Chapter M: N. to H., P., & Co., December 21

"A week ago, last Tuesday, I sent you a letter from Paris, to which I have received no answer. To guard against any misunderstanding arising from a lost letter, will you be so good as to inform me by the bearer whether you have received such a letter from me, and if so, whether you have replied to it."

They evidently thought the enemy was preparing to move immediately upon their works, and they replied at once,--

"We duly received your communication alluded to in your note of this morning.

"Owing to the absence of one of the members of our firm and the great pressure of business incident to the season of the year, we have not had an opportunity since its receipt to give the question at issue the attention it deserves. In a very few days you shall hear from us."

On the sixteenth of December, appeared another of those paragraphs in the "Athenian Gazette," to which I have previously referred. Hitherto the dove had only gyrated around the whole heavens, spreading its white wings of praise over publishers in general, but now, loving, like Death, a shining mark, it circled down and settled squarely upon the modest brows of Messrs. Brummell & Hunt, in the following style:--

"MESSRS. B. & H.'S ANNOUNCEMENTS.--The attractive advertisement of Messrs. B. & H., which appears in our columns to-day, is interesting to those who watch the progress of events, as an indication not only of the success which this publishing house has achieved, but as an evidence of the literary supremacy of the 'hub.' Years ago, when Sophocles, after enjoying the entree into the leading social circles of the city, styled Athens 'The Modern Eden,' our neighbors of the other cities quoted the remark in derision. But time has proved that the title was not merely complimentary. A glance at the list of authors whose works are published by Messrs. B. & H., will at once surprise those unacquainted with the large number of the _Adriatic_ coterie who have residence within the shadow of the Acropolis. The Athenian authors who have their established headquarters with this publishing house are more widely known and more thoroughly read than any equal number who have acquired literary distinction, while the number of Roman authors who are represented in this country by Messrs. B. & H. include the Poet Laureate of Italy and the great master of fiction, Josephus.

"While we may congratulate the firm upon the success they have achieved in producing the most exquisite illustrated gift books of the season, and compliment them upon the typographical execution of all their publications, we think still higher praise is due to this house for their encouragement of Athenian talent, and their rare tact in introducing many who have become popular mainly by the discriminating manner in which they have been ushered into the presence of the reading public. Whatever share of prosperity this publishing house has reached, there are none to attribute it to any narrow or selfish policy. They have dealt with authors of all lands upon the broad ground of mutual benefit, and have never sought to make bread out of other people's brainwork and leave the worker without fair compensation. It is a credit to Athens that such an establishment has grown up and flourished in our city."

Which reminds me of a rural schoolmaster who taught the village school for several winters in succession, and whose specialty was writing. Years after, if the handwriting of any of his pupils was spoken of, the honest man would reply innocently, "Yes, he is a very fine writer, very superior. His writing is precisely like mine!"

Messrs. Brummel & Hunt's authors are the most widely known and the most thoroughly read in the country.

And we who belong to that Happy Family feel that the lines have fallen to us in pleasant places, and try to look unconscious of our preëminence, while we cannot wholly repress a glow of gratification.

But what is this? We, or rather you,--for just here I find it agreeable to follow the admonition of Mr. Guppy's mother, and "get out" of the company--_you_ have become popular mainly by the discriminating manner in which you have been ushered into the presence of the reading public! O, what a fall is here, my countrymen! Imagine the emotions of the belle on being told that the attention and admiration which she fondly supposed had been excited by her wit and beauty, were mainly owing to the discriminating manner in which she had been ushered into the ball-room!

Some little margin is left for grace of form, loveliness of feature, elegance of dress, but mainly it is the white-gloved usher to whom her success is due!

There are never wanting persons who, not content with writing history as it is, are always conjuring up what would have been if things had happened differently. If Charles I. had not lost his head, if Napoleon had beaten at Waterloo, if Booth's pistol had missed fire, events would have gone thus and thus. A fruitful field opens before such speculators in the history of our country's literature. Had Messrs. Brummell & Hunt gone into the grocery business, for instance, Homer would have been cobbling shoes in Haverhill, or at most, chronicling small beer in a country newspaper. Dante would have been a lawyer in chambers, drawing up wills and plodding through deeds, but leaving no foot-prints on the sands of time. Boccaccio would have been milking cows at Brook Farm, or growing round shouldered over his desk in the Jerusalem Court House. Miriam would have been writing children's stories for the "Little Cormorant," at fifty cents a column, and as Uncle Tom's Cabin would never have been built, the South would never have been provoked into rebellion; we should have had no war and no greenbacks, prices would never have risen, ten per cent. and fifteen cents would have been the same, and we should all have died comfortably in our beds.

But it is a theme for lasting gratitude not only that this house did not go into the "cotton trade and sugar line," but also that whatever share of prosperity it has reached, there are none to attribute it to any narrow or selfish policy. It has never sought to make bread out of other people's brain-work and leave the worker without fair compensation. But upon what meat hath this our "Athens Gazette" fed, that it is able to make so sweeping a negative, asks the unsanctified heart. By what authority saith it these things, and who gave it this authority? Has it had personal interviews with all the persons who ever had or sought business connections with Messrs. Brummel & Hunt, and learned from them that no narrow or selfish policy has ever been attributed to them? Even this would not establish its assertion, but surely nothing less than this would. It does not say that no narrow or selfish policy was ever indulged in, but that nobody so much as attributed it to them. Cæsar's wife is above suspicion. But has any one asked Cæsar?

It is not, of course, to be for a moment supposed that so great a house as the one in question would ever stoop to manufacture its own "puffs," if I may be pardoned the term. Such a course might befit the "parvenu hawkers and peddlers" of books, but not an hereditary aristocracy like this. Its "Poet-Publisher" has indeed distinguished himself by other figures than those of the day-book and ledger, but I have never heard that any member of the firm has been ambitious of a place among the prose writers of Greece. Nor is it I suspect any the more to be presumed because these paragraphs came to me conspicuously marked with blue and red lines, and superscribed in the handwriting with which many years of correspondence with the firm of B. & H. had made me familiar. For do we not all, as soon as we see ourselves complimented in the newspaper, send it around to all our friends by the early mail? But I am reminded of a story which I learned and recited many times in school. While the regicides Goffe, Whalley, and Maxwell were hiding in Connecticut, a rough fellow came from afar and terrified the simple villagers by challenging them to mortal combat. As they stood pale with consternation, a venerable man, unknown to all, appeared, gravely accepted the challenge, and immediately disappeared. At the appointed time throngs were gathered to witness the conflict. As the clock struck the hour, the mysterious combatant threaded the crowd and took his place in the arena armed only with a broom, and armored with a huge cheese fastened upon his person as a breastplate. The astonished bully began the fight by plunging his sword into the breast, or rather the cheese, of his opponent. The latter responded by dipping his broom into the neighboring mud-puddle and giving the bully a gentle swash about the neck. A second lunge into the cheese and the broom went higher, sweeping the fighter's chin. A third, and with a fresh baptism of mud the broom was drawn tenderly over the whole face of the baffled ruffian, who, unused to such warfare, threw down his sword in terror, crying, "Who are you? You must be either Goffe, Whalley, or the Devil!"

Moral: So I, viewing this paragraph and sundry others that follow it, and seeing how finely they are timed to the issues of the contest, cannot avoid the mental soliloquy, "Brummell & Hunt, or--Planchette!"

J. S. PARRY, OF THE FIRM OF H., P., & CO., TO M. N., JANUARY 1, 1769.

"The experience of the past few months suggests that it is likely to take some time to settle the details of the proposed arbitration by correspondence. A personal interview of half an hour would obviate much writing and delay. Will you see me at Zoar at such time next week (after Tuesday) as may be convenient to yourself?"

M. N. TO MR. PARRY.

"If you really think it worth while, by all means come; only the preliminaries seem to me so simple that they might almost be left to whistle themselves. I will see you, if you please, at two o'clock, P. M., Wednesday, the sixth,--day after to-morrow. A train leaves the Athens Railroad Station, I think, at 12.15. You must leave the train at Zoar. Probably there will be a carriage at the station if you prefer it to walking, but whichever way you come you will wish you had taken the other.