The World of Chance

by William Dean Howells

It was not only the coolness in Mr. Brandreth’s welcome which kept him aloof; he had a sense of responsibility, which was almost a sense of guilt, in the publisher’s presence, for he was the author of a book which had been published contrary to the counsel of all his literary advisers. It was true that he had not finally asked Mr. Brandreth to publish it, but he had been eagerly ready to have him do it; he had kept his absurd faith in it, and his steadfastness must have imparted a favorable conviction to Mr. Brandreth; he knew that there had certainly been ever so much personal kindness for him mixed up with its acceptance. The publisher, however civil outwardly—and Mr. Brandreth, with all his foibles, was never less than a gentleman—must inwardly blame him for his unlucky venture. The thought of this became intolerable, and at the end of a Saturday morning, when the book was three or four weeks old, he dropped in at Chapley’s to have it out with Mr. Brandreth. The work on the Saturday edition of the paper was always very heavy, and Ray’s nerves were fretted from the anxieties of getting it together, as well as from the intense labor of writing. He was going to humble himself to the publisher, and declare their failure to be all his own fault; but he had in reserve the potentiality of a bitter quarrel with him if he did not take it in the right way.

He pushed on to Mr. Brandreth’s room, tense with his purpose, and stood scowling and silent when he found Kane there with him. Perhaps the old fellow divined the danger in Ray’s mood; perhaps he pitied him; perhaps he was really interested in the thing which he was talking of with the publisher, and which he referred to Ray without any preliminary ironies.

“It’s about the career of a book; how it begins to go, and why, and when.”

“Apropos of A Modern Romeo?” Ray asked, harshly.

“If you please, A Modern Romeo.” Ray took the chair which Mr. Brandreth signed a clerk to bring him from without. Kane went on: “It’s very curious, the history of these things, and I’ve looked into it somewhat. Ordinarily a book makes its fortune, or it doesn’t, at once. I should say this was always the case with a story that had already been published serially; but with a book that first appears as a book, the chances seem to be rather more capricious. The first great success with us was Uncle Tom’s Cabin, and that was assured before the story was finished in the old National Era, where it was printed. But that had an immense motive power behind it—a vital question that affected the whole nation.”

“I seem to have come too late for the vital questions,” said Ray.

“Oh no! oh no! There are always plenty of them left. There is the industrial slavery, which exists on a much more universal scale than the chattel slavery; that is still waiting its novelist.”

“Or its Trust of novelists,” Ray scornfully suggested.

“Very good; very excellent good; nothing less than a syndicate perhaps could grapple with a theme of such vast dimensions.”

“It would antagonize a large part of the reading public,” Mr. Brandreth said; but he had the air of making a mental memorandum to keep an eye out for MSS. dealing with industrial slavery.