The World of Chance by William Dean Howells

Mr. Brandreth tried hard to escape from the logic of his readers' / opinions. In the light of his friendly optimism they took almost a / favorable cast. He argued that there was nothing absolutely damnatory in / those verdicts, that they all more or less tacitly embodied a / recommendation to mercy. So far his personal kindliness carried him, but / beyond this point business put up her barrier. He did not propose to / take the book in spite of his readers; he said he would see; and after / having seen for a week longer, he returned the MS. with a letter / assuring Ray of his regret, and saying that if he could modify the story / according to the suggestions of their readers, Chapley & Co. would be / pleased to examine it again.

Ray had really expected some such answer as this, though he hoped / against reason for something different. In view of it he had spent the / week mentally recasting the story in this form and in that; sometimes it / yielded to his efforts in one way or another; when the manuscript came / into his hands again, he saw that it was immutably fixed in the terms he / had given it, and that it must remain essentially what it was, in spite / of any external travesty.

He offered Mr. Brandreth his thanks and his excuses for not trying to / make any change in it until he had first offered it as it was to other / publishers. He asked if it would shut him out of Chapley & Co. 's grace / if he were refused elsewhere, and received an answer of the most / flattering cordiality to the effect that their desire to see the work in / another shape was quite unconditioned. Mr. Brandreth seemed to have put / a great deal of heart in this answer; it was most affectionately / expressed; it closed with the wish that he might soon see Ray at his / house again.

Ray could not have believed, but for the experience which came to him, / that there could be so many reasons for declining to publish any one / book as the different publishers now gave him. For the most part they / deprecated the notion of even looking at it. The book-trade had never / been so prostrate before; events of the most unexpected nature had / conspired to reduce it to a really desperate condition. The unsettled / state of Europe had a good deal to do with it; the succession of bad / seasons at the West affected it most distinctly. The approach of a / Presidential year was unfavorable to this sensitive traffic. Above all, / the suspense created by the lingering and doubtful fate of the / international copyright bill was playing havoc with it; people did not / know what course to take; it was impossible to plan any kind of / enterprise, or to risk any sort of project. Men who had been quite / buoyant in regard to the bill seemed carried down to the lowest level of / doubt as to its fate by the fact that Ray had a novel to offer them; / they could see no hope for American fiction, if that English trash was / destined to flood the market indefinitely. They sympathized with him, / but they said they were all in the same boat, and that the only thing / was to bring all the pressure each could to bear upon Congress. The sum / of their counsel and condolence came to the effect in Ray's mind that / his best hope was to get _A Modern Romeo_ printed by Congress as a / Public Document and franked by the Senators and Representatives to their / constituents. He found a melancholy amusement in noting the change in / the mood of those who used to meet him cheerfully and carelessly as the / correspondent of a newspaper, and now found themselves confronted with / an author, and felt his manuscript at their throats. Some tried to joke; / some became helplessly serious; some sought to temporize.

Those whose circumstances and engagements forbade them even to look at / his novel were the easiest to bear with. They did not question the / quality or character of his work; they had no doubt of its excellence, / and they had perfect faith in its success; but simply their hands were / so full they could not touch it. The other sort, when they consented to / examine the story, kept it so long that Ray could not help forming false / hopes of the outcome; or else they returned it with a precipitation that / mortified his pride, and made him sceptical of their having looked into / it at all. He did not experience unconditional rejection everywhere. In / some cases the readers proposed radical and impossible changes, as / Chapley & Co. 's readers had done. In one instance they so far / recommended it that the publisher was willing to lend his imprint and / manage the book for the per cent usually paid to authors, if Ray would / meet all the expenses. There was an enthusiast who even went so far as / to propose that he would publish it if Ray would pay the cost of the / electrotype plates. He appeared to think this a handsome offer, and Ray / in fact found it so much better than nothing that he went into some / serious estimates upon it. He called in the help of old Kane, who was an / expert in the matter of electrotyping, and was able from his sad / experience to give him the exact figures. They found that _A New Romeo_ / would make some four hundred and thirty or forty pages, and that at the / lowest price the plates would cost more than three hundred dollars. The / figure made Ray gasp; the mere thought of it impoverished him. His / expenses had already eaten a hundred dollars into his savings beyond the / five dollars a week he had from the _Midland Echo_ for his letters. If / he paid out this sum for his plates, he should now have some ninety / dollars left.

"But then," said Kane, arching his eyebrows, "the trifling sum of three / hundred dollars, risked upon so safe a venture as _A New Romeo_, will / probably result in riches beyond the dreams of avarice."

"Yes: or it may result in total loss," Ray returned.