“I want to be out too, because that thing is only the inch of an ell. If that succeeds I have half a dozen others—‘City Lights,’—in the same style—and ‘Rocks of Offense,’ which is to put everybody right in religious matters. You don't know what my prophetic style is? I tell you it leaves Isaiah and Jeremiah nowhere! Then there is ‘Night Caps’ for children, and ‘Holiday Stories’ for all the holidays, and ‘Stories of the Old School-House,’ etc. I have sent those to the Tract Society and all the Eleemosynary Institutions, but they were not considered pious enough, and I am afraid you profane establishments would think they were too pious, so betwixt the clergy and the laity I should come to the ground with a thud, from which, like Antæus, I always gather strength.
“I don't believe you half read my letters. I don't know that I blame you, but it leads you into obvious mistakes. You say you want to print several of the articles—two certainly. Goosey-goosey-gander, where shall I wander; did not I tell you that all but those two had been printed before, and the last one which you had rejected? Why do you talk?... I am going to Athens to buy a new dress the first pleasant day of next week after Monday. Would you be willing to send those two papers around to——? I can look them over and manipulate them, and return them the next day. If you obey the impulse of the natural heart, unmodified by pressure of editorial duties, you will tell me, as General Taylor told Santa Anna, ‘Come and take them.’ And I would be glad to do it and talk about these matters instead of writing. But you must know that I cannot talk—I say what I don't mean and I mean what I don't say, and so an interview would be entirely inconclusive and unsatisfactory.
“You will understand from this brief epistle that it is not the book that won't keep so much as it is my own self.
“If I have said anything here that I ought not to say, pray make believe that—there, I just remember that my little book is not ‘Night-Caps’ but ‘Make-Believes’—there is a book ‘Night-Caps’ already. Well, what I was going to say is—make believe I have not said it. I am writing in greatest stress of time, for our mail goes at unearthly hours, and I cannot stop to be proper. I wish you would give me a general absolution, retro-and pro-spective, till this business is over. Yours very truly.”
MR. HUNT TO M. N.
“I see we must speak by the card when we write to Miss Wont-understand.
“This then, is what I wished to say in my last clear and felicitous epistle.
“Of course your book cannot be published till the articles I propose to print in the A. M. have appeared there. This is what I meant by postponing the issue of the volume. I wished to say that, B. & H. would print your book, certainly, but the time when must at present be unsettled for the reason above given. I have read the articles now and like them hugely. They are capital stuff for a book, full of all readable qualities....
“I will not eat you if you call in here when you come to town, but you must have your own way.”
All the confidence, and all the respect for the house of Brummell & Hunt, which these letters indicate, I not only admit, but I introduced my case by avowing that I thought them the head and front of all publishing houses.