A Battle of the Books, recorded by an unknown writer for the use of authors and publishers. Gail Hamilton
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