than there would
have been in any other line of business released to the unrestricted
plunder of the neighbor. There was for a long time even a comity among
these amiable buccaneers, who agreed not to interfere with each other,
and so were enabled to pay over to their victims some portion of the
profit from their stolen goods. Of all business men publishers are
probably the most faithful and honorable, and are only surpassed in
virtue when men of letters turn business men.

Publishers have their little theories, their little superstitions, and
their blind faith in the great god Chance, which we all worship. These
things lead them into temptation and adversity, but they seem to do
fairly well as business men, even in their own behalf. They do not
make above the usual ninety-five per cent. of failures, and more
publishers than authors get rich. I have known several publishers who
kept their carriages, but I have never known even one author to keep
his carriage on the profits of his literature, unless it was in some
modest country place where one could take care of one's own horse. But
this is simply because the authors are so many, and the publishers are
so few. If we wish to reverse their positions, we must study how to
reduce the number of authors and increase the number of publishers;
then prosperity will smile our way.

VIII.

Some theories or superstitions publishers and authors share together.
One of these is that it is best to keep your books all in the hands of
one publisher if you can, because then he can give them more attention
ad sell more of them. But my own experience is that when my books were
in the hands of three publishers they sold quite as well as when one
had them; and a fellow author whom I approached in question of this
venerable belief, laughed at it. This bold heretic held that it was
best to give each new book to a new publisher, for then the fresh man
put all his energies into pushing it; but if you had them all together,
the publisher rested in a vain security that one book would sell
another, and that the fresh venture would revive the public interest in
the stale ones. I never knew this to happen, and I must class it with
the superstitions of the trade. It may be so in other and more
constant countries, but in our fickle republic, each last book has to
fight its own way to public favor, much as if it had no sort of
literary lineage. Of course this is stating it rather larg