"I know it is hard to save when money is earned with one's hands, for it comes little at a time, and if the paper prospers it will be easier for you afterward. But, somehow, premiums and showy offers in big type don't seem to fit in with my thought of you, and the Bible premium especially doesn't appeal to me entirely. I suppose it is all right, and perhaps, as you say, a great many people will get Bibles who never had them before; but to me there is something almost sacrilegious in the thought of using the Bible as a means of making the paper sell. You know, True, I am not very strait-laced about such matters, either, and, after all, of course, if Mr. Frisby used it, and with the sanction of the Rev. Montague Banks, it must be all right. But you know also, True, that it isn't for money or luxury that I care,—I have had plenty of such things,—and it is just for your own dear, trusting self, and your aims and triumphs, that I love you.
"Your bohemian life there with Perny and Van has always seemed so delightful to me. You are all such good friends, and it must be beautiful to do your work together, and then go out and see the different phases of living and dying, and the struggle of existence, without the cares and worries of business. I have pictured you so often sitting about the fire at evening, smoking your pipes and dreaming the dreams that are only of your world, and happy in that comradeship which only men ever understand and feel for each other. Then I have tried not to be jealous of the others, and to make myself believe that by and by, when I came, it would not be so hard for you to give them up, and that sometimes I would let you go back to them, and then for the evening you could forget that I had ever come into your life and changed it all.
"You must let me say all this, True, because I feel it, and know, in spite of your noble letters to me, that it will make a difference, and that your life will never be quite the same afterward. And that is why I feel about the paper as I do, too, I suppose, for I feel that it will in some way rob you of the quiet happiness and the serene sweetness of art that you now enjoy, and for which I have been more than once tempted to give you up and go out of your life for your own sake. Only, True, I am weak and human, and can't let you go as long as you, too, are weak and human enough to love me and to make us both believe that I will be a help and an inspiration to you by and by.
"As I read over this letter now, it seems to me neither very cheerful nor encouraging, and not at all the letter I started out to write. But if I should write another I fear I should not improve on it, and anyway, True, you know it is from the heart, and that always and always my heart is with you and for you in whatever you do or undertake. Write to me as often as you can, and tell me the good things that happen, and the funny things, too; for I enjoy them all, and your letters are precious to me beyond anything that the days bring. Go right on, True; don't let anything I say make you hesitate for a moment. I am away off here, dreaming idle dreams, while you are there and see and know. I am sure you will do what is best—you always do; and remember that, whatever comes, I am, now and forever, your
IV
SOME PREMIUMS
It was decided to make Perner the editor. This decision was reached during a lunch on Twenty-third Street, where the proprietors of the "Whole Family" met one day some weeks after the initial dinner. A number of brief and informal meetings had been held, and a liberal amount of talk expended, besides the continuous discussion and badinage in the studio where Livingstone, Van Dorn, and Perner still worked, though in a manner disheartening to their publishers. The idea of starting a vast enterprise with little or no capital had in it something very fascinating to the bohemian temperament, while the consideration of its unique phases and the more or less appropriate premiums to be offered, afforded never-ending amusement. Work lagged, while hope tinted the air rose-color, and the god of mirth perched by the side of Venus Milo on the mantelpiece.
Livingstone, it is true, had begun, and with fine enthusiasm at first, a picture of the bread line as they had seen it on New Year's eve. The sketch was on canvas, and strong in composition and feeling. The others came over and stood one on either side of him and said so. They said so more than once, and with various degrees of emphasis. Perhaps this satisfied Livingstone, for after that his interest in the undertaking became that of a spectator also. The canvas stood on an easel in one corner, and served as a diversion when the "Whole Family" topic was for the moment exhausted.