Chapter M: N. to Mr. Dane, September 23

"Your letter did me heaps of good, yesterday.

"Mr. Robertson promises to find out the ways of the Corinthian publishers, and write or tell me.... What I want to do, if I do anything, is to make out a written statement, as you suggest, but appear only by that and you. I don't want myself to go on the stage. I should injure the case more than I should help it. Everything that is not in writing, you know as well as I, and I think it would be far better for me to stay at home, the sweet, safe corner by the household fire, behind the heads of children, la! In every other suggestion I agree with you.... I could make my statement, send it to you for decision and presentation, notify them of my acceptance and readiness, and then let the Union slide.

"Did I tell you I had a nice note from _Longinus_?... He says he wants to talk with me about this--that he thinks authors ought to have an understanding,--that generally with B. & H. he has such and such arrangements; but he marks that whatever arrangement you make, the publisher generally gets the lion's share.

"Now do you think there is any hurry? If not--and as they have wandered at their own sweet will hitherto, I think I might take my turn now; do you think it will be worth while for me to give up my visit? Considering the uncertainty of man, I should say not."

MR. DANE TO M. N., SEPTEMBER 24.

"There is no reason why you should hurry about your B. & H. matter. They have not been in great haste even to answer your letters. Wherefore, although I shall be glad to see you very soon, you may take your own time, and by thinking, perhaps, add a cubit to your mental stature.

"I am not quite sure you can be excused from being present. You can, however, fortify or fiftify yourself with Fritz or Fred.

"Now write down your claims against B. & H. like a lawyer."

About this time, the Athenian press seemed to have been seized with an unwonted interest in the book trade, and began to break out in sapient and significant little paragraphs like the following, which I copy from the "Athenian Tribune," of September 30, 1768:--

"BOOK PUBLISHING.--There is no class of business so liable to misconstruction and misunderstanding, as that of a publisher of books. It is difficult for an author to understand the business aspects of publishing a book. In the first place, the expenses of composition, correcting, stereotyping, paper, printing and binding, are very large, compared sometimes to the size of the book. Then the advertising bills, and two or three hundred gratuitous copies for notice and review, must be added to the cost of publication. Then, of course, store rent, clerk hire, and packing expenses, including paper, twine and boxes, should be reckoned as part of the cost of getting up an edition of a book; so that, in most instances, the sale of two or three thousand of a new work hardly pays the publisher for the labor and capital included in the outlay. Now all this the author, unless he or she happen to understand the business thoroughly, rarely comprehends. The elder John Murray, one of the most honorable and generous of publishers, used to say, that an author who thoroughly understood all the intricacies and expenses of issuing a book from the press, and properly launching it into the hands of the public, was as rare a prize to find as a phœnix or a unicorn."

Yes.

When I came to reflect upon the matter, the proposal of B. & H. did not seem so much like my own as it at first appeared. Partly, perhaps, I feared the Greeks even bearing gifts. And if the two plans were in substance the same, why did they suggest one so soon after rejecting the other? If they were not the same, the difference would not be likely to be in my favor. The superficial thinker might suggest that the person to judge whether formal arbitration would be satisfactory to me was myself. As I had proposed it, the information from Messrs. B. & H. that it would not be satisfactory to _me_, seemed to be premature, not to say supererogatory. But they not only set aside formal arbitration and brought up a "confidential friendly" plan--not with a suggestion that it might, but with the succinct assertion that it would answer the same end in a much better way; they also chose the confidential friend themselves; and this friend was a gentleman with whom I had no acquaintance, whom I had never so much as seen, and of whom my personal knowledge was confined to the interchange of some half dozen letters. Now a man may have a very high reputation, and be a very superior person, yet when you want a confidential friend, you would hardly take him, unless you had, at least, a passing acquaintance with him. Perhaps Messrs. B. & H.'s endorsement of any one as a "just man," ought to be enough; though, under the circumstances, it reminds one of the convicts in the Maine state prison, who drew up resolutions against capital punishment,--but regarding the confidential friendly way of doing business, I had become thoroughly disenchanted. It was confidential friendliness that made the trouble, and I was not homeopathically inclined. I languished for a little distrustful business accuracy, and cried, "Save me from my friends," or rather from Messrs. B. & H.'s friends.

What philosopher was it who maintained that life and death are the same? "Why do you not then kill yourself?" asked a skeptic. "Because they are the same."

If it was of no importance to Messrs. B. & H. whether we had one man or two, I would have two, since it was of no importance.

If it was important to them that we should not have two, then I would have two, because it was important.