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 largely, and the truth will be found
inside rather than outside of my statement; but there is at least