Htfd, Feb. 12/82.
My Dear Osgood—
I didn’t know of anything to suggest, so I waited for an idea. It hasn’t arrived. Two Too brief a pre-canvass, & the subsequent performances of the Bliss gang of general agents, were the main troubles, I [guess. Then] there is another—the modern canvasser (not gen’l agent but canvasser,) doesn’t canvass. He sublets to an idiot, on a percentage, & sits at home in aristocratic indolence. That is the case here; it is the case in Elmira, N. Y.; it is doubtless the m m rule.
After a little, it might be a good thing to cut under the unfaithful genℓ agents by shoving books in‸to‸ the stores at a little cheaper terms than they can afford—doing this either openly or clandestinely as shall seem most judicious.
There is just one thing sure—we’ll have a very different genℓ agent system, hereafter, & not any Bliss’s in it.
House has been sick abed here about two weeks; & most of the time mighty sick. But he is mending somewhat, the last two days.
I’ve got to go to New York for a day, pretty soon. When are you going? And can’t you stop over night here? Then I would go along with you——or go with you anyway, if you couldn’t stop.
Clark is progressing with Library of Humor. Enclosed is that rheumatic preventive from Clara Spaulding.
Yrs
Mark.
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