Transcription:
J. M. 2. The rest of the postscript. I own, gave me a shock. We cannot, of course, complain of your printing elsewhere any
material that may have been declined here, and of course you know we have declined nothing of yours except where we have been
shooting through the same hole for a long time, being afraid that we had bored our readers with the subject of forestry, as
up to six or eight months ago we were absolutely the only magazine in the country that had touched that subject at all, and
we had identified The Century with it. But we hoped that before you came to book publication you would have naturally turned
to us, even if later you should have concluded in the long run to accept a more advantageous offer elsewhere. Mr. Scott, our
President, does not remember any unwillingness to take the risk of publishing your first book, the fact being that we did
publish your first book and have sold three thousand copies of it. We suppose we are too good-natured with our authors. What
we ought to do is to get them in a corner and make them sign away their freedom to us for all time, as other people do. It
isn't so much a separate article here or there that we should care about, but the fact that another house has taken away one
of our authors, as we had come to look upon you. it is like having a child kidnapped Perhaps if the editors had less fear
of seeming indelicate in pushing business matters with their friends they would be able to withstand the insidious attacks
of our more active rivals. As the same thing has Just happened to one of Mr. Gilder's intimate friends, whom he thought he
had anchored in 02373