Oct. 31. /77.
Dear Mother:
No, it is not “absurd” to offer that or any other best effort of anybody to the public for trial & judgment. Try it. If it fails, then offer your ‸the‸ very worst you can do.1 No, I take that back. You can never write anything half so nauseous & idiotic as Helen’s Babies2—therefore you have only one string to your bow—your best.
I will write the introduction gladly.
Whom shall you publish with? An eastern, or a Cincinnati house? The latter might be best, perhaps, but if you prefer the former, you should offer the book to Osgood I think.
You must not get mad if the venture yields only fame & not money. Bayard Taylor’s noble translation of Faust filled the English-speaking world with his fame—but he told me his copyright has only yielded him five dollars thus far. Charley Warren Stoddard made quite a name for himself with his South-Sea Idyl. He was here the other day, & had just collected his two-years’ copyright—six dollars.3
But there’s a good safe rule to follow—considering that Providence always makes it a point to find out whats you are after, so as to see that you don’t get it.: Publish for fame, [& you] may get money; publish for money & you may get fame: but the true trick is, publish for love, & then you don’t care a (I can’t seem to get hold of the word I’m after) whether you get anything or not.
There—it’s a wise son that can instruct his mother. But there be such, an’ you will take the pains to search them out.
You say, “What I want you to tell me, is,” &c., &c., & then you ask a question which nobody can answer, & which does not need an answer, anyway. The only sound question is, Will the world like the book for its own sake & putting all other considerations aside? Nob single individual can answer that. If Helen’s Babies & Pope’s translation of Homer, & Paradise Lost, & Lamb’s works, had been submitted to me, I would have burned them with a savage ‸maniacal‸ joy & scalped their authors. See what the world would have lost. If I were a publisher would I submit a MS to my one poor solitary “reader?” No—I would pass it around to fifty people, of different ranks & circumstances, & abide by the verdict of the majority.
That is the court before which a book is tried at last, anyway. So the only thing worth listening to is the author’s word that his book is the best he can do—then hurl it before the general court, & sit down & wait for the result.
So I close as I began:—it is worth while to publish one’s best—& without submitting the matter to individual judgments, since they can exercise but one function: that is, too kill; whereas the public add the greater function: it can immortalize as well as kill.
No, I ain’t afraid to “write frankly.” I always do—to strangers & friends alike. I say “Please don’t value any individual’s verdict—it is worthless. Many a sterling brand of tobacco would have been lost to the world if it had been placed before the judgment-seat of the most intelligent lady in the land. Therefore consider your book a sterling brand of tobacco & your individual judge a brilliant but chuc in some things [chuckle-headed] lady.”
I remember that I liked your letters well4—barring the lack of malignity & profanity—a thing which is bound to make one’s literature too uniformly smoothe & gentle. But when your [proof-sheets] issue, I will brisk them up a little in these respects if you like.
You fire away with your book, & don’t be afraid. When the proof-sheets come, I’ll write that introduction.5 You must always refer offensively to Capt. Duncan; & when I it comes my turn in the introduction I will give him a lift that will enable him to find out what Mars’s new moons are made of.6 Love to you all—including, with particular emphasis—Molly.
Samℓ. L. C.
Explanatory Notes | Textual Commentary
Source text(s):Previous publication:
MTMF, 211–13.
Provenance:
See Huntington Library in Description of Provenance.
Emendations and textual notes:
& you • & | & you
chuckle-headed • chuckle- | headed
proof-sheets • proof- | sheets
