V.

SKIRMISHING.

MR. BRUMMELL had written me, some time before, a letter on some business matter connected with his magazine, the “Buddhist,” asking, I think, for a contribution. Near the last of March I wrote to him saying that I wished to have my editorial name removed from the covers of the “Buddhist,” not from any dissatisfaction with its management, but from other causes; that if for any reason it might be awkward for him to do it now, I would not press the matter, but wait his convenience.

I had no quarrel with Mr. Brummell. My acquaintance with him was very slight. I did not suppose he knew anything of my dealings with Mr. Hunt, and I made no reference to them.

A few days after, I chanced to see that my name, with those of the other editors, had already, for the last two numbers, been removed from the covers of the “Buddhist,” and I wrote to Mr. Brummell again, saying that, if I had discovered that fact sooner, I should not of course have written as I did.

He replied on the 31st of March:—

“I have been much away from my desk this month. During an absence your letter—with an inclosure or two—came. Before I could reply I was again called away, and, just returning, I receive your note of yesterday.

“I wrote to you in the first place because I thought you really took an interest in the ‘B.’ as well as accepted its annual pecuniary recognition of your association with it, and because, since the completion of the first volume, you had contributed but very sparingly to its pages,—had almost ceased even to send me good advice and better criticism.

“I did not consider that you had broken off relations with our house in toto, just because you fancied another strong box more secure than ours, or wished to try whether the parvenu hawkers and peddlers of books could make the future of your literary life more pleasant and profitable than your past had proved by following the established routine of regular publishing. I should have thought that I was doing you an injustice had I allowed myself to fancy that, because you wanted to try a promising experiment, you and ourselves were not to [be] considered as ‘on terms’ any more. Was I wrong?

“But, beyond this, I thought that if any difference of opinion were to arise as to the proper earnings to be expected from, your books, there could be no question as to the return made by the ‘B.’ for the dozen or fifteen articles which you had contributed to it, and that as you had sent but two papers to the volume of 1767 and none for that of 1768, there could be no faux pas in asking you to supply something. Again—was I wrong?

“A word as to the matter of names. It was my intention to have no editorial names on the new cover, as so much correspondence has been inflicted on ‘the trio,’ and as so many subscriptions have been sent to one or the other of them personally; but by some blunder at the office, the names crept on twice before I could lay them quite.

“Am I to understand that with the withdrawal of your name from the cover of the ‘B.’ you desire that your relations with Maga shall cease, and the allowance heretofore made in return for your name—and for your contributions, which were originally expected to be monthly or when desired—shall no longer be passed to your credit?”

M. N. TO MR. BRUMMELL.

“Your letter of March 31 is before me. If you will be so good as to refer to my letter to which yours is a reply, I think you will find a declaration to the effect that my wish to leave the magazine was not founded on any dissatisfaction connected with it. I certainly meant to guard against the possibility of any such supposition on your part. That I failed to do so, I must beg you to attribute to inability and not to disinclination or indifference.

“Nor did your previous letter give me the faintest shadow of offense. I was never otherwise than gratified whenever you asked me to write. When you say ‘your contributions, which were originally expected to be monthly or when desired,’ do you mean to intimate that there was an agreement between us to that effect? If so, permit me to say that such an agreement never existed. Mr. Hunt came to me in Zoar with a request for service and an offer of salary, which I felt obliged to refuse. He then offered me $500 per year for the use of my name as one of the editors and for such service as I chose to give the magazine. He said they should be glad to have me write every month, but I should be left absolutely free not to write at all. I thought the sum altogether too great for what I should be able to do; and it was with the utmost reluctance, and only after much urgency,—and because it was Mr. Hunt who urged it,—that I consented to the arrangement. I made no promises, but I determined in my own mind that I would send something every month; and I satisfied my editorial conscience by carefully reading every number as it came out, and noting its points, as you perhaps have sometimes found to your sorrow, or at least fatigue. I did this for a long time. Every gap in the earlier numbers is owing to a story rejected or delayed by you, not to any failure on my part to send you a story. When I found that a paper would lie two or three months in your hands, I thought it was because you had so much better things to print, and I considered that I was doing you a kindness by not sending so frequently; and therefore, whenever you did ask me to write, I took it as a compliment, and was always pleased. You cannot speak more disparagingly than I think of my actual services on the ‘Buddhist,’ but I could wish that your opinion had found an earlier expression. Permit me distinctly to say that, until the reception of your last letter, my relations towards you in connection with the magazine were always agreeable; while my original scruples regarding the money value of such an editorial arrangement were long ago set at rest in the most conclusive manner by other publishers.

“I do wish you to understand that I desire my relations with the magazine shall cease at the earliest possible moment.

“That part of your letter which refers to my reasons for breaking my connection with your house, it is impossible for me to characterize, and equally impossible for me to reply to.”

MR. BRUMMELL TO M. N., APRIL 4.

“I have your letter of the 1st instant, and I thank you for it.

“May I correct the slight misunderstanding of my position which I fancy I detect in your reply, and for which I am doubtless responsible by reason of some ineffectiveness in my way of ‘putting things.’

“My notion was, that if your relation with the ‘B.’ had been agreeable, and your work satisfactorily paid, I should be sorry to lose you as helper and adviser, because you felt that you could publish elsewhere and otherwise to better advantage. Pray consider that you and I have only been in communication in regard to this magazine; of the precise manner and nature of your dealing with our senior partner in other matters, I, of course, can know nothing. I can only receive the results.

“I had understood, on taking up the plan prepared for the ‘B.,’ that its ostensible editors were to be regular contributors,—supplying for its pages articles whenever wanted, even as often as monthly.

“If I misapprehended the agreement with yourself, you must excuse me, and acquit me of intentionally overstraining it. I did use your articles slowly, for the reason, on the one hand, that I seldom had by me more than one at a time, and could not exactly count upon the receipt of another; and, on the other hand, because I knew you to be busy on other things, and hesitated to take from you time which you might prefer to use differently, thinking that when you were moved to write, you would do so.

“Believe me, your letters of suggestion were always welcome, and would still be so. If anything in my last note—which was somewhat hurried—seemed to be cast in the form of a reflection upon you, I hope that you will consider that I did not so intend it.

“I have neither the right nor the desire to impugn your reasons for seeking another channel of communicating with the public than such as B. and H. have been able to afford, and I do not think I implied anything to the contrary. It is for you to make the best market of your writings that you can; and although I may, as well as any other publisher, have my own view of what you should do, and what should be done for you, I am most far from wishing you to accept my view unconvinced, and I do not even offer it therefore.

“I honestly and earnestly wish you as thorough success as you can desire; and I hope that after you have put other publishers to the real test,—not of telling you what their brethren ought to do, but of themselves doing what they say should be done,—you will find as complete satisfaction from the general average of your next five or six years, as I am inclined to think you might derive from a consideration of a similar period just ending.

“Sincerely yours,

“H. M. Brummell.”

Solomon, in the enthusiasm of his love for his little sister, conjures up quaint fancies to embody his ardent longings to lavish gifts upon her. “If she be a wall, we will build upon her a palace of silver; and if she be a door, we will inclose her with boards of cedar.” So, if this correspondence with Mr. Brummell were the Sacred Scriptures, one would express his admiration by writing a commentary upon it. His especial appreciation would be given to the childlike innocence with which Mr. Brummell darts out of his path in pursuit of chimerical beetles, while admonishing me to remember that we are concerned with but a single bug. Nor would he refuse the meed of one melodious tear to the naïveté with which this complete letter-writer, in his first epistle, lays bare the mercenary motives of his correspondent, and, in the second, calmly affirms, as a corollary to his propositions, that he knows nothing about the matter. We are all aware that men do speak unadvisedly with their lips, but the unconscious sweetness of Mr. Brummell's admission is the peculiar gift of Heaven to Mr. Brummell. The learned commentator might not be able to throw any light upon the points which are obscure to Mr. Brummell; nor can the impartial historian furnish any clew to the mystery of the “strong box,” the “promising experiment,” and the “parvenu hawkers and peddlers,” so significantly mentioned. The present writer has no information on these points, and is inclined to believe that Mr. Brummell evolved them, as the German philosopher did the camel, from his moral consciousness.

But the question is not of sacred but profane literature, and we will not darken counsel by words without knowledge.

Until about the middle of March, this matter had not been mentioned to any one except Mr. Dane. Seeing the sea-change into something rich and strange, to which it was liable at the hands of the house of Brummell & Hunt, I thought it might be well to give my own version of it; and I spoke of it to some of those who were nearest me, and learned, as reported in a letter of April 18, to Mr. Dane: “A. was not much taken aback by the aspect of my affairs,—thinks they have only done by me as by others; if one is ‘up’ to such things, he makes his bargains; if he leaves it to them, he gets theirs, such as they are. A. has done just as I did, never said anything about it, and they pay what they choose. What they choose is twelve and a half cents on a dollar and a half book, and ten cents on a dollar and a quarter book. He says he has made some inquiries, and supposes he could get more elsewhere, but ‘O, he is rich!’ B. has ten per cent. written contract. —— says D. has the same. E., of his own accord, told a friend of mine that he did not think B. & H. were good publishers for authors, as they advertised so little, and had no agencies for pushing sales. I don't agree with that, for I would much rather a book would travel on its own merits. In fact, I have always especially rejoiced in that attribute of B. & H. A. says K. is shrewd and he has no doubt he is well paid. But what is the use of talking about it any more?“

MR. DANE TO M. N.

“To us mere mortals it seems as if you authors were—as the countryman told Arthur Gilman his lecture was—‘plaguey kinder shaller.’ That ... you should surrender yourself at discretion to some publisher is natural enough, but that A. should be systematically humbugged out of his dollars, and have the credit which I—and I presume mankind generally—gave him for exacting so much for his copyright as to make the price of his epistles and things extortionate, is, as the man said of his wife's death, ridic'lous. There is nothing in the last ‘Adriatic’ but ——'s poem. Tell him that the world thinks he imposes on us by making us pay a dollar and a half for his very thin books. We suppose he gets their weight in gold per copyright.”