I did not suppose that you would, upon reflection, be willing to leave the views which I understood you to express last night unrepudiated.

[358]

I hold that merely as a matter of money-making, a man can never afford to do what is not right—that he can never afford to sink his principles, that when he has money in his pockets that rightfully belongs to another man he can not afford to keep it there however temporarily inconvenient it may be to him. To pay it and however convenient it may be to his creditor to dispense with it—consistently of course with the practical requirements & customs of commerce.

Perhaps Dix & I misunderstood you in thinking you expressed ideas contrary to these. But I think it more probable that in the heat of discussion you allowed yourself to use arguments which if they had been addressed to you would have made you indignant and angry as they did me.

We were all wrong. The discussion should have been avoided altogether or should have been carried on in entirely different manner.

The question of the right of the owners of Household Words to a payment from us is one upon which I am willing to admit an honest and reasonable difference of opinion may obtain. You are mistaken in supposing that upon this point I have much feeling. I should not stand out if you and Mr. Dix disagreed with me in a practical question depending upon it.

The question of our duty from courtesy is another one, and upon this too I should yield to a majority.

The question of expediency is still another and one upon which a difference of opinion might with propriety exist and upon which, if I stood one to two, I could yield my position with no ill grace.

These questions might all have been indefinitely deliberated upon before our first payment. After that payment and the letter which accompanied it, I think our conclusion can not be reconsidered until there is some material change in the circumstances, without a sacrifice—I will not say of principle—but of self respect and business character.

I think that upon reflection you will agree with [me] up to the last point.

If Bradbury & Evans’ letter can be considered as a sufficient circumstance to exonerate us from what we should otherwise have been obliged to do, there would be no need to discuss the matter further.

My opinion has always been that it would not, even if we were assured that the apparent impertinence of that letter was real and intentional.

But upon reflection, I have not thought that it was so. Others, whose judgment I suppose to be better than mine upon it, have not, and I had thought that you yourself expressed the opinion to me in conversation that the objectionable phrase was a mere rapid business expression with no ungracious intention towards us.

But if we should not so conclude and if we could feel that the supposed impertinence of Messrs. Bradbury & Evans through their clerk exonerated us from what we should otherwise consider obligations in honor and courtesy, I really believe that it would be bad policy for us, looking at it from a mere dollar and cent point of view, to take advantage of it. I think it would be better for us, [359] if we could, to pocket the petty insult and retain and sustain the position in which we first placed ourselves, as long as possible.

I think so because it seems to me that it is necessary to do so to sustain the reputation we aspire to of a liberal and gentlemanly publishing house. I do not wish to obtain such a character by the smallest neglect of punctilious accuracy and the closest economy, but by always acting and deciding, as if it were instinctively, on a certain broad sentiment, the sentiment which Jesus expresses as doing unto others as we would be done by—not Quixotically, but simply and fairly.

I say that I would do as a matter of policy, but I must do simply as a matter of comfort. I have seen enough of business as ordinarily conducted to detest it. If I thought that which is usual was necessary I am quite sure that I would prefer to starve or to commit suicide in some less painful manner, most certainly would rather be a poor laboring man than to have any part in it.

But we know that it is not necessary even to success; experience shows that those who are in the most haste to get rich are the most likely to be tript up and to leave beggarly families. The most liberal are the richest merchants now in New York, though there are no doubt several exceptions.

Why is it so? Mainly because they gradually obtain reputations and characters that draw the best and safest and most profitable kind of business to them. Because the honestest men find more pleasure and comfort in dealing with them than with men who are merely technically honest and “cheap.”

In the publishing business such a character must be of far greater value than in business in general, because publishers deal with a class of men that often have very little business talent or taste for driving bargains or making money by financial good management. On this ground I at once gave way to you when you objected to Dr. Hunter’s proposal and before you offered the additional reason of the danger of being compromised in libel suits.

If Mr. Bancroft should apply to me for information as to the London publishers, the mere want of ready and cordial good grace on the part of Messrs. Bradbury & Evans in replying to our note would be a sufficient ground with me for not recommending them as a house with which it would be agreeable for him to correspond & they may in consequence lose a very valuable republication.

But I should mention to him as a circumstance much in favor of his addressing a certain other publishing concern that it had paid Mr. Hurlbert liberally for a service that he not only had no legal claim upon them for but that he performed without any purpose of benefitting them and which he did not even expect any remuneration of them for. So also I should speak well of the publisher who has continued up to this time to make semi-annual remittances to Mr. Brace for his “Hungary,” published four years ago—a remittance made precisely as if there were a legal necessity of it, in a simple business like form.

The opinion of Bradbury & Evans or of Mr. Dickens or of anyone else who is informed of our remittances to them may, very likely, never be worth a [360] postage stamp to us, but it may also be more profitable simply as an advertisement than any other investment we could make. And if our business is at all points carried on in that spirit, I am not only sure that it will be far more confortable but I am confident that in the long run it will be more profitable.

You agree with me I know on the general principles I have enunciated. If we differ it is as to whether they apply to this particular case.

You will excuse me if I say that to me it seems obviously absurd when by simply reprinting and distributing “Household Words” we make $3,000 a year, to say that we are under no obligations to those who furnish it to us. Yet I know that there is somehow a difference of opinion upon this among sensible & honest men and as a member of the community, I am willing to waive my opinion & to remain under obligations to the Englishmen, because of the impracticality of paying my individual share.

So if a majority of the firm disagreed with me, I should & could not insist upon their paying what they felt no need to pay. I should then remain under personal obligations to the English proprietors, not without the hope of in some way, bye and bye, making them some suitable acknowledgement if not remuneration.

Then as to regard for our reputation. To acquire the respect of others we must have self respect. Now I feel at once that I can not withdraw at least for the present from the position in which we have placed ourselves without wounding my self respect—not even though that position exposes us to insults from Bradbury & Evans. And this feeling is strong prima facie evidence that our reputation would be compromised if we did have it. It would hardly lessen this evidence if this feeling could be argued away, for very few men would take the trouble to argue the matter, but would form an impression at once, unfavorable to us, which it would be difficult to remove.

It was for this reason I suppose that I was myself rather impatient of argument yesterday.

I hope in any discussing we may have hereafter we shall all keep our good nature without losing our frankness.