truth enough in it to give the young author pause. While one is
preparing to sell his basket of glass, he may as well ask himself
whether it is better to part with all to one dealer or not; and
if he kicks it over, in spurning the imaginary customer who asks
the favor of taking entire stock, that will be his fault, and not
the fault of the question.

However, the most important question of all with the man of
letters as a man of business, is what kind of book will sell the
best of itself, because, at the end of the ends, a book sells
itself or does not sell at all; kissing, after long ages of
reasoning and a great deal of culture, still goes by favor, and
though innumerable generations of horses have been led to water,
not one horse has yet been made to drink. With the best, or the
worst, will in the world, no publisher can force a book into
acceptance. Advertising will not avail, and reviewing is
notoriously futile. If the book does not strike the popular
fancy, or deal with some universal interest, which need by no
means be a profound or important one, the drums and the cymbals
shall be beaten in vain. The book may be one of the best and
wisest books in the world, but if it has not this sort of appeal
in it, the readers of it, and worse yet, the purchasers, will
remain few, though fit. The secret of this, like most other
secrets of a rather ridiculous world, is in the awful keeping of
fate, and we can only hope to surprise it by some lucky chance.
To plan a surprise of it, to aim a book at the public favor, is
the most hopeless of all endeavors, as it is one of the
unworthiest; and I can, neither as a man of letters nor as a man
of business, counsel the young author to do it. The best that
you can do is to write the book that it gives you the most