MY relations with the house of Brummell and Hunt began somewhere about
the year 1760. Until 1768 these relations had always been agreeable.
I seemed to be living in an orchard of pomegranates, with pleasant
fruits. I thought, as Mr. Tennyson remarked to the lily, "there is but
one" publishing house, and that is the house of Messrs. Brummell &
Hunt. All others were to me outside barbarians, mercenary hirelings,
mere hewers of wood and drawers of water. Messrs. Brummell & Hunt
published on high moral grounds, from love of literature and general
benevolence. Gingerbread followed their virtue, indeed, but had no
part nor lot in it. My dealings were with Mr. Hunt, and the business
aspect of our connection came to be nearly lost sight of behind the
veil of friendship. Money arrangements I left entirely to him. I
never stipulated for anything, either on books or magazine articles.
I considered that he best knew the money value of these things, and
that, as we are constantly told, the interest of author and that of
publisher are one. He accordingly paid me whatever he chose, and I was
entirely satisfied.
One day in December, 1767, happening to want more money than was due
me,[2] I recollected having seen, a few weeks before, an article in the
"Segregationalissuemost,"[3] on the "Pay of Authors," which said:--
"In regard to books, the common percentage paid by publishers to
average writers is _ten per cent. upon the retail price of the book_;
the copies given to the press for notice not being included in the
estimate. Thus, for an edition of a volume whose retail price is $1.00,
the account would be made up thus: Suppose 1,000 copies to be printed,
of which 90 are distributed to the press, and otherwise given away
for notice, and the balance sold, the publishers would owe the author
(1,000-90 = 910 copies, at 10c. each) $91.00. And so proportionately
for larger works at costlier prices."
Without the least presentiment of anything uncanny, I made the
following reference to it in a letter to Mr. Hunt. This extract unfolds
the beginning of sorrows.
"Now see, in the 'Segregationalissuemost,' this very morning, I saw an
article about the pay of authors, in which it said that the ordinary
price for average authors was ten per cent. on the retail price of the
book; but according to my account I don't have ten per cent. I only
have somewhere about seven or eight per cent. Looking in my papers, I
find that all the contracts I have are only for fifteen cents on the
two-dollar volumes, which certainly is not ten per cent., except the
first contract for 'City Lights,' which says ten per cent., but the
bills or accounts, or whatever it is, are made out for that,--not at
ten per cent., but, just as the other, fifteen cents on the volume. At
least, this is the way I make it out; but I am not good at figures,
and may have made some mistake. However, here are the papers, and you
can see for yourself, or I will show them to Judge Dane when I go to
Athens. I don't like to talk about it here at home any way. But perhaps
you will know all about it from what I have said, and perhaps it is all
right. But certainly I am an 'average writer,' and you are an 'ordinary
publisher,' not to say extraordinary! And I want all the money I can
possibly get and more too! Especially ---- dollars by and by.
"It just occurs to me that you may possibly think that I think
that _you_ have been falling into temptation! My dear friend and
fellow-sinner, if you should stand up with both hands on your heart,
and swear that you had cheated me, I should not believe you. I should
say, 'Poor fellow, work and worry have done their work. His brilliant
intellect----I saw a lovely private asylum in Corinth. I would go there
and spend the summer!'
"Yours, sane or insane,
"M. N."
I waited nearly two weeks, and then, receiving no reply to this letter,
I wrote to my friend, Mr. Jackson, a book-publisher of Corinth, asking
him several questions, but avoiding as far as possible any personality,
or giving rise to any suspicion. I hoped he would think I was merely
collecting information. On the 16th of January, nearly three weeks
after my letter was sent, came a reply from Mr. Hunt, in which the only
reference to my inquiry was:--
"I have not answered your last letter, touching the terms expressed in
the contracts; for you and I went over that matter once, and it was
with your entire concurrence with our views, based upon the present
state of trade and manufacture, that the amount was decided on. When
you come to town, we will go all over it again, and it will be again
settled to your entire satisfaction."
This reply did not meet my question. I was aware that I had concurred
in their views, as my name on the contract showed it. But I was not
aware of ever having gone over the matter; and I did not care for a
second settlement while I was as yet unassured of a first. I wrote
again, replying also to an invitation by telegram received the same day
from a member of Mr. Hunt's family.
"MY DEAR MR. HUNT:
"That is great of you to come down here with a gay letter, and utterly
blink out of sight the fact of your having made me wretched for three
weeks by not writing. _Of course_ I concurred in your views. If you
had said to me, 'Owing to the state of trade and manufactures, all the
trees are now going to be bread and cheese, and all the rivers ink,' I
should have said, 'Yes, that is a very wise measure.' I don't remember
ever talking the thing over with you, but I dare say I did,--or,
rather, you talked, and I nodded, as usual! And of course I agreed;
for here are the contracts that say so, and if I don't know what is in
those contracts and accounts, it is not for want of patient industry.
If I had as many dollars as I have pored over those miserable papers
the last two weeks, I would build a meeting-house. Don't you see the
trouble lies back of the contract? Why did you _wish_ me to be having
seven or eight per cent. when other people are getting ten? If it was
because I was not worth more, you need not be afraid to say so. I can
bear a great deal of rugged truth. But why am I not worth more, when
there is not a paper of any standing in the country, to put it rather
strongly, that has not applied to me to become a contributor, offering
me my own terms? Does not that show that I have at least a commercial
value? Writing books seems a more dignified thing than writing
newspapers, but in point of money there is no comparison to be made.[4]
I could have got five times as much by putting 'Cotton-picking' in the
form of letters as I have from the book.
"When day after day went by, and you did not write, I came to the
conclusion that your High Mightiness was standing on your dignity,
and then _I_ was indignant too. I can always be a great deal more
angry with any one than any one is with me, and I always _will_ be.
And I said last week, 'If he does not write me by Saturday, I will do
something.' And what I did was--write to Mr. Jackson. Now you will
perhaps be vexed at this, but you have no right to be. Do you think I
am going to die, and give no sign? Mr. Jackson is an older friend than
you,--I said an older soldier, not a better!--and then you did not
write. I did not mention your name, nor say anything about myself or
my affairs, only asked some general questions. I tell you this because
your letter was good-natured. If it had been cross, I would not tell
you anything; and if you will be as perplexed and uneasy for three
weeks as I was, and not do anything worse than that, I will award you
a gold medal. Mr. Hunt, you ought never under any circumstances to be
angry with me. In your large circle of friends you may have scores who
will bring you more personal revenue; but for the quality of loyalty
'pure and simple,' you will not find many who will go beyond me. I may
be infelicitous and inexplicable in demonstration, but I was never
anything but thoroughly true in mood.
"The telegram came this morning in due season. A thousand thanks for
her kind remembrance, but of course I was not going to Athens with
your letter staring me in the face. Talking it over is the very thing
I don't want to do. There is nothing to be talked over. There are the
papers. I admit them all. But when ---- takes you to task for some
misdemeanor,--and if ever you go to the good place, it will be because
that woman has pulled you through,--you don't say, 'What are you
talking about? When I offered myself to you, did you not say you would
have me for better, for worse; and are you not perfectly satisfied?'
She was satisfied then according to her lights, but doubtless she has
thought twenty times since she might have done better. Any way, you
don't 'dast' ask her and see. Now my case is not parallel. 'England,
with all thy faults, I love thee still.' I cannot conceive of anybody
being a better publisher than you, because you don't seem like a
business man, but a friend. But here is the fact that I want [so much]
and I have only [so much] to get it with, and sales falling off, and I
getting on what is sold less than an unknown author gets on his first
book. Can you tell in a month whether the new book is going to sell or
not? I have another children's book nearly ready, but I suppose decency
demands an appreciable interval between two issues. Do you suppose the
unpopularity of my doctrines has anything to do with it? If it has, I
will thunder them out harder still. If I must go down, I will go down,
like the _Cumberland_, with a broadside volley.
"Of the books I want I don't know how many,--a dozen or two. If people
won't buy them, I will give them away, for read them they shall....
"I will now close this short note with the reflection which I have
often made,--Be good, and you will be happy. And never bring up against
me a concurrence of views at any past time as a fortification against
_dis_currence in the present. And if that is, like Saint Paul, hard to
be understood,--good enough for you for not writing me sooner, and
throwing me into such a perturbation. Remember always the difference
between the assent of indifference and the assent of conviction.
Whatever I agreed to in times past was because I had no interest
whatever in the subject, and supposed it was all according to the laws
of the Medes and Persians. Now that ruin gapes before me, and I am,
after all, only the law unto myself, it makes no atom of difference to
me that I have not been fighting you the last century--steady.
"While I am in a spasm of comparative serenity, I will declare
and affirm that you are and always have been one of the kindest,
brightest, and most agreeable of men; that you never said to me a word
of compliment, or silliness, or impatience, or anything that wounded
me,--and Heaven knows you have said bad things enough,--and this you
may cut out, and show to men and angels when we come to blows. The
worst thing I ever knew you to do was not answering my last letter, and
then _aggravating_ me by coming down as breezy and cheery as if nothing
had happened. Give my love to----. She deserves a better fate, but I
don't know that I can do aught to forward it."
Mr. Hunt's reply to this letter was through another person; in which
reply the only response to my letter was:--
"I sent off my telegram with perfect unconsciousness of your state
of mind, or of the fact that there was any business unsettled which
might be talked about. Your note last night was a surprise, and your
non-appearance a disappointment....
"Do you forget that a certain friend of ours cannot write a word with
his own hand? Do you wonder, matters having been many times explained,
that he thought they must sooner or later explain themselves through
your memory?
"_We_ forget how in a retired life things work in the mind, and you
must therefore forgive the apparent neglect of one who is overwhelmed
by letters and people from day's beginning to day's end."
This reply was not soothing. The suggestion that one is morbidly
suffering mole-hills to rise into mountains is not flattering to his
intellectual calibre. Nor is it agreeable to be assigned the part of
one who had been so given to dissatisfaction that it was not worth
while to try to quiet him again. One thing I did learn from it,--that
Mr. Hunt did not design to answer my question.
I none the less desired an answer. I thought if I could not secure it,
perhaps some one else could. Mr. Dane was an old friend of Mr. Hunt's,
and a friend of mine. His office was but a short distance from Mr.
Hunt's. He had chanced to write me some excellent advice about saving
money just before,--without, however, any knowledge of this affair.
I wanted somebody's opinion, and I could not talk about the matter. I
therefore wrote to Mr. Dane a letter of self-justification, not to say
glorification,--saying:--
"You think, perhaps, because I have once or twice lost a few things,
therefore I take no heed of anything. On the contrary, there is
probably no one in the land who, on the whole, is more careful,
systematic, and provident than I! Truth!... There is no such thing as
independence, or dignity, scarcely honesty, without money. Perhaps that
is putting it a little too strong, but at any rate _impecuniosity_ is a
constant temptation.
"I should have ... more if I had had ten per cent. on the books, as
the 'Segregationalissuemost' said the other day was the custom for
new authors. I don't. I have only fifteen cents on a two-dollar book,
and ten cents on a dollar-and-a-half book, which is not nearly ten
per cent.; and if you can tell me any reason why I should not have as
much as an unfledged author, I wish you would put up your patents and
do it.... I want money just now extremely. If I had a few thousand
dollars, I could benefit some very excellent persons certainly, and
in all probability should lose nothing myself, but in the course of a
few years, by the time I should want my money at least, have it all
back. I _can_ take up bonds to be sure, and I rather think I shall;
but as a general thing, one never wants to meddle with money that is
settled. Don't you think I talk sensibly? Don't you take back your
insinuations about my loose habits of expenditure? Unthrift, reckless
expenditure, improvidence, indicate an organic defect of character.
But I will not sacrifice the present to the future. 'The present, the
present, is all thou hast for thy sure possessing.' Whenever I see an
imminent need, I will not pass it by on the score of laying up for a
rainy day. For, don't you see, when the rainy day comes, I may not
be here to be rained on, while to my friend the rainy day is already
come. I will enjoy money as I go along,--not in so reckless a way as to
involve the necessity of one day imposing a burden upon others. And of
all enjoyment, I know of none so delightful and inexhaustible, and I
may say so marvelous, as to see the amount of relief, the quantity of
sunshine and help, put into another's life by the judicious bestowal of
even a very little money.[5]
"Did you ever see such a letter as this? It is full of me, me, me,
_and_ me's money; but you began it. Your letter came down upon me just
when I have been full of perplexity for more than a month, and you
see I have not strength enough to keep myself to myself. You will of
course consider this all confidential. You better make sure of it by
destroying the letter as soon as you have read it. Yes, by all means.
Seems as if this letter was sort of virtuous. But you know I am not
virtuous at all. And don't misconstrue me about the books. Mr. Hunt has
always been everything that was generous and friendly, and I do not
permit myself to admit for a moment, even to myself, that everything
is not just as it should be. But that paragraph in the 'S.' induced
me to examine my own papers,--joined with my great longing for money
just now,--and I did not and do not understand it. Happily, it is not
necessary I should. Perhaps that refers chiefly to the great Corinthian
publishing houses."