Читать книгу A Battle of the Books, recorded by an unknown writer for the use of authors and publishers - Gail Hamilton - Страница 6

Table of Contents

RISE AND PROGRESS OF SUSPICION IN THE SOUL.

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 discurrence 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.”

MR. DANE TO M. N.

“Ten per cent. was a fair amount—I mean ten per cent. on the retail price—for B. & H. to pay you. When they put their dollar books up to two dollars, whether they should pay you the same percentage, should depend on their profits, and should be a matter of honor with them. Probably at first they did not double their profits with their price, but now I have no doubt they do, and more too. Still you are very much in their hands, and it is very disagreeable for you to help yourself. If the sale fell off with increase of price, although the profit per volume was at the same percentage, they would make less money by doing less business.

“Did you make any contract with them ever, and what was it?

“I don't believe anybody ever gets less than ten per cent. on the price; but it may be on the wholesale price, which is forty per cent. off the retail—i.e. a book that retails at $1.40 is wholesaled at $1.00. Pardon me, but I never imagine that a woman comprehends what per cent. means! Yes, your principles are good, but your practice is probably very deficient.”

M. N. TO MR. DANE.

“I am going to finish up about my business now, and then I shall not ever mention the subject again. But I did want to talk with somebody about it, having so little reliance on my own judgment. And your letter came just then, and so I wrote. I have never mentioned it to another soul. Confucius is a great deal better friend to me than you ever were or ever will be, but somehow I could not speak to him about it. I don't want to speak to any one. Besides I was afraid he would take up against Mr. Hunt.

“I have looked into my papers, but I cannot make much out of them. … I never thought the first thing about it till I saw in the ‘S.’ what I told you before—and I hardly thought of it then; but several weeks after, when I wanted money, and my account for this year was less than I expected, I hunted up the old ‘S.’ to see if I had read it right, and then I wrote to Mr. Hunt without thought of there being anything wrong, but asking him how it was. I supposed there was some modus operandi, … and wanted to know what. It was nearly three weeks before he wrote again, and then came a pleasant letter; but all he said about mine was—[then follows an account of the correspondence.]

“Now I must confess I feel next door to being insulted. I hate to use the word, but there it is. ——is as innocent and as good as an angel, and does not in the least know what she is writing about. But all that Mr. Hunt ever said to me on the subject, or I to him, did not occupy five minutes, and he never spoke but once. That was years ago. It must have been before the second contract was made. He said that owing to the fluctuations of the market, the uncertainties arising from the war, or something of that sort, they were going to give their authors a fixed sum—fifteen cents per volume—instead of a percentage. It was at a time when prices (of books) were changing from one dollar and a quarter to two dollars, but I don't know exactly when. I assented of course; I neither knew nor cared anything about it. I had no interest in it. And that is all that has ever passed between us. Even now I have not the least fault to find if I am on the same footing as others. But why does he not say so? Do you think I am entirely unreasonable in being dissatisfied? I wish you would tell me if you think so, for it is like death almost to think it possible that Mr. Hunt should be in the wrong. I have had the most implicit confidence in him. I like him so much that I hate to hear a word said against the ‘Adriatic,’ or anything that he is concerned in. I would have been delighted to write for him for nothing if he had needed the money, and asked me. … Mr. Hunt's last letter to me by—— was January 18. I did not reply to it, and so the matter stands. I shall never say or do anything more about it. You cannot conceive how distasteful it is to me. Nothing in all my life—literary—ever touched me so nearly. If I had lost every speck of money that I had—twice over—it would not have so disheartened me. Confidence must be entire, or it is nothing. Do not you ever speak to any one of this. … I shall never mention it. A dead friendship is as sacred as a dead friend.

[But if your dead friend will not rest quietly in his grave, but persists in stalking up and down the earth, scaring the timid, oppressing the weak, and boasting all the time his own beneficence, you may presently learn with Browning, that even

“Serene deadness

Tries a man's temper.”]

“Now I hope I have not overwearied you with my tiresome letter. You need not be afraid of a repetition of it. In fact, there is nothing more to say—which you will perhaps think the strongest security of all. I hope that you are good—at least that you are content with nothing less than good—which is the highest that any of us can go, I fancy. I think you had better burn this letter too. It will be safest.”

MR. DANE TO M. N., FEBRUARY 4.

“Let us try your case by admitted principles. Inasmuch as you put yourself into Mr. Hunt's hands to do what was right, he was bound to pay you as much as others receive upon whose winnings the same profits are made. This is Law, Gospel, & Co. If he did more, it would be generosity; if less, meanness or worse.

“He agreed for ten per cent. on the ‘City Lights,’ and pays you fifteen cents per copy, which is exactly right if it retailed at one dollar fifty cents; and he pays you the same on the rest, I understand you.

“Whether he was reasonable in asking you to assent to the fifteen cents per copy depends on his sales. If they were very small, he would make less than if large. I suppose you own the copyright, but he owns the stereotype plates, which cost the same whether many or few copies are printed. If when paper, and so forth, increased in value, he increased the price pro rata, and the sales continued the same, he made a larger profit, and should pay you more; that is, your percentage should continue as large. Now, if he sends you any proper accounts of sales, they will tell the story as to the number of copies sold, but not whether they cost fifty or a hundred per cent. more than formerly. Jackson or any book-publisher would know as to that.

“It would seem that you have received the minimum price, according to Jackson and the Segregationalissuemost, and my own notions. Your books are well printed on tinted paper, and your notions may have abridged the profits. I mean you may have required expensive editions, more so than was profitable; but I think not. Will you just show me your contracts and accounts of sales. … I am bound professionally to secresy, and my habits are fixed, so that I tell nobody other people's affairs.

“It is due to Mr. Hunt that you investigate the matter to some conclusion. … Mr. Hunt mistook your position. Your ready assent to his proposition and your confidence in him, which rendered any sharp bargaining unnecessary on your part, was interpreted as inability to comprehend matters of business; and so they said you understood it once, and will again when you are where you can be talked to. You gave no heed to what was said, and it is a waste of ink to write it all out!

“But you and I know better. Your mind is logical, and your simplicity as to business a sham.”

M. N. TO MR. DANE.

“Thank you for your letter. …

“Second, I don't know whether the sales were large or small. Enormous I should say, considering the quality of what was sold; but I don't know what would be considered large as compared with other books. I remember that the ‘New Zealander,’ a good while ago, said that for any book not a novel five thousand was a success; and I think all mine, or nearly all, have come up to that, and some must have gone beyond it.

“Third, I do not know who owns the copyright or the stereotype plates. I never heard anything about either.

“Fourth, I am perfectly willing to push the matter to any agreeable conclusion; but suppose I inquire around among the publishers, and find that I have been underpaid, what do I gain? No money, for that is all past and gone. Will it give me back Mr. Hunt? Does that strike you as sentimental? It does me. Nevertheless, that is what it means.

“Next, it is very cool in you, if the mercury is below zero—when you have always been telling that a woman has no logic, and that I have no logic, and other similar endearments—to turn around now and quietly speak of my logical mind as if you had been preaching it up all your life. I knew it, but it is a good deal to have you even indirectly confess it. As for business, if I chose to turn my attention to it, I have no doubt I could master all its details, just as I could in cooking. But if you have a cook or a publisher for the express purpose of doing the business for you, what is the use of perplexing yourself about it?

“I am purposing to go to Athens next Saturday. I will gather up my papers and take them to you, if you will burden yourself with them, but it is a thankless task. … But I really do not want to talk about it.

“I had yesterday a hearty sort of letter from Mr. Hunt. He says that an unusual interest ever since the day of publication of ‘The Rights of Men’ was evident on all hands; that elaborate newspaper notices have followed the book in profuse showers; and though business is singularly slow this season, he thinks it will have a good sale. He also says, ‘When you come again, remember if there are any business matters to be set right, we are to do it then,’ and ‘When the juvenile book is ready, pray send it, for it takes some time to have illustrations made, and we are even now preparing for autumn.’

“Now that does not read like a man who is conscious of anything blameworthy. It would be impossible he should go on talking as pleasantly, and cheerily, and carelessly as if nothing had happened, if anything had happened. Doesn't it look so to you? And why should it be? Brummell and Hunt are famous for their generosity and liberality, and what motive could they have in changing their course for me? It seems to me like an ugly dream. I wish I never had thought of it at all. They could not have been any worse off, and I might have been better.”

MR. DANE TO M. N.

“You throw yourself unreservedly into the arms of your publishers. Few of us can safely be trusted so far. Mr. Hunt has apparently given you the minimum share, but I do not know even that, and you don't without inquiry. … What I should do is this—satisfy myself that he is probably keeping too large a share, then say to him frankly, in what form you please, that it seems so, and ask him to explain. As a business matter, it is proper. As between friends, it is due to friendship. What right have you to listen to the suggestions of the adversary, and give your friend no hearing? That you don't know much of your affairs is evident, because you don't know who owns the copyright or the stereotype plates. I do happen to know, for I asked Hunt once if you retained the copyrights, and he said you did. The accounts which he should render you will show exactly the sales. Of course Mr. H. will answer verbally your letter when you meet. Why not tell him frankly just as you tell me? Don't hesitate to let me do whatever you wish done, only I don't want to be officious.”