a merchant could comprehend in a half hour alone. Mr. Dane then consulted with me, and I told him upon the impulse of the moment that I would go on. This perhaps was hardly prudent or proper. But there had been so much difficulty and delay in bringing things even to this stage, the trouble had weighed so heavily and disastrously upon me that anything seemed better than an indefinite postponement. Moreover, the reasons which they alleged for delay appeared to me mere quibbles. I thought I saw that they did not design to have any hearing, and that if we should ever get another again there would be just as much reason for further delay as now, and if I did not secure a hearing now I never should. I felt that the referees must surely think they had been summoned on a fool's errand. I was quite aware not only of my inability to present the case adequately, but to present it at all in person. But I had the brief which Mr. Dane would have used, and I had my formidable history in which the referees could quarry at pleasure. Even if I should lose the case I was not without resource, for upon the instant when I saw that Mrs. Hunt, Perry and Co. were about to evade the only thing which I had wanted, namely a fair and full discussion, there came into my mind another tribunal which it would be impossible for them to evade, and before which I could present my case with or without counsel in my own time and way. I had all along had a vague feeling that something of service to my craft must come out of all this harassment to me, though no definite idea had ever evolved itself. But at that moment, tingling with indignation and contempt and a sense of outrage—an outrage greater than years here, greater I think than the junior members of the firm knew or intended, but not greater than Mr. Hunt knew and I believe counted on. At that moment I resolved that so far as I could help it no person should ever be placed in the position in which I found myself. If any writer thereafter should get into such a snare he should not blunder in as I had done, but walk with his eyes open. I thought that my brief and my universal history would be enough to draw the enemy's fire. I should know where they stood, and if I could not understand the analysis and cultivation of the soil I could at least map out the ground for other investigators. I felt that I could better afford to lose my case than my time. Mr. Hunt had calculated accurately enough the quality and amount of resistance he was accumulating against me. The thing he had not sufficiently calculated was the amount of force that could be brought to overcome that resistance. Mr. Dane then said that, having consulted me, he had one more proposition to make. He was not himself surprised at the turn affairs had taken. He had at the beginning advised me to have recourse to the courts as the only sure way of redress, but that I had always refused to do so. That he had repeatedly predicted, even to the preceding day, that some way would be found to avoid a hearing, that he thought it hardly fair for them to force me to go on alone whom they knew to be entirely unfamiliar with the details of business, who had scarcely in my whole life had any business transactions except with themselves and had left those entirely in their hands, who had not indeed expected to appear at all in the case and had only the night before reluctantly consented at his solicitations to be present. If you gentlemen think it fair and honorable to insist now at the last hour that M. N. Shell, without any friend, and entirely unprepared, meet you alone and conduct the case herself, she will do so. We have come here in good faith to have a hearing, and if such are the only conditions on which it can be had, we will accept them, although I think them hard. We will accept your understanding of the conditions instead of our own. Your firm shall have its representative, I will withdraw, M. N. will do the best she can, and you may see if you can make anything out of it. Mr. Perry seemed to think, like David Copperfield, that this was a disagreeable way of putting the business, and wished me to state that I did not feel that they wished to take any advantage of me. Mr. Dane said, I do not know what M. N.'s feelings are, my opinion is understood, and I shall state it whenever and wherever I choose. As my feelings were not under arbitration, I declined through Mr. Dean to make any declaration concerning them, but said I wished to go on with the case. Mr. Dane and Mr. Sudlow then withdrew, and the firm were reduced to the painful necessity of proceeding, although their anxiety in regard to my feelings was not relieved. They did not, however, proceed according to their own statement of what had been their understanding concerning the motive procedure. Before M. N.'s Dane and Sudlow withdrew, Mr. Sudlow said that they were to be represented by one member of their firm, and that Mr. Markman had prepared himself for such representation. Mr. Dane had distinctly stated that he withdrew on this understanding. After he was gone, I expected that M. N.'s Hunt and Perry would also withdraw according to their statement of their original intention, and its acceptance by Mr. Dane, instead of which Mr. Perry came to me and asked me if I had any preference as to whether the whole firm should remain or only one member of it. I conceived that this matter had been previously settled by express stipulation, that they had no right to open it again and place the decision on my preference. I disdained to receive as a favour what seemed to me the least of my rights, and I refused to express any preference about it. Mr. Perry said if I had no preference, of course they would rather stay, and they all stayed. The following paper was then drawn up by the referees and signed by Messers Hunt, Perry and Co. and myself. Athens, April 22, 1769. There being a controversy between Hunt, Perry and Co., as successors of Bramble and Hunt of Athens, and M. N. of Zoar, in regard to the amount due from the former to the latter for proceeds arising from the publication and sale of the books of which M. N. is the author, it is hereby agreed between the parties to the controversy to submit the points in dispute to George W. Hampton and James Russell as friendly referees with the right to the referees to choose a third as umpire, either on the general merits or on any specific point that may be submitted to said third person. And both parties to this agreement hereby bind themselves to accept the award of said referees as binding and conclusive without reserving any right of appeal to any court of law. In witnessware of, this agreement is signed by both parties in presence of the referees to whose custody it is committed. As I did not intend ever again to sign a paper whose import I did not fully comprehend, it may be supposed that I listened attentively to the reading of this paper, as I had no design to appeal to any court of law, and as it did not preclude me from appealing to the court to which I had made up my mind to appeal, I had no hesitation in signing it. The case being thus begun, nothing remained but to place into the hands of the referees the entire case in all its bearings between the firm of Brummel and Hunt and M. N. as presented by the latter, compiled chiefly from the original documents. In two parts. Part first, the case in brief. Part second, the case in full. Each part complete in itself. The part to be selected according to the taste, object, or judgment of the reader. October 22, 1768. The Case in Brief When M. Brummel and Hunt published City Lights, they made a contract to pay me ten percent on the retail price of the book after the first thousand copies were sold. I did not know that a contract was necessary, but they told me it was, and they also wrote my name in pencil to indicate where I was to write it in ink. Afterwards they published Alba Dies and Rocks of a Fence without any contract. When Old Miasma's was about to be published, it occurred to me that if a contract were necessary in one case it was in another, and I suggested it to Mr. Hunt. He accordingly had a new contract made out, embracing these three books, in which the firm agreed to pay me fifteen cents of volume for each volume sold. I think it must have been at the time this contract was made out, but I cannot be sure as to the time, that Mr. Hunt told me that they were going to pay me a fixed sum, fifteen cents on a volume instead of a percentage, that that was the way they were going to do with their authors on account of fluctuations, general uncertainties, and so forth. I made no objection. I felt none. I assented as a matter of course. I thought that this was his business and no affair of mine. I should have thought it intermeddling and offensive friendship to take exception, and I did not dream there was anything to take exception to. I had perfect faith in Mr. Hunt, and I reckoned my interests far safer in his hands than in my own. In the winter of 1767-8, I suddenly awoke to the fact that ten percent was the ordinary rate of payment to the author, and that I had been receiving for several years only six and a half periods, and seven and one-half percent. At the time Mr. Hunt changed his mode of payment, my books were selling at a dollar and fifty cents a volume, so that ten percent and fifteen cents were the same. I was therefore the less likely to take exception to the change. The contract embraced old miasmas, which was about to be published, but when it was published, the price of it and the rest of the books was put at two dollars and remained so ever since. All the books that have been published for me by Messers H. P. and Co. since old miasmas have been published without contract. On each of these books, five in number, they have paid me fifteen cents a volume, except holidays, on which they paid ten cents a volume. Holidays was sold at retail for one dollar and a half, the rights of men for one dollar and a half, the others were at the price of two dollars, the rights of men was not published until after I had made objection to the low price I had been receiving. Paravills and troubadours of Corinth, and publishers of Athens, have told me that ten percent on the retail price is the customary pay of authors. I claim that Messers Brummel and Hunt should pay me the difference between what they have paid and what ten percent would have been, and that, on all books sold in the future, they should pay ten percent. I agreed till less in full faith in their uprightness and in the belief, based on Mr. Hunt's statement and on my own high opinion of their justice and liberality, that I was faring just as others faired. Messers Brummel and Hunt refused to pay me more than six-and-two-thirds and seven-and-a-half percent, either for the past or the future, except on the rights of men, to which I had added, February 26, 1769, I claim now, after fourteen months of what theologians call waiting in the use of means, that they should reimburse me for the time and trouble it has cost me to enforce my claims. THE CASE IN FULL The case in full was the history just given, compiled as its perusal shows from various motives at various times for various persons. A few letters between Mr. Dain and myself have been inserted to meet sundry points which afterwards came up. A few slight verbal alterations have been made, and some facts from the newspapers have been introduced. Otherwise the statement here made, covering the time from October 1767 to February 1769, is the one which was presented to and acted upon by the referees. It was indeed a formidable object, and those unhappy gentlemen may be pardoned if for a moment, as they held it in their hands, they looked at others' faces in dismay. But it gives me pleasure to add, for the credit of our common humanity, that they met their fate like men, and by a well-organized system of ride and tie, arrived at their journey's end in a much fresher fashion than could have been expected of mere mortals. When the reading of this document was completed, Mr. Hunt Perry and co. took up the parable, Mr. Perry being the first spokesman, and here I may say that notwithstanding their assertion that they had expected to be represented by one of their firm, Mr. Markman, and that on such expectation Mr. Markman had prepared a presentation of the case, when I gave up my arrangements and consented to adopt theirs, their own seemed to have been changed. Instead of one member having it in charge, they all had a share in it, perhaps on the Pauline theory that if one member suffer, all the members must suffer with them. Mr. Perry began, speaking from notes, Mr. Hunt followed, and Mr. Markman brought up the rear with day-book and ledger. Each one seemed to have his part carefully marked out and assigned to him, and if it had not been for the assertion that they had intended to be represented by one, I should never have suspected that the subsequent management of this case, by all three, was a sudden and unaccountable afterthought. Mr. Perry began, by giving a general outline of the trouble, as seen from the firm point of sight. He admitted the pleasant relations in which we had previously stood. It seemed that in the latter part of 1767 I had something of a disappointment that the balance do me was not larger, and cast about to see how it could be increased, that the segregational issue most alleged that a larger sum was generally paid than I had received. And Mr. Jackson seemed to confirm this statement, that Mr. Dane, to whom also I had had recourse, had not alleviated my uneasiness, but had rather poisoned my mind against them as could be seen by the magnitude he had assumed here this morning, saying that he had never believed I should have a hearing and so forth, that, as a result of it all, I considered that I had a claim for additional money, a claim that lay back of the contracts as I had said, that I believed they had paid me less than they paid others, and in short, brought against them a charge of general disingenuousness. In replying to Messers Hunt Perry and Co., I was obliged to omit allusion to sundry points of minor importance, out of a tenderness to the referees, a tenderness of which probably, until this moment, they had no suspicion. To the readers of this narrative I have no tenderness whatever, since the matter lies in their own hands, and they can dismiss it at pleasure. I shall therefore touch this omitted points while sketching the outlines of the defense, and will say here that Mr. Perry's declaration regarding the cause of the great awakening is strictly true. My eyes were not opened by any profound reflections on the origin of evil, or the analogy of religion, natural and revealed to the Constitution and course of nature, but simply by the ignoble circumstance that I wanted money in my own miserable purse. The only consolation to be found for this shameful disclosure is the recollection of that three pence a pound on tea which produced George Washington and the Great American Republic. I have, however, in mitigation of this sordidness, brought forward one or two letters which show that I wanted the money for others, the inference naturally being that I was not in so imminent danger of elimination that the difference between Mayum and Tuum was in my mind entirely obliterated. Several letters between Mr. Dane and myself have also been introduced for the purpose of showing to what extent my mind was susceptible of being poisoned, with what ingredients the attempt was made, and how far it assimilated and how far rejected these ingredients. My opinion is that if such poisoning be a capital offense, my attorney and myself must die together, for I fear we are equally guilty. So far as Mr. Jackson was concerned, Mr. Perry said that he had been unsuccessful in business, was not now a regular publisher, and he did not think his testimony of what was accustomed several years ago was available in deciding what was the custom now. Regarding Messers Troubadour, Pairvilles, and others, he preserved a discreet silence, but objected to the introduction of the testimony of other publishers, as Messers H. P. and Co. conducted their business with their authors alone, without thinking it necessary to consult other publishers. Unless, therefore, I insisted upon other publishers being brought in, they should prefer to have them kept out. In reply to a question, Mr. Perry said he did not know what was the custom of other publishers in regard to paying authors. Now it was a very important part of my plan to have other publishers appealed to, but I was not in a condition to insist upon anything. I did not know what to do with them, even if I had them there. I certainly could not put them through a catechism, and I had no one to do it for me. So I said nothing, and the publishers were, of course, ruled out by default, is it? Mr. Perry deprecated any attributing of hostility to them. They had been desirous to have the matter amicably settled, so desirous that they had even offered to refer it to various friends of my own, with one of whom they had no acquaintance at all, with another of whom they had but a slight acquaintance, but whom they thought competent to settle it, and they had also offered to pay me ten percent on all future sales, all of which I had declined. With regard to the question of fraud, Mr. Perry would say in a general way that I went to them an unknown author, very urgent to publish City Lights, that I had a great deal of confidence in them, spoke emphatically of the important advantage to me of being published by Brummel and Hunt, that in short I came to them in such a way as almost to hold out to them a temptation to defraud me, so that if they had been inclined to it they would have been likely to do it then. He produced the following extracts from letters written by me to Mr. Hunt to sustain his charge, and if the printing of these letters seems somewhat appalling, let me assure the objector that it is a pleasing entertainment compared with the sensation of hearing them read before five men, two of whom are indifferent to you, three hostile, and four strangers. Kits, cats, sacks, and wives, how many were there going to St. Ives. Footnote. The editor considers this levity highly unbecoming so solemn an occasion, and footnote. I am moved here to say that those persons who, during the present century, have been annoyed by letters from this now repentant and remorseful writer, may find ample revenge for all their discomfort in a knowledge of the manner in which these letters have returned to plague the inventor. The first is dated April 14, 1762. Quote, I hope this letter sounds light and airy to you. I assure you it is very ghastly joking for me. I am burdened with a terrible secret which I wish to confide to you at the risk of losing your complacence forever. I dread to come at it, but I don't see how I can beat about the bush any longer. I am not at work on anything for the Adriatic. You would not print my letters, and you would not answer my letters, so Satan subsidized my idle hands, and I thought I would make a book. So I made a book. It is not about the war, nor the times, nor anything sensible. It is not a novel, nor a history, nor a poem, nor a criticism, nor a volume of sermons. Somehow it does not look like a book, nor sound like a book, nor act like a book, but it is a book. I can make my Davy on that. There is a title and a place for a preface and an introduction, and I can put in an appendix if I wish, and explanatory notes and a glossary and errata, and if you will publish it, I will give you the copyright and the premium and the patent and the monopoly and all the dividends, and if there is anything else, that its title is City Lights. It is blocked out in twelve chapters. One, moving. That gets us out of the old house and into the new one, and gives us a local habitation and a starting point. I wrote it for the AM, but you stunned me so with hurling back my paper pellets at my head that I did not dare try it again. Two, the bank. That means a grass bank, not a money bank. That has been printed. Three, my garden. That you have heard of. That was what I wanted the proof sheets for, and you may conceive how guilty I felt. It seemed all the while, like when Joab said to Amasa, Art thou in health, my brother? And took him by the beard with the right hand to kiss him, and smote him under the fifth rib, the wretch. But you see I was forced to be wily. If you had known that I was conspiring against your peace of mind, of course you would not have put the weapon into my hand. So I had to take you by the beard tenderly, or I should not have got the fifth rib at all, and that is the backbone of my book. Four, men and women. Been printed. Five, Tommy. Been printed. Six, Boston and home again. Been printed. Personal adventures of a rustic in the city. Seven, friendship. In your hands will be when you get this. Eight, dog days. Been printed. Nine, fading as a leaf, or something of that sort, knocks the bottom all out of the autumnal, sentimental kind of moral reflections. Been printed. Ten, winter. Snow and coal fires. Been printed. Eleven, my flower bed. A success to offset the failure to my garden. Twelve, happiest days. Now the question is, will you let me send it to you? You see it is almost all in print, so it will take but a minute to run it over. A longish kind of a minute, of course. I have not the least idea whether it is worth publishing or not. I don't want it published unless it will reflect credit on the literature of the country. Now may I be forgiven for telling a lie, but I don't want it published if it will reflect discredit. I will stick to that. I don't I want it published unless it will be read and liked by cultivated people. I don't want it to be at the level of school girls and shop boys. I want it to be a book such as, blank or blank or blank or blank or blank might take into the country, not for the thought or the theory, but for amusement, and such as would amuse them, such as Englishmen might read and value for its little sidelights thrown on American country life. I don't aim to do anything above amusement, and if it won't do that it is a failure, for there is nothing else for it to do. You see, it was not written with any view to a book. I suppose I have enough things printed to make a dozen books, and I have taken out enough for one about the size of Sir Thomas Brown. So far as the people I write for are concerned, I think now is as good a time as any. There is a kind of hiatus in bookmaking, and that gives me a chance for a hearing. My audience is more at leisure now, and not much poorer. It is especially adapted to the times in that it has not anything to do with them, and so will be a recreation if it is not a bore. I should not think it would sell, I must say, for there is not anything of it. Still, all the parts of it that have been printed have taken. I don't understand why. I have a certain vivacity of style which would be well enough if I had anything solid underneath, but I have no thought, no depth, no severe and careful culture, no comprehensiveness, no substance, nothing to raise me above the penny aligners, except perhaps the matter of vivacity, or whatever it is. But that is nothing to depend upon, no resource, no capital. My chief talent consists in raising great expectations, which will turn out like pips, I expect. It is no fault of mine. I do conscientiously the best I can. You are an illustration of this thing. You expect a number one things of me. But you have no ground for it. I have sent you my a number one things already, and you see they are not up to the mark. But they are the very best I can do under the circumstances. What right have you then to expect anything better? I consider it a great misfortune that somehow my performances seem to give a promise that is entirely unwarrantable. Oh well, I must stop some time, so I suppose I might as well stop here. All is, may I send the thing to you? It is already, only I have to take it to some bookbinder somewhere to have the things pasted in. I hope I do not annoy you by asking you. Not much I mean. Of course it must annoy you a little. I assure you you need not have the slightest feeling about saying no. It would be no kindness to me to suffer me to disgrace myself or my country. There is only one sin that I will never forgive. If you ever tell anybody, my wrath will kindle against you into perpetual fire. And you know about furies and scorned women and the wicked place. I hope this will get at you in some little crack between two madnesses. But if it does not, pray don't turn mad at me. I can bear anything but to be snapped up. I wonder if you would be more likely to be pleased if I had stopped before. If so, you can just turn back to the place where your temper began to crack and make believe yours respectfully came there. But if you have been so generous hitherto that I am afraid I perhaps presume too far, now I am sure that compliment is very well turned seeing that kind of thing is not in my line. But the fact is, I want you to stay good-humored so much that I would say anything. Yours very truly, M.N. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. A Battle of the Books by Gail Hamilton. Battle of Gog and Magog, Part II The letters from Mr. Hunt in reply to mine are inserted here for a better understanding of my letters and to preserve the unity of the drama. As I did not anticipate the appearance of mine before the referees, Mr. Hunt's were not arranged with reference to them, but have been placed here since. Several sentences concerning magazine articles are quoted to show that though I had not printed a book, I was not wholly unknown as an author at the time of the publication of City Lights, and that therefore the risk was not quite so great as one would perhaps judge from Mr. Perry's statement, which will presently appear. Mr. Hunt to M.N. Send along the book by all means, and I will give it early attention. A book from your hand is worthy attention, and it shall have it from yours truly. April 20, 1762 I have read Moving and the Friendship paper today, both of which I shall be glad to print in the magazine if you will let me. As soon as I can find some more time, I will make up my mind about the book. April 25, 1762 I wish to begin at once to set up the copy and no time should be lost in waiting. October will soon be here. I think we shall be able to get into a volume your articles in form like old Sir Thomas. At any rate, I shall try to do so. April 29 Why do you hop about so when you attempt an epistle? I can't find the place. Now you are on the right side of a sheet, and presto I can't tell next where you are. A reader of your letters ought to stand on his head half the time. Page 2 is nowhere to be found without twisting the spinal apparatus fearfully. Why don't you have a plan and stick to it? Or are you a law unto yourself? See Hebrews. Let me tell you what I would like to do. Print in the magazine several of the articles in your proposed volume postponing the publication in book form for the present. Moving and Friends and Friendship I certainly wish for the magazine. Your book will keep, won't it? Meantime the papers, as printed in the Adriatic, will not badly advertise the coming volume. Do you agree with me? Your My Garden is a hit number one. Crowds of inquiries for the author's name beseech me, I cry mum to the myriads. M.N. to Mr. Hunt, May 1, 1762. Can't you read figures, dear? Don't you know a five when you see it? Aren't you able to tell a two from a four unless they are labeled? I fondly believed you were, but as indications point the other way, I will have everything in a right line hereafter so that I shall just have to drop you into the groove at the beginning and you will spin along of yourself to the end. I am your serf and slave till I get the upper hands of you which I shall one day, I always do sooner or later. Don't be frightened though, I shall roar you as gently as a sucking dove, and please remember that Hebrews is not Romans, or as one cannot remember what he never knew, please be informed. Aren't you glad you have somebody who can always set you right? There is one thing about my letters though, when you do find the place you know where you are, yours I don't. Now what do you mean? Do you mean that my book is not good enough to publish? If you do why don't you say so? When I was in Congress anything that was indefinitely postponed was as good as lost. I wish you would say straight as an arrow just what you mean. You need not be afraid of wounding my feelings, I have boxed them up in ice and sawdust and set them on the top shelf till such time as my fortunes shall permit me to indulge in such luxuries. I am rhinocerine and pack a dermatus. Lay on Macbeth, or Duff, or whoever you are. You see it is absurd for you to talk about postponing the publication of a general kind of book if it is worth publicating at all. If it were what I want it to be you would rectangle it up in ten minutes and have it out. If it is not what I want it to be I don't want it published at all. If it is only so-so pay the way-ee very good I will have none of it. I want it to be triumphantly good. I don't want any drawn battle. I want an unconditional surrender with fort, guns, and ammunition. If I can't have that I don't want anything. Now can I have that? You tell me. I know you know. I have been flattered to death all my life. If the book is coarse and violent and insipid and diffuse and superficial and egotistical and worthless say so. That is just what I am afraid it is and it keeps me awake nights. It occurs to me that possibly you may have so much on your hands that you cannot publish it. I don't believe that though. People can always find time to do what they will to do any way I can and I am a female atlas. But if it were so and you would tell me that you thought the book was good I would probably get somebody else to publish it. I should not like to do it to be sure. I have set my heart on your publishing my first book. You see as Mrs. Browning says I love high though I live low. You know if you aim at the sun you won't probably hit it but you will hit higher than you would if you made your target out of a scrub oak. I don't want to go into the world through the back door. I want to go insert by the main entrance with drums beating and colors flying with bodyguard on each side and carriages drawn up in line. That means you. Bromelin Hunt is the triumphal arch and the seventh regiment. But you see I am tired to death and disgust of waiting. It is three years now since I took to writing in good earnest and all this while I have been burrowing underground. It is almost two years since I sent my garden to the A.M. Two years apiece for the other two things will be four years and by that time I shall be a coral reef with all the pulp of my soul dried up and nothing left but the dead shall. You understand I am not impatient of preparation. I am not only willing but eager to work. If I thought I could be more worthy by waiting if I thought crudeness would mellow I would wait. But the book is done. It is not a question of improving it but to be or not to be. It would be a great disappointment and I am sure a positive loss to me not to have you publish the book if it is fit to publish. You would give me a prestige which I assure you I have sense enough to value and yet will not the book if it is good make its own way even if it should be born in a garret? You see I look at this from my standing point only for you of course are too well established to be disgraced by my failure or illustrated by my success. I am the only one affected don't you see? If I fail it will nerve me if I succeed it will give me a point of support. You understand by success I don't mean that I desire to make a sensation the public whose countenance I court would be comprised in a hundred men and women if I should secure their suffrage the rest of the world might go whistle if the hundred put me on the pedestal the ten millions cannot pull me down for it is quality and not quantity that leads in this world no matter what the world thinks. I want to be out too because that thing is only the inch of an L if that succeeds I have half a dozen others city lights in the same style and rocks of a fence which is to put everybody right in religious matters you don't know what my prophetic style is I tell you it leaves Isaiah and Jeremiah nowhere then there is nightcaps for children and holiday stories for all the holidays and stories of the old schoolhouse et cetera I have sent those to the tract society and all the elimoscenary institutions but they were not considered pious enough and I am afraid you profane establishments would think they are too pious so betwixt the clergy and the laity I should come to the ground with a thud from which, like Anteus, I always gather strength I don't believe you half read my letters I don't know that I blame you but it leads you into obvious mistakes you say you want to print several of the articles too certainly goosey goosey gander where shall I wander did not I tell you that all but those two had been printed before and the last one which you had rejected why do you talk I am going to Athens to buy a new dress the first pleasant day of the week after Monday would you be willing to send those two papers around too blank I can look them over and manipulate them and return them the next day if you obey the impulse of the natural heart unmodified by pressure of editorial duties you will tell me, as General Taylor told Santa Anna come and take them and I would be glad to do it and talk about these matters instead of writing but you must know that I cannot talk I say what I don't mean and I mean what I don't say and so an interview would be entirely inconclusive and unsatisfactory you will understand from this brief epistle that it is not the book that won't keep so much as it is my own self if I have said anything here that I ought not to say pray make believe that there I just remember that my little book is not nightcaps but make believes there is a book nightcaps already well what I was going to say is make believe I have not said it I am writing in greatest stress of time for our mail goes out at unearthly hours and I cannot stop to be proper I wish you would give me a general absolution retro and prospective until this business is over yours very truly Mr. Hunt to MN I see we must speak by the card when we write to miss won't understand this then is what I wished to say in my last clear and felicitous epistle of course your book cannot be published till the articles I proposed to print in the AM have appeared there this is what I meant by postponing the issue of the volume I wished to say that B&H would print your book certainly but the time when must at present be unsettled for the reason above given I have read the articles now and I like them hugely they are capital stuff for a book full of all readable qualities I will not eat you if you call in here when you come to town but you must have your own way all the confidence and all the respect for the House of Bromelin Hunt which these letters indicate I not only admit but I introduced my case by avowing that I thought them to be head and front of all publishing houses with regard to the exemption of 1500 as the first edition of City Lights Mr. Perry said that the word edition meant nothing as to number it meant simply a single issue in reply to a question I did not know what was the usage of publishers in this regard they had sometimes exempted as many as 2000 and had known cases in which 5000 had been exempted and I understood him to say had done it themselves 1000 he said was the usual number being asked what would be his own understanding of an edition if nothing were specified he said he would frankly admit that he should suppose it meant 1000 that when any larger number than 1000 was exempted it was their custom always to specify the number that he did not know why it was not done now and presumed this was the only time they had exempted more than 1000 without specifying the number the reason of this large exemption was that there was so much risk in publishing a new book and that this book was published in a style that was unusually expensive it cost a good deal more than any other on their list that there was no prescribed usage in such matters and they could have exempted more but had no desire to do so I had said that if it were to cost more they should have told me footnote 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 put it in all at once and footnote they had letters of mine showing that I did know it cost more but that I was so desirous to have it printed in this way that in my own language which Mr. Markman read and Mr. Hunt repeated with an air which showed that whatever literature had gained the stage lost its chief ornament when Mr. Hunt went into the book trade quote I went down on my knees to you to have it like Sir Thomas Brown end quote in my original statement I had said when the first book was to be published Mr. Hunt asked me what style I should like and suggested that of the city curate I preferred Sir Thomas Brown he made no objection nor even hinted that it was more expensive than the other then came the quotations I do not recollect that anything was said about it afterwards the following books were simply published in uniform style with the first end quote this is my recollection of the matter which is simple and commonplace enough from my letters at the time however the firm of Bremel and Hunt infer a thrilling dramatic scene in which Mr. Hunt was the obdurate autocrat or the wise and thrifty guardian as the case may be who, like Mrs. John Gilpin though on publishing bend had a frugal mind he was at length moved by me languendo, gemendo at genuflectendo to lay aside prudence and launch out into a style of publication which could be met only by some extraordinary sacrifice on my part I professing to be until this late disclosure ignorant both of style and sacrifice I gave my correspondence inserting Mr. Hunt's letters to throw light on mine the latter only appearing in Mr. Perry's defense let it be remembered that the book was published September 18, 1762 Mr. Hunt to MN September 2, 1762 it is our intention to publish C.L. on Saturday the 13th of this month not before certainly if any great excitement befall the country we shall postpone till the following Saturday your new preface is pungent as a pepper your motto seems to be je suis pret give it to him any way you like a proof of the preface will go to you in a few days as to the binding of your book I propose same style as ours of a city curate gilt top leaves and beveled boards do you like that way? MN to Mr. Hunt, September 3 for you to set up and pretend to ask me if I like city curate style when you knew I went down on my knees to you to have it like Sir Thomas Brown and you said you would the next book you publish for me I am going to stand over you with a grip on your coat collar from the time you give the first copy to the printer till the first edition stands on the shelf and see if you cannot be kept to something you don't know what your beveled boards are only if you put a D in the adjective would apply more accurately and I don't want my book to be boarded up anyway and if there is anything I hate it is gilt tops and if you don't do it as I want it I don't care how it is done Mr. Hunt to MN, September 15 we shall publish unless a defeat crowns our victories your book this week it will be a beauty and look like Sir Thomas Brown in its red waistcoat this letter was delayed and not received till the following letter was partly written MN to Mr. Hunt, September 20, 1762 you darling traidles why do I call you traidles because you are the dearest fellow it was not traidles though was it it was his wife it was not a fellow but a girl never mind the fact I wish to impress upon your mind is that you have tricked out my book so beautifully that nothing could be lovelier you would not have done it though if I had not threatened you within an inch of your life would you you don't know how delighted I was when I opened the bundle expecting to see those cheap looking paste boardy things and you had gone and done them just as I wanted you to do them and you said you would and then said you wouldn't and they are beautiful they are better even than Sir Thomas the paper is finer but now see I never thought till yesterday that they must cost more than the other way and I have been distressed all along and this makes me more so but listen I shall either live or die or marry if I live I shall get money if not by writing then by teaching or something so that I shall pay you some time if I die I shall leave money enough of my own to pay you and you keep this letter to show to my heirs to let them know I desire you to be paid if I marry Smith of course will be delighted to pay all my debts and I shall make that the condition of my becoming Smith S so that you shall not lose money on my book even if you don't make any which I hope you will millions of dollars but I am sure you must see for yourself that it is better to have a book look substantial and high bread and suit you even if it does cost a little more just here comes your letter and check which was delayed in Boston because you did not put a stamp on one of my friends has been questioning me about the business part of my book copy rights and contract and all that trash of which I know and care nothing foolish as this all seems to me now I can only say that it expressed exactly my state of mind it was not that I had any lofty disregard of money but simply that I was so intent on writing that I had room for nothing else I had plenty of money or if I had not I did not know it which amounts to the same thing and it made me impatient to be bothered with these outside and what seemed to me entirely insignificant matters but I want to know if by publishing articles in the A.M. they pass out of my hands I mean if I wanted to collect them and have Tilton say publish them couldn't I I will anyway because you see though I am amiable you know what your temper is and suppose we flare up and have a quarrel what then I tell you I don't discard lines of retreat now you know I would rather have you publish than anybody else supposing I had anything to be published but I want to do it because I want to do it and not because I have to do it don't you understand do you know that it scares me to see my book out in the open day seems to me it is a romping kind of a book and there is a regiment of eyes on every page and lots of trixies and exasperatings and for my parts you cannot tell how a book will look till it is born can you I shall make the next one better shall you read it now it is out I wish I knew whether it disappoints you it does me it is crude and botchy it is so awfully unlike Sir Thomas Brown and if it isn't good it is frightfully pretentious a book ought not to come out in that style unless it has some merit to think of blank reading it and blank and blank and blank I should like to go into a hole and burrow and blank oh dear I don't suppose they will read it but I wanted to have such a book as they will read anyway you have done your part and I want you to know that I am aware of it and not ungrateful hurrah good news I have heard of a man in S who said he was going to buy my book there is one copy as good as sold the man who told me about the purchaser in S tells me also that the dress of my book is very much admired and says I ought to be very grateful to be an H for doing me up in such style just as if I was not but what can I do about it there is a white cloud at the toe of my boot as soon as it resolves itself into a well-defined hole I am coming to Athens to get a new pair I have nothing in the world to say to you and I shall not come to see you still if you should say hadn't you better perhaps I might be induced to rest my knuckles against number seven blank Mr. Hunt to MN September 23 I am glad you like the costume into which we put your first born it is a handsome baby and will go alone uncommonly early so it seems that notwithstanding all the importunities and posturings of the kneeling scene Mr. Hunt was unmoved for it was after the curtain had fallen on this act that he quietly writes I propose same style as city curate do you like it all its pathos had not been sufficient to keep the act itself in mind when I first suggested Sir Thomas Brown he agreed at once but afterwards apparently forgot it and mentioned city curate as if nothing had before been set on the subject finding then that I wanted the Sir Thomas he does not so much as reply but simply binds the book according to my wishes there is no sign of any objection to it on his part from the beginning to the end so that the candidate inquirer is at a loss to know why I should have knelt except from native humility of spirit and taste for the suppliant posture which nobody can deny as the ministers remark we shall resume this subject in the afternoon's discourse I shall only say here what Allah Olandorf's grammar I had a mind but no time to say to the referees End of section 11