July 26, '93.
DEAR MR. HALL,—..... I hope the machine will be finished this month; but it took me four years and cost me $100,000 to finish the other machine after it was apparently entirely complete and setting type like a house-afire.
I wonder what they call “finished.” After it is absolutely perfect it can't go into a printing-office until it has had a month's wear, running night and day, to get the bearings smooth, I judge.
I may be able to run over about mid-October. Then if I find you relieved of L. A. L. we will start a magazine inexpensive, and of an entirely unique sort. Arthur Stedman and his father editors of it. Arthur could do all the work, merely submitting it to his father for approval.
The first number should pay—and all subsequent ones—25 cents a number. Cost of first number (20,000 copies) $2,000. Give most of them away, sell the rest. Advertising and other expenses—cost unknown. Send one to all newspapers—it would get a notice—favorable, too.
But we cannot undertake it until L. A. L, is out of the way. With our hands free and some capital to spare, we could make it hum.
Where is the Shelley article? If you have it on hand, keep it and I will presently tell you what to do with it.
Don't forget to tell me.
Yours Sincerely
S. L. C.
The Shelley article mentioned in this letter was the “Defense of
Harriet Sheller,” one of the very best of his essays. How he could
have written this splendid paper at a time of such distraction
passes comprehension. Furthermore, it is clear that he had revised,
indeed rewritten, the long story of Pudd'nhead Wilson.