In this time of suspense Ray kept away from old Kane, whose peculiar
touch he could not bear. But he knew perfectly well what his own
feelings were, and he did not care to have them analyzed. He could not
help sending Kane the book, and for a while he dreaded his
acknowledgments; then he resented his failure to make any.
In the frequent visits he paid to his publisher, he fancied that his
welcome from Mr. Brandreth was growing cooler, and he did not go so
often. He kept doggedly at his work in the _Every Evening_ office; but
here the absolute silence of his chief concerning his book was as hard
to bear as Mr. Brandreth’s fancied coolness; he could not make out
whether it meant compassion or dissatisfaction, or how it was to effect
his relation to the paper. The worst of it was that his adversity, or
his delayed prosperity, which ever it was, began to corrupt him. In his
self-pity he wrote so leniently of some rather worthless books that he
had no defence to make when his chief called his attention to the wide
divergence between his opinions and those of some other critics. At
times when he resented the hardship of his fate he scored the books
before him with a severity that was as unjust as the weak commiseration
in his praises. He felt sure that if the situation prolonged itself his
failure as an author must involve his failure as a critic.
It was not only the coolness in Mr. Brandreth’s welcome which kept him
aloof; he had a sense of responsibility, which was almost a sense of
guilt, in the publisher’s presence, for he was the author of a book
which had been published contrary to the counsel of all his literary
advisers. It was true that he had not finally asked Mr. Brandreth to
publish it, but he had been eagerly ready to have him do it; he had kept
his absurd faith in it, and his steadfastness must have imparted a
favorable conviction to Mr. Brandreth; he knew that there had certainly
been ever so much personal kindness for him mixed up with its
acceptance. The publisher, however civil outwardly--and Mr. Brandreth,
with all his foibles, was never less than a gentleman--must inwardly
blame him for his unlucky venture. The thought of this became
intolerable, and at the end of a Saturday morning, when the book was
three or four weeks old, he dropped in at Chapley’s to have it out with
Mr. Brandreth. The work on the Saturday edition of the paper was always
very heavy, and Ray’s nerves were fretted from the anxieties of getting
it together, as well as from the intense labor of writing. He was going
to humble himself to the publisher, and declare their failure to be all
his own fault; but he had in reserve the potentiality of a bitter
quarrel with him if he did not take it in the right way.
He pushed on to Mr. Brandreth’s room, tense with his purpose, and stood
scowling and silent when he found Kane there with him. Perhaps the old
fellow divined the danger in Ray’s mood; perhaps he pitied him; perhaps
he was really interested in the thing which he was talking of with the
publisher, and which he referred to Ray without any preliminary ironies.
“It’s about the career of a book; how it begins to go, and why, and
when.”
“Apropos of _A Modern Romeo_?” Ray asked, harshly.
“If you please, _A Modern Romeo_.” Ray took the chair which Mr.
Brandreth signed a clerk to bring him from without. Kane went on: “It’s
very curious, the history of these things, and I’ve looked into it
somewhat. Ordinarily a book makes its fortune, or it doesn’t, at once. I
should say this was always the case with a story that had already been
published serially; but with a book that first appears as a book, the
chances seem to be rather more capricious. The first great success with
us was _Uncle Tom’s Cabin_, and that was assured before the story was
finished in the old _National Era_, where it was printed. But that had
an immense motive power behind it--a vital question that affected the
whole nation.”
“I seem to have come too late for the vital questions,” said Ray.
“Oh no! oh no! There are always plenty of them left. There is the
industrial slavery, which exists on a much more universal scale than the
chattel slavery; that is still waiting its novelist.”
“Or its Trust of novelists,” Ray scornfully suggested.
“Very good; very excellent good; nothing less than a syndicate perhaps
could grapple with a theme of such vast dimensions.”
“It would antagonize a large part of the reading public,” Mr. Brandreth
said; but he had the air of making a mental memorandum to keep an eye
out for MSS. dealing with industrial slavery.
“So much the better! So much the better!” said Kane. “_Robert Elsmere_
antagonized much more than half its readers by its religious positions.
But that wasn’t what I was trying to get at. I was thinking about how
some of the phenomenally successful books hung fire at first.”
“Ah, that interests me as the author of a phenomenally successful book
that is still hanging fire,” sighed Ray.
Kane smiled approval of his attempt to play with his pain, and went on:
“You know that _Gates Ajar_, which sold up into the hundred thousands,
was three months selling the first fifteen hundred.”
“Is that so?” Ray asked. “_A Modern Romeo_ has been three weeks selling
the first fifteen.” He laughed, and Mr. Brandreth with him; but the fact
encouraged him, and he could see that it encouraged the publisher.
“We won’t speak of _Mr. Barnes of New York_”--
“Oh no! Don’t!” cried Ray.
“You might be very glad to have written it on some accounts, my dear
boy,” said Kane.
“Have you read it?”
“That’s neither here nor there. I haven’t seen _Little Lord Fauntleroy_.
But I wanted to speak of _Looking Backward_. Four months after that was
published, the first modest edition was still unsold.”
Kane rose. “I just dropped in to impart these facts to your publisher,
in case you and he might be getting a little impatient of the triumph
which seems to be rather behind time. I suppose you’ve noticed it? These
little disappointments are not suffered in a corner.”
“Then your inference is that at the end of three or four months _A
Modern Romeo_ will be selling at the rate of five hundred a day? I’m
glad for Brandreth here, but I shall be dead by that time.”
“Oh no! Oh no!” Kane softly entreated, while he took Ray’s hand between
his two hands. “One doesn’t really die of disappointed literature any
more than one dies of disappointed love. That is one of the pathetic
superstitions which we like to cherish in a world where we get well of
nearly all our hurts, and live on to a hale old imbecility. Depend upon
it, my dear boy, you will survive your book at least fifty years.” Kane
wrung Ray’s hand, and got himself quickly away.
“There is a good deal of truth in what he says”--Mr. Brandreth began
cheerfully.
“About my outliving my book?” Ray asked. “Thank you. There’s all the
truth in the world in it.”
“I don’t mean that, of course. I mean the chances that it will pick up
any time within three months, and make its fortune.”
“You’re counting on a lucky accident.”
“Yes, I am. I’ve done everything I can to push the book, and now we must
trust to luck. You have to trust to luck in the book business, in every
business. Business is buying on the chance of selling at a profit. The
political economists talk about the laws of business; but there are no
laws of business. There is nothing but chances, and no amount of wisdom
can forecast them or control them. You had better be prudent, but if you
are always prudent you will die poor. ‘Be bold; be bold; be not too
bold.’ That’s about all there is of it. And I’m going to be cheerful
too. I’m still betting on _A Modern Romeo_.” The young publisher leaned
forward and put his hand on Ray’s shoulder, in a kindly way, and shook
him a little. “Come! What will you bet that it doesn’t begin to go
within the next fortnight? I don’t ask you to put up any money. Will you
risk the copyright on the first thousand?”
“No, I won’t bet,” said Ray, more spiritlessly than he felt, for the
proposition to relinquish a part of his copyright realized it to him.
Still he found it safest not to allow himself any revival of his hopes;
if he did it would be tempting fate to dash them again. In that way he
had often got the better of fate; there was no other way to do it, at
least for him.