You can argue yourself into the delusion that the principle of life is in the stories themselves & not in their setting; but you will save labor by stopping with that solitary convert, for it he is the only intelligent one you will bag. In reality the stories are only alligator pears—one merely eats them for the sake of the salad-dressing. Uncle Remus is most deftly drawn, & is a lovable & delightful creation; he, & the little boy, & their relations with each other, are high & fine literature, & worthy to live, for their own sakes; & certainly the stories are not to be credited with them. But enough of this; I seem to be proving to the man that made the multiplication table that twice one are two.

I have been thinking, yesterday & to-day,) (plenty of chance to think,) as I am abed with lumbago at our little summering farm among the solitudes of the mountain-top,) & I have concluded that I can answer one of your questions with full confidence—thus: Make it a subscription book. Mighty few books that come strictly under the head of literature will sell by subscription; but if Uncle Remus won’t, the gift of prophecy has departed out of me. When a book will sell by subscription, it will sell two or three times as many copies as it would in the trade; & the profit is bulkier because the retail price is greater.

You did not ask me about royalties; still, I will gif give you a hint, free of charge, which I wish somebody had sold to me for a hundred thousand dollars ten years ago: Make your book at your own expense & pay some publisher ten per cent to sell it for you. On a sale of 50,000 copies this will pay your publisher $15,000, & yourself $35,000 or close upon it. ⟦ But keep these secrets to yourself.⟧

You didn’t ask me for a subscription-publisher. If you had, I should have recommended Osgood to you. He inauguratses his subscription department with my new book in the fall. I couldn’t recommend my former publishers to anybody, excpeptⒶemendation an enemy.

The question which you did ask—as to saving all new matter for your new book, etc instead of first taking the bloom ooff it in the magazines, etc., I am a little afraid to answer. Osgood can answer that. He will know. YouⒶemendation can ask him; or I will, just as you please. He will arrive from Europe 21st of this month. The fact that you are not offering him the book won’t make any de ifference. There’s nothing small about Osgood. He will answer with pleasure, & give his best judgment. ThenⒶemendation you can compare it with the opinion of the publisher whom you shall eventually choose, & adopt the sun suggestion which seems to be soundest.

My idea would be to print one yarn in the magazine every 3 months & thus keep before the public & at the same time keep the public unsatisfied; but I wouldn’t let them have such generous meals as you have been giving them. ForⒶemendation the ficklest dam people in the world are the publiec.

Now the doctor has been here & tried to interrupt my yarn about the Golden Arm, but I’ve got through, anyway.

Of course I tell it in the negro dialect—that is necessary; but I have not written it so, for I can’t it spell it in your matchless way. It is marvelous the way you & Cable spell the negro & creole dialects.

One Two grand features are lost in print: the wierdⒶemendation wailing, the rising & falling cadences of the wind, so easily mimicked with one’s mouth; & the impressive pauses & eloquent silences, & subdued utterances, toward the end of the yarn (which chain the attention of the children hand & foot, & they sit willth parted lips & breathless, to be wrenched limb from limb with the sudden & appalling “YOU got it!”) I have so gradually & impressively worked up the last act, with a “grown” audience, as to create a rapt & intense stillness; & then made them jump clear out of their skins, almost, with the final shout. It’s a lovely story to tell.

Old Uncle Dan’l, a slave of my uncle’s aged 60, used to tell us children yarns every night by the kitchen fire (no other light); & the last yarn demanded, every night, was this one. By this time there was but a ghostly blaze or two flickering about the back-log. We would huddle close about the old man, & begin to shudder with the first familiar words; but & under the spell of his impressive delivery we were always fell a prey to that climax at the end when the rigid black shape in the twilight sprang at us with a shout.

When you come to glance at the tale you will recollect it—it is as common & familiar as the Tar Baby. Work up the atmosphere with your customary skill & it will “go” in print.

Lumbago seems to make a body garrulous—but you’ll forgive it.