Tipton, 8th April, 1872.
Sir,--
You have written a many letters to workmen, and seem to have suffered
from a many replies by clerks, manufacturers, and others, to whom
your letters were not addressed; and as you have noticed some of
their performances, I am encouraged to expect you will kindly read
one written by a man belonging to the class that you have chosen to
write to,--one who is emphatically a workman, labouring many hours
daily with hands and head in the wilderness known to people living
in pleasanter places as the Black Country.
This letter is not, however, sent to invite you to sympathise with me
on account of the sooty residence I endure, for it is not so unpleasant
a place to a man with a healthy mind, as gentle-folks with exaggerated
sensibilities are apt to consider it. We do see the sky, and sometimes
the green fields, and those who always live among the latter don't
seem to be more refined, more elevated, or more use in the world than
we are. But it is written very respectfully to remonstrate with you
on account of your peculiar method of publication. You write books and
letters, therefore I suppose you wish them to be read; but did it never
occur to you that in order to be read, they must be made known to those
whom you desire to read them? and how can that be done unless their
publication is advertised? You object to do that, but do not substitute
any other method--if, indeed, there is any other--of informing us of
the letters and books that you have written. Booksellers do not offer
your volumes, because your conditions of sale do not allow them to
make a fair profit. Their customers can purchase the books as cheap
as the book-dealer, and with as little trouble as an application to
him would give them [23]--supposing they have accidentally heard of
the books. Like many thousands more in this country of black faces
and horny hands, I am imperfectly educated, but desirous to learn,
and able, without much self-denial or any inconvenience, to purchase
your volumes at a doctor's fee, or two fees each if you fix it so. Some
of your books I possess, and the advantages I have received from the
study of them makes me desirous that they should be more widely known
and read. Commerce is too often a dishonest selfish scramble: employers
and employed are at variance when their interests are identical. Daily
toil does not obliterate our taste for art, and is it not desirable
that those who have the means to gratify that taste should be able
to know the right and the wrong in it, and recognise noble art when
they see it? Upon all this you have written much in your books, but
if the books are not known, it is as if unwritten, of even worse,
because it is needful work not doing the good it might do.
Your 'Fors' series of letters are almost unknown to those to whom
you have addressed them. I heard of them six months after their
commencement, because some "able editor" was short of copy, and
endeavoured to be clever at your expense. Sir, I hope you will
reconsider this matter,--what possible harm could it do to simply
announce the publication of a volume or a letter in a few newspapers
or magazines? It is certainly a mistake that the knowledge of a
newly-issued volume should depend upon the exigences of foolish
editors or the popular relish for their highly-spiced rubbish.
I hate anonymous letters, and you can have my address if you want
it. I read the other day if any one dared to expostulate with you that
you would gibbet him. What that means, I know not. Something awful,
no doubt. So I merely subscribe myself,
Sir,
Your very humble servant,
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