If, Yes and Perhaps Part 1

If, Yes and Perhaps.

by Edward Everett Hale.

PREFACE.

The t.i.tle to this book has met with general opprobrium, except in a few quarters, where it was fortunately regarded as beneath contempt. Colonel Ingham even exacted an explanation by telegraph from the Editor, when he learned from the Governor-General of Northern Siberia what the t.i.tle was. This explanation the Editor gave in the following note. It is, however, impossible to change the t.i.tle, as he proposes. For reasons known to all statesmen, it is out of the question to swap horses in crossing a river; and all publishers know that it is equally impossible to change t.i.tles under those circ.u.mstances.

BOSTON, October 17, 1868.

MY DEAR COLONEL INGHAM:--

I have your note complaining of the sensational t.i.tle, "somewhat affected," as you think, which I gave to our little story-book. Of course I am sorry you do not like the name; but, while you strike, I beg you to hear.

I readily acceded to your original t.i.tle, and called the book in ma.n.u.script as you bade me,--

"A Few Short Sketches taken from Ancient History, Modern Travel, and the Realm of Imagination, Ill.u.s.trative of the Poetry of the Bible, the History of Christianity, the Manners of the Times, and the Politics of the Present and Past Generations."

This t.i.tle would, I admit, meet the views of most of our present critics. But I abandoned it on my own responsibility,--you being then beyond the telegraph, at the mouth of the Oby River,--because it occurred to me, that, under the catalogue rules of Panizzi and the lamented Jewett, we should be indexed and catalogued at "Few."

I did not think that a good omen.

Relinquishing, therefore, the effort at description of subject, I tried description of object, and determined on this:--

"Moral Sketches of Human Society, in the Past, the Present, and Imagined Worlds." By F. I., &c., &c., &c.

But, as I slept and waked on this, I said, "Who knows that these are _moral_ sketches?" We wished them to be moral, but Ingham's have been attacked by such patient critics as read them as being immoral, while many of the sketches seem to have no moral at all.

Who are we, to claim that we have attained a moral standard?

Waking and sleeping once more, I asked myself, "What are the things,--poor, nameless heathen children, that can get no sponsor and no Christian baptism?"

I said, in reply, that at least one of them was the living truth, so far as it could be squeezed out of blue books and the most proper of doc.u.ments. Others might have been true, if the destinies had so willed. Others would have been true, had they not been untrue. Others should have been true, had poetical justice been the working rule of a vulgar world.

"Might, Could, Would, or Should," then, would have been an available name for most of them,--unless one took from the older grammars the t.i.tle of "The Potential Mood."

But, you observe, my dear Ingham, that our little story-book is destined mostly for young readers, who know no more of "The Potential Mood" than they know of the surrender of Cornwallis (this day celebrated). And, besides, we have some facts in the treatise which are not hypothetical. Why ignore them? Do you not see that your miserable suggestion of "The Potential Mood" is as worthless as it is sensational and fails as not comprehensive, inadequate, unintelligible, and not true?

For these reasons I settled on the plain, straightforward t.i.tle of unadorned truth, viz. "Four Possibilities, Six Exaggerations, and some Bits of Fact"; and with this we went to the publisher. But, as I entered his shop, a boy from Dutton's rushed in with his order-book, and cried:--

"I want seventy _Chimes_ and ninety _Ivanhoe_."

"What," said I, "if, by any good fortune, it had been our story-book that was wanted, this boy would then have called for

"'Seventy Four Possibilities.' Can there be so many in a world which runs in grooves? Will he even get the number that he needs of our treatises? Alexander a robber! Let me reflect."

Reflecting thus, I determined that the t.i.tle of a book must be,--

1. Brief.

2. Intelligible.

3. Suggestive.

4. It must not begin with a numeral.

I took a Tremont Street car and returned home.

"What," I said in the night-watches, "is the brief expression of a possibility? Surely it is in the word PERHAPS.

"What of a fact?

"Surely it is YES.

"What of an exaggeration? Why, it is that which would be true If it had not been overstated. Our t.i.tle then, clearly, is

"PERHAPS, YES, AND IF."

I see that the critics would have been better satisfied with this.

But, on the principle of the little elephants sacrificing themselves in the pa.s.sage of a river, Mr. Fields and I determined to start the smallest word first, and thus to drive a gentle wedge into the close chasm of the public favor. Sensitive, however, as I am, dear Ingham, to your criticism, I will at the earliest opportunity consult with him as to a return to the original t.i.tle:--

"A Few Sketches * * * Ill.u.s.trative," &c., &c., &c.

Or might we not let the one word "Etcetera" stand alone? Or thus, with the stars, "* * * &c., &c., &c."?

Truly yours, E. E. HALE.

THE CHILDREN OF THE PUBLIC.

[This story originated in the advertis.e.m.e.nt of the humbug which it describes. Some fifteen or twenty years since, when gift enterprises rose to one of their climaxes, a gift of a large sum of money, I think $10,000, was offered in New York to the most successful ticket-holder in some scheme, and one of $5,000 to the second. It was arranged that one of these parties should be a man and the other a woman; and the amiable suggestion was added, on the part of the undertaker of the enterprise, that if the gentleman and lady who drew these prizes liked each other sufficiently well when the distribution was made, they might regard the decision as a match made for them in Heaven, and take the money as the dowry of the bride. This thoroughly practical, and, at the same time, thoroughly absurd suggestion, arrested the attention of a distinguished story-teller, a dear friend of mine, who proposed to me that we should each of us write the history of one of the two successful parties, to be woven together by their union at the end.

The plan, however, lay latent for years,--the gift enterprise of course blew up,--and it was not until the summer of 1862 that I wrote my half of the proposed story, with the hope of eliciting the other half. My friend's more important engagements, however, have thus far kept Fausta's detailed biography from the light. I sent my half to Mr. Frank Leslie, in compet.i.tion for a premium offered by him, as is stated in the second chapter of the story. And the story found such favor in the eyes of the judges, that it received one of his second premiums. The first was very properly awarded to Miss Louisa Alcott, for a story of great spirit and power. "The Children of the Public" was printed in Frank Leslie's Ill.u.s.trated Newspaper for January 24 and January 31, 1863. The moral which it tries to ill.u.s.trate, which is, I believe, an important one, was thus commended to the attention of the very large circle of the readers of that journal,--a journal to which I am eager to say I think this nation has been very largely indebted for the loyalty, the good sense, and the high tone which seem always to characterize it. During the war, the pictorial journals had immense influence in the army, and they used this influence with an undeviating regard to the true honor of the country.]

CHAPTER I.

THE PORK-BARREL.

"Felix," said my wife to me, as I came home to-night, "you will have to go to the pork-barrel."

"Are you quite sure," said I,--"quite sure? 'Woe to him,' says the oracle, 'who goes to the pork-barrel before the moment of his need.'"

"And woe to him, say I," replied my brave wife,--"woe and disaster to him; but the moment of our need has come. The figures are here, and you shall see. I have it all in black and in white."