f
something like a hundred thousand pounds: but the bare fact is that all
I have ever received from my Transatlantic booksellers in the way of
money has been some L80 (three thousand dollars) which Herman Hooker of
Philadelphia gave me for the exclusive privilege--so far as I could
grant it--of being my publisher. For aught else, I have nothing to
complain of in the way of praise, however profitless, of kindliness,
however well appreciated, and of boundless hospitality, however fairly
reimbursed at the time by the valuable presence of a foreign celebrity.
No doubt the public are benefited by the cheapness of books unprotected
by copyright, and the author, if he wins no royalty, gains by fame and
pleasure; but the absence of a copyright law is a great mistake,--as
well as an injustice to the authorship of both nations, by starving the
literature of each other, American publishers will not sufficiently pay
their own native bookwrights when they can appropriate their
neighbours' works for nothing; and ours in England probably enriched
themselves as vastly and cheaply by Mrs. Beecher Stowe's "Uncle Tom's
Cabin" as many among the thirty-three States by "Proverbial Philosophy."

* * * * *

As my handsome quarto "Proverbial" has been for two generations a common
gift-book for weddings, and has more than once appeared among the gifts
at royal marriages, it is small wonder that I have often been greeted by
old--and young--married couples as having been a sort of spiritual Cupid
on such occasions. Frequently at my readings and elsewhere ladies
thitherto unknown have claimed me as their unseen friend, and some have
feelingly acknowledged that my Love and Marriage (both written in my
teens) were the turning-points of their lives and causes of their
happiness. These lines will meet the eyes of some who will acknowledge
their truth, and possibly if they like it may write and tell me so: some
of my warmest friendships have originated in grateful letters of a
similar character.

* * * * *

It may also be worthy of mention that on this side of the Atlantic as
well as on the other (see especially the case of N.P. Willis) it has
often been taken for granted that the author of "Proverbial Philosophy"
has been dead for generations. No doubt this is due both to the antique
style of the book and to the retiring habits of its author:
comparatively few of my readers know me by si