it attributed to the enemy's weakness a success which military criticism
attributed to his own military and engineering strength, thus stripping
him of credit at the very point at which his credit was least open to
dispute or question. I advised the elimination or material alteration of
this part of the book, and after due consideration he consented, though
with sore reluctance, for the reason that the modification made involved
the sacrifice of a very brilliant essay in military criticism, of which
any writer might well have been proud, and which I should have advised
any other writer to publish as a distinguished feature of his work.
To descend from large things to small ones, it was in seeing this work
through the press that I encountered the most extreme case I have ever
known of dangerous interference with copy on the part of the "intelligent
compositor," passed by the "alert proofreader." The printing department
of the Harpers was as nearly perfect, in its organization and in the
supervision given to it by the two highly-skilled superintendents of its
rival composing rooms, as any printing department well can be. And yet
it was there that the error occurred.
Of course I could not read the revised proofs of the book "by copy,"--that
is to say with a helper to read the copy aloud while I followed him with
the revises. That would have required the employment of an additional
helper and a considerably increased payment to me. Moreover, all that
was supposed to be attended to in the composing rooms so that revised
proofs should come to me in exact conformity with the "copy" as I had
handed it in. In reading them I was not expected to look out for errors
of the type, but solely for errors in the text.
In reading a batch of proofs one night--for the man of letters who would
keep his butcher and grocer on good terms with him must work by night as
well as by day--although I was in nowise on the alert to discover errors
of type, my eye fell upon an error which, if it had escaped me, would
forever have ruined my reputation as an editor. Certain of General
Beauregard's official despatches, quoted in the book, were dated
"Fiddle Pond, near Barnwell C. H., South Carolina," the letters "C. H."
standing, of course, for "Court House"--the name given to rural county
seats in the South. The intelligent compositor, instead of "following
copy," had undertaken to interpret and translate the letters out of the
depths of his own intuitions. Instead of "Fiddle Pond, near Barnwell C.
H.," he had set "Fiddle Pond, near Barnwell, Charleston Harbor," thus
playing havoc at once with geography and the text.
The case was so extreme, and the liberty taken with the text without
notice of any kind, involved so much danger to the accuracy of the work
that I had no choice but to report the matter to the house with a
notification that unless I could be assured that no further liberties of
any kind would be taken with the text, I must decline to go further with
the undertaking.
This cost a proofreader and a printer or two their employments, and I
regretted that, but they deserved their punishment, and the matter was
one that demanded drastic measures. Without such measures it would have
been dangerous to publish the book at all.
[Sidenote: Loring Pacha]
One other ex-Confederate general with whom this sort of editorial work
brought me into association was Loring Pacha--otherwise General W. W.
Loring, a man of extraordinarily varied experiences in life, a man of
the gentlest temper and most genial impulses, who had been, nevertheless,
a fighter all his life, from boyhood up. His fighting, however, had all
been done in the field and professionally, and he carried none of its
animosities into private life. I remember his saying to me once:
"Of course the war ended as it ought to have done. It was best for
everybody concerned that the Union should be restored. The only thing
is that I don't like the other fellows to 'have the say' on us."
Loring became a private soldier in the United States Army while yet a
boy. He so far distinguished himself for gallantry in the Florida War
that he was offered a Presidential appointment to West Point, which he
declined. He was appointed to a lieutenancy in the regular army, where
he won rapid promotion and gained a deal of experience, chiefly in
fighting Indians and leading troops on difficult expeditions across the
plains of the far West. In the Mexican War he was several times promoted
and brevetted for conspicuous gallantry, and he lost an arm at one of
the gates of the City of Mexico, as he was leading his regiment as the
head of the column into the town, seizing an opportunity without orders.
On that occasion General Scott visited him in hospital and said to him:
"Loring, I suppose I ought to court-martial you for rushing into that
breach without orders; but I think I'll recommend you for promotion
instead."
In the Confederate Army Loring became a Major-General, and a few years
after the close of that struggle he was invited by the Khedive of Egypt
to become his chief of staff. After a military service there which
extended over a number of years, he returned to America and wrote a
book founded upon his experience there and the studies he had made in
Egyptian manners, history, archaeology, and the like. I was employed to
edit that book, which was published by Dodd, Mead & Co., I think, and in
the course of my work upon it Loring became not only a valued personal
friend, but an easy-going intimate in my household. At first he came to
see me only for purposes of consultation concerning the work. Later he
used to come "just because he wanted to," he said. His visits were made,
in Southern fashion, at whatever hour he chose, and he took with us
whatever meals were served while he was there.
In conversation one day I happened to ask Loring something about the
strained relations that frequently exist between commanding officers
in the field and the newspaper war correspondents sent out to report
news of military operations. I think my question was prompted by some
reference to William Swinton's criticisms of General Grant, and General
Grant's peremptory dealing with him.
"I don't know much about such things," Loring answered. "You see, at the
time of the Mexican War and of all my Indian campaigns, the newspapers
hadn't yet invented the war correspondent. Then in the Confederacy
everybody was a soldier, as you know, and the war correspondents carried
muskets and answered to roll calls. Their newspaper work was an
avocation, not a vocation. You see I am learning English under your
tuition."
This little jest referred to the fact that a few days before, in running
through the manuscript of a lecture he was preparing, I had changed the
word "avocation" to "vocation," explaining to him the difference in
meaning.
[Sidenote: Concerning War Correspondents]
"Then in Egypt we were not much troubled with war
correspondents--perhaps they had the bowstring and sack in mind--but
I have an abiding grudge against another type of correspondent whom I
encountered there. I mean the tourist who has made an arrangement with
some newspaper to pay the expenses of his trip or a part of them in
return for letters to be sent from the places visited. He is always an
objectionable person, particularly when he happens to be a parson out
of a job, and I always fought shy of him so far as possible, usually
by turning him over to my dragoman, to be shown about and 'stuffed' as
only a dragoman can 'stuff' anybody. You see the dragoman has learned
that every Western tourist in the East is hungry for information of
a startling sort, and the dragoman holds himself ready to furnish it
without the smallest regard for truth or any respect at all for facts.
On one occasion one of these scribbling tourists from England visited
me. One of the Khedive's unoccupied palaces had been assigned to me for
my headquarters, and I was exceedingly busy with preparations for a
campaign then in contemplation. Stone Pacha and I were both up to our
eyes in work, trying to mobilize an army that had no mobility in it.
Accordingly I turned the tourist over to my dragoman with orders to
show him everything and give him all the information he wanted.
"The palace was divided as usual. There was a public part and a part
called the harem--which simply means the home or the family apartments.
During my occupancy of the place that part of it was empty and closed,
as I am a bachelor. But as the dragoman showed him about the tourist
asked to see that part of the palace, whereupon the dragoman replied:
"'That is the harem. You cannot gain entrance there.'
"'The harem? But I thought Loring was an American and a Christian,' was
the astonished reply.
"'He was--but he is a pacha, now,' answered the dragoman with that air
of mysterious reserve which is a part of his stock in trade. Then the
rascal went on to tell the tourist that I now had forty wives--which
would have been a shot with the long bow even if I had been a born
Mohammedan of the highest rank and greatest wealth.
"When I heard of the affair I asked the dragoman why he had lied so
outrageously and he calmly replied:
"'Oh, I thought it polite to give the gentleman what he wanted.'
[Sidenote: A Scribbling Tourist's Mischief-Making]
"I dismissed the matter and thought no more of it until a month or so
later, when somebody sent me marked copies of the _Manchester Guardian_,
or whatever the religious newspaper concerned was called. The tourist
had told the story of my 'downfall' with all the horrifying particulars,
setting forth in very complimentary phrases my simple, exemplary life
as an American soldier and lamenting the ease with which I and other
Western men, 'nurtured in the purity of Christian family life,' had
fallen victims to the lustful luxury of the East. I didn't give the
matter any attention. I was too busy to bother--too busy with plans and
estimates and commissary problems, and the puzzles of transportation and
all the rest of the things that required attention in preparation for
a campaign in a difficult, inaccessible, and little known country. I
wasn't thinking of myself or of what wandering scribes might be writing
about me in English newspapers. But presently this thing assumed a new
and very serious aspect. Some obscure American religious newspaper,
published down South somewhere, copied the thing, and my good sisters,
who live down that way, read it. It isn't much to say they were
horrified; they were well-nigh killed by the revelation of my infamy and
they suffered almost inconceivable tortures of the spirit on my account.
For it never entered their trustful minds to doubt anything printed
in a great English religious paper over the signature of a dissenting
minister and copied into the American religious journal which to them
seemed an authoritative weekly supplement to the holy scriptures.
"I managed to straighten the thing out in the minds of my good sisters,
but I have never ceased to regret that that correspondent never turned
up at my headquarters again. If he had I should have made him think he
had fallen in with a herd of the wild jackasses of Abyssinia."
LVII
Mention of Loring's experience reminds me of an amusing one of my own
that occurred a little later. In the autumn of 1886 I made a leisurely
journey with my wife across the continent to California, Oregon, Mexico,
and all parts of the golden West. On an equally leisurely return journey
we took a train at Marshall, Texas, for New Orleans, over the ruins of
the Texas and Pacific Railroad, which Jay Gould had recently "looted to
the limit," as a banker described it. Besides myself, my wife, and our
child, the only passengers on the solitary buffet sleeping car were Mr.
Ziegenfust of the San Francisco _Chronicle_, and a young lady who put
herself under my wife's chaperonage. If Mr. Ziegenfust had not been
there to bear out my statements I should never have told the story of
what happened.
There was no conductor for the sleeping car--only a negro porter who
acted as factotum. When I undertook to arrange with him for my sleeping
car accommodations, I offered him a gold piece, for in drawing money
from a San Francisco bank for use on the return journey, I had received
only gold.
The negro seemed startled as I held out the coin.
"I can't take dat, boss," he said. "'Taint worf nuffin."
I made an effort to explain to him that American gold coin was not only
the supreme standard by which all values were measured in this country,
but that as mere metal it was worth the sum stamped upon it in any part
of the earth. Mr. Ziegenfust supported me in these statements, but our
combined assurances made no impression upon the porter's mind. He
perfectly knew that gold coin was as worthless as dead forest leaves,
and he simply would not take the twenty-dollar piece offered him.
We decided that the poor fellow was a fool, and after a search through
all the pockets on the car we managed to get together the necessary
number of dollars in greenbacks with which to pay for my accommodations.
As for what we might want to eat from the buffet--for there were no
dining cars in those days--the porter assured me he would "trust me"
till we should get to New Orleans, and call upon me at my hotel to
receive his pay.
Next morning we found ourselves stranded at Plaquemine, by reason of a
train wreck a few miles ahead. Plaquemine is the center of the district
to which the banished Acadians of Longfellow's story fled for refuge,
and most of the people there claim descent from Evangeline, in jaunty
disregard of the fact that that young lady of the long ago was never
married. But Plaquemine is a thriving provincial town, and when I
learned that we must lie there, wreck-bound, for at least six hours,
I thought I saw my opportunity. I went out into the town to get some of
my gold pieces converted into greenbacks.
[Sidenote: "A Stranded Gold Bug"]
To my astonishment I found everybody there like-minded with the negro
porter of my sleeping car. They were all convinced that American gold
coin was a thing of no value, and for reason they told me that "the
government has went back on it." It was in vain for me to protest that
the government had nothing to do with determining the value of a gold
piece except to certify its weight and fineness; that the piece of gold
was intrinsically worth its face as mere metal, and all the rest of the
obvious facts of the case. These people knew that "the government has
went back on gold"--that was the phrase all of them used--and they would
have none of it.
In recognition of the superior liberality of mind concerning financial
matters that distinguishes the barkeeper from all other small tradesmen,
I went into the saloon of the principal hotel of the town, and said to
the man of multitudinous bottles:
"It's rather early in the morning, but some of these gentlemen," waving
my hand toward the loafers on the benches, "may be thirsty. I'll be
glad to 'set 'em up' for the company if you'll take your pay out of a
twenty-dollar gold piece and give me change for it."
There was an alert and instant response from the "gentlemen" of the
benches, who promptly aligned themselves before the bar and stood ready
to "name their drinks," but the barkeeper shook his head.
"Stranger," he said, "if you must have a drink you can have it and
welcome. But I can't take gold money. 'Taint worth nothin'. You see the
government has went back on it."
I declined the gratuitous drink he so generously offered, and took my
departure, leaving the "gentlemen" of the benches thirsty.
Finally, I went to the principal merchant of the place, feeling certain
that he at least knew the fundamental facts of money values. I explained
my embarrassment and asked him to give me greenbacks for one or more of
my gold pieces.
He was an exceedingly courteous and kindly person. He said to me in
better English than I had heard that morning:
"Well, you may not know it, but the government has gone back on
gold, so that we don't know what value it may have. But I can't let a
stranger leave our town under such embarrassment as yours seems to be,
particularly as you have your wife and child with you. I'll give you
currency for one of your gold pieces, and _take my chances of getting
something for the coin_."
I tried to explain finance to him, and particularly the insignificance
of the government's relation to the intrinsic value of gold coin, but
my words made no impression upon his mind. I could only say, therefore,
that I would accept his hospitable offer to convert one of my coins into
greenbacks, with the assurance that I should not think of doing so if
I did not perfectly know that he took no risk whatever in making the
exchange.
In New Orleans I got an explanation of this curious scare. When the
Civil War broke out there was a good deal of gold coin in circulation
in the Plaquemine region. During and after the war the coins passed
freely and frequently from hand to hand, particularly in cotton buying
transactions. Not long before the time of my visit, some merchants in
Plaquemine had sent a lot of this badly worn gold to New Orleans in
payment of duties on imported goods--a species of payment which was
then, foolishly, required to be made in gold alone. The customs officers
had rejected this Plaquemine gold, because it was worn to light weight.
Hence the conviction in Plaquemine that the government had "went back"
on gold.
[Sidenote: Results of a Bit of Humor]
At that time the principal subject of discussion in Congress and the
newspapers was the question of free silver coinage, the exclusive gold
standard of values, or a double standard, and all the rest of it, and
those who contended for an exclusive gold standard were stigmatized as
"gold bugs."
I was then editor-in-chief of the _New York Commercial Advertiser_, and
in my absence my brilliant young friend, Henry Marquand, was in charge
of the paper. Thinking to amuse our readers I sent him a playful letter
recounting these Plaquemine experiences, and he published it under the
title of "A Stranded Goldbug."
The humor of the situation described was so obvious and so timely that
my letter was widely copied throughout the country, and a copy of it
fell into the hands of a good but too serious-minded kinswoman of mine,
an active worker in the W. C. T. U. She was not interested in the humor
of my embarrassment, but she wrote me a grieved and distressed letter,
asking how I could ever have gone into the saloon of that Plaquemine
hotel, or any other place where alcoholic beverages were sold, and much
else to the like effect. I was reminded of Loring's experience, and was
left to wonder how large a proportion of those who had read my letter
had missed the humor of the matter in their shocked distress over the
fact that by entering a hotel cafe I had lent my countenance to the sale
of beer and the like.
I had not then learned, as I have since done, how exceedingly and
even exigently sensitive consciences of a certain class are as to such
matters. Not many years ago I published a boys' book about a flat-boat
voyage down the Mississippi. At New Orleans a commission merchant,
anxious to give the country boys as much as he could of enjoyment in the
city, furnished tickets and bade them "go to the opera to-night and hear
some good music." Soon after the book came out my publishers wrote me
that they had a Sunday School Association's order for a thousand copies
of the book, but that it was conditioned upon our willingness to change
the word "opera" to "concert" in the sentence quoted.
LVIII
As a literary adviser of the Harpers, I very earnestly urged them to
publish Mrs. Custer's "Boots and Saddles." In my "opinion" recommending
its acceptance, I said that their other readers would probably be
unanimous in advising its rejection, and would offer excellent reasons
in support of that advice. I added that those very reasons were the
promptings of my advice to the contrary.
When all the opinions were in--all but mine being adverse--Mr. Joe
Harper sent copies of them to me, asking me to read them carefully and,
after consideration, to report whether or not I still adhered to my
opinion in favor of the book. I promptly replied that I did, giving my
reasons, which were based mainly on the very considerations urged by the
other readers in behalf of rejection. In my earnestness I ventured, as
I had never done before, upon a prediction. I said that in my opinion
the book would reach a sale of twenty thousand copies--a figure then
considered very great for the sale of any current book.
[Sidenote: "Boots and Saddles"]
A month after "Boots and Saddles" was published, I happened to be in
the Harper offices, and Mr. Joe Harper beckoned me to him. With a very
solemn countenance, which did not hide the twinkle in his eye, he said:
"Of course, when you make a cock-sure prediction as to the sale of a
book, and we accept it on the strength of your enthusiastic advice, we
expect you to make the failure good."
"To what book do you refer?" I asked.
"Mrs. Custer's. You predicted a sale of twenty thousand for it, and it
has now been out a full month and----"
"What are the figures for the first month, Mr. Harper?" I interrupted.
"Well, what do you think? It is the first month that sets the pace, you
know. What's your guess?"
"Ten thousand," I ventured.
"What? Of that book? In its first month? Are you a rainbow chaser?"
I had caught the glint in his eye, and so I responded:
"Oh, well, if that guess is so badly out I'll double it, and say twenty
thousand."
"Do you mean that--seriously?" he asked.
"Yes, quite seriously. So seriously that I'll agree to pay the royalties
on all copies short of twenty thousand, if you'll agree to give me a sum
equal to the royalties on all copies sold in excess of that number."
He chuckled inwardly but audibly. Then, picking up a paper from his
desk, he passed it to me, saying;
"Look. There are the figures."
The sales had amounted to some hundred more than the twenty thousand I
had guessed, and there were no indications of any early falling off of
the orders that were daily and hourly coming in.
I mention this case of successful prediction because it gives me a text
for saying that ordinarily there is nothing so utterly impossible as
foresight, of any trustworthy sort, concerning the sale of a book. In
this case the fact that "Boots and Saddles" was the very unliterary, and
altogether winning tribute of a loving wife to her dead hero husband,
afforded a secure ground of prediction. The book appealed to sentiments
with which every human heart--coarse or refined, high, low, or middle
class--is in eternal sympathy. Ordinarily there is no such secure ground
upon which to base a prediction of success for any book. The plate-room
of every publisher is the graveyard of a multitude of books that
promised well but died young, and the plates are their headstones. Every
publisher has had experiences that convince him of the impossibility of
discovering beforehand what books will sell well and what will "die
a-borning." Every publisher has had books of his publishing succeed far
beyond his expectations, and other books fail, on the success of which
he had confidently reckoned. And the worst of it is that the quality of
a book seems to have little or nothing to do with the matter, one way or
the other.
One night at the Authors Club, I sat with a group of prolific and
successful authors, and as a matter of curious interest I asked each of
them to say how far their own and their publishers' anticipations with
respect to the comparative success of their several books had been borne
out by the actual sales. Almost every one of them had a story to tell of
disappointment with the books that were most confidently expected to
succeed, and of the success of other books that had been regarded as
least promising.
The experience is as old as literature itself, doubtless. Thomas
Campbell came even to hate his "Pleasures of Hope," because its fame
completely overshadowed that of "Gertrude of Wyoming" and some other
poems of his which he regarded as immeasurably superior to that work.
He resented the fact that in introducing him or otherwise mentioning
him everybody added to his name the phrase "Author of the 'Pleasures of
Hope,'" and he bitterly predicted that when he died somebody would carve
that detested legend upon his tombstone. In the event, somebody did.
A lifelong intimate of George Eliot once told me that bitterness was
mingled with the wine of applause in her cup, because, as she said:
"A stupid public persists in neglecting my poems, which are far superior
to anything I ever wrote in prose."