I thank you much for your letter of 15th or thereabouts of August. You should have written me in that way before.

If I were very sensitive, perhaps I should feel it an indignity to be stationed in London, as a branch of a commercial house of which I am one of the three original heads and to be continuously addressed by the signature of the house itself as if I were a very young, undisciplined clerk, whom it was necessary to constantly caution not to be too self confident, rash & speculative, to be strenuously constrained from involving those who employed him in dangerous risks, & so on.

If I were in the habit of going ahead in proud stubborn blindness, if I disdained to consult you in matters of importance or neglected to advise you of what I was about, if I habitually exhibited an absurd confidence in my own judgment & business capacities; a little delicate reproof or attempt to constrain me might be proper & useful. But the contrary of this to a fault, is my character, so much so that both you & Dana said (& I do not doubt Edwards felt) that it would be the chief obstacle to my success in England.

You will remember also my answer to you, & you will see that events have justified my expectations of myself. But if anything could have paralyzed all the elements of success in my character & habits, it would have been just such letters as you have been sending me & the want of such full free & honest advices as your letter, at last received, contains.

To be frank with you, the manner in which you have treated me is inexcusable. How do you judge me? You have had good opportunities of knowing me, my weaknesses & foibles. You know my prevailing motives & tendencies with regard to our business. Am I the man among us most inclined to extravagant expenditures, to inconsiderate movements, to rash & dangerous speculations? If I were, you might be justified not only in constantly cautioning me, but even in trying to put some absolute barrier on the career in which my folly could drag you.

But at the worst, if I were your youngest & silliest clerk, would it not be a childish & undignified thing to write me, “We have perfect confidence in your integrity & docility to the extent, in an emergency, of twenty five pounds! But do be careful.” This, in almost exactly these words, is what you have written me, only in two consecutive sentences, instead of one.

Don’t think that I attach too much importance to this. In my own mind I put the best construction upon it and do not allow it to interfere with my cordial & friendly cooperation with you, I hope, at all.

Certainly, if I see an opportunity to make a purchase for a hundred pounds, that I should in any case be likely to make without waiting for your [386] advice, I shall not be prevented by your general orders from not making it. The probability of it is about the same as of your buying a paper mill without previously asking my consent.

The only absolute safety you can have against such pranks might be secured by advertising in the Atheneum that Dix, Edwards & Co. of New York would not be held responsible for the purchases of any of their partners to any amount exceeding 25 pounds unless consent in writing of the majority of the partners was produced by the individual offering to purchase.

With regard to the blocks purchased by Mr. Low, I will simply say that until [you expressed) something like a private apology in your letter—at least a private reservation—you have been persistently unjust & uncivil to me. If you did not agree with the ideas written by Mr. Edwards and in some cases at least recorded on the books of the partnership, you should have been more prompt with your reservation and have given equal dignity to it.

Remarks on this subject came to me in nine successive letters, all in the same strain, & no notice has ever been taken of my replies. I think you have acted throughout in a most absurd way.

I maintain & Sincerely believe, 1st—that I was not responsible for the purchase. 2d, that it was a judicious one. (If you had been content to wait to hear my notions I should have made it so, but) before you knew or had any idea what the blocks were, Edwards wrote me in an angry manner, that he should sell them as soon as they arrived & he did not doubt we should lose $500 on them. You paid no attention to any request of mine with regard to them. Edwards even neglects a business order about them. Excuse me however for touching a sore spot, as it seems to be [to) all of us.

But let me say here that I think when you wish to advise me upon such points as how to write a friendly letter or any other topic of deportment or morals, it would be as well to do it in your private and not your collective capacity. As I can not be advised with before these treatises are indited, I prefer not to be held responsible for their record as the views of the firm in the copybook.

But, to have done with joking and growling, I want you—you, Dix—to write me sometimes in the way not only of the details, but of a general survey of our business, especially as relates to the English department of it. Recollect that in the few days after we began to consider it possible to do any English business, before I left, we talked very little about it & that little had reference entirely to the where & how of obtaining books on commission, not at all to the manner in which they should be dealt with & how this business should connect with the general business.

I suppose & act upon the supposition that Low has the general direction of this branch, as you have of the manufacturing, but that you, because of your previous experience with it at Putnam’s, look after it in its relation & connection with the general business & superintend & advise with Low. If so, I think you ought to write me more about it, not in its details as he does, but in its [387] general drift. I have frequently intimated that I somewhat doubted if it would be best to solicit or even to take consignments from any & everybody. Low sometimes seems to be arguing against me, but neither you nor Edwards have apparently discussed it at all & I doubt if you have got my idea.

If I should come home, the whole subject could be so much more satisfactorily debated and a broad policy distinctly entered upon so much more confidently & judiciously by all, that I don’t want to undertake to do it by correspondence. But I need every day to know your purposes & preparations better than I do.

This dull season, Putnam falling off alarmingly, Schoolfellow dragging, lots of projects apparently lost Sight of, the numerous speculations ready for launching in the autumn, and finally this English experiment, in the success of which our honor is more at stake than in all the rest (because it involves the fulfillment of promises & our worthiness of the trust of others more than the rest.) All these make the next six months the grand crisis of our business. I would prefer to restrict rather than enlarge the requisitions upon your labor, discretion & capital. I hope you will look out before November to have a sufficiently numerous & capable company of clerks & porters to relieve you from petty & unimportant occupation of your time. The business will be so large & varied that its mere superintendence with the proper deliberation & discussion upon new projects, the consideration of questions of taste & invention, & the conduct of important correspondence will certainly require all your time & talent. I think too that Low, at the outset, will have more than he can do to make the best of the materials already secured to him for the English book department. Six months ago it was, as you then told me, chiefly of consequence to get some consignments. Now the only thing comparatively is to dispose of those which have been got.

I don’t well know what you think. What you say seems to be said rather with the purpose of encouraging me than as a spontaneous expression of your business judgment. But I tell you that if, with my present knowledge, I had to demand what I would take in England when I came here, it would be just about what I have succeeded in getting. If you understood all I mean by this without knowing more of the grounds of my judgment, I don’t suppose you would at all agree with me.

I do not believe it is desirable that I should stay in London another day for the avowed purpose of gaining consignments from other houses. I should not from my own impulse at present solicit another house to consign. What I chiefly hope to do in the next year is to unobtrusively obtain the friendship and confidence of the publishing body for our house. To convert the present confidence of those who consign to us into a really active friendship, to make them desirous to serve us, and if we are to be (I hope not) considered here as the rivals of Bangs, to make them our partisans, to make them do our advertising, blow our trumpets, sound our praises, vindicate our character & advantages.

If Welford considers us in opposition to him, I would not ask that he [388] should do anything better for us than to go on in the way he began. I cautioned him not so much from policy as self respect. If we much exceed the expectations of our present consignors, we may leave the battle in their hands. A year or two hence we shall not find people waiting to be solicited to consign to us. They will be soliciting us to undertake to do for them what we have done for Bradbury & Evans, Parker & so on.

If you will publish some books that will make themselves known here and sell heavily of such consignments [as] are already offered us, Mr. Welford will have done us the greatest service possible by giving his friends an opportunity of reaction from injustice and suspicion.

There is much other reason why for a year to come every effort should be made (consistently with dignity) on your side, & why I should be comparatively quiet & indifferent with regard to further consignments. There are many publishers—of good books too—whose consignments would be an injury to us at present.

Punch I should be very glad to have you take as I have proposed—from the influence it would indirectly have on our position here. But I would not like to have you risk any financial embarrassment for it. Punch is owned & conducted by a club or association of its contributors together with the publishers & Joyce, who is the Secretary & Treasurer. Mark Lemon is the editor.

I dined with them all at Thackeray’s the other night—Mark Lemon, Thackeray, Shirley Brooks, Leigh, Tom Taylor, Leech, Horace Mayhew. I need not say they are good men as well as jolly fellows, all active, productive minds and connected with various other good things as well as Punch. At the dinner, whereat were also Bayard Taylor, Hurlbert & Story, Bradbury & Evans were markedly polite to me—each of them, & Joyce, asking me to drink with them, &c.

The idea was suggested that some sort of American correspondence with Punch might be practicable. Who would be the man for that? The set dine together weekly at Bradbury & Evans & at their dinner their business is arranged & under the vinous warmth the good things sprout. It is this which has kept Punch alive so long, without doubt.

You ask how I like the Schoolfellow. Judging from the July number, I do not like it as a whole & I am not satisfied with any part of it—except Duggan’s street scenes, which are good. But you have not one real genius for children at work for it. Neither Dana nor you, nor Miss Terry nor Elliott have the proper qualities for its editor. And anyone of you alone would do better than you all unenthusiastically and inharmoniously combined. There is nowhere sufficient personal responsibility and absorption in it.

My China story was completed and carefully & intelligibly arranged & laid altogether wherever you found a part, at three o’clock in the morning of the day I left New York. How do you suppose I can re-complete it without knowing where the interruption occurs? How could you have printed the illustrations (as per advertisement of contents) when the matter illustrated was wanting?

[389]

Tell Dana he will do me a kindness if he will go to [Staten] island sometime as you do & visit John. The poor fellow is so lonely & gets so blue there.

Is Curtis to be married this summer? Give my love to him.