第47章 Last Years in New York (4)

That there is a tremendous unsupplied book demand in this country there is no doubt: the wider distribution and easier access given to periodicals prove this point.Now and then there has been tried an unsupported or not well-thought-out plan for bringing books to a public not now reading them, but there seems little or no understanding of the fact that there lies an uncultivated field of tremendous promise to the publisher who will strike out on a new line and market his books, so that the public will not have to ferret out a book-store or wind through the maze of a department store.The American reading public is not the book-reading public that it should be or could be made to be; but the habit must be made easy for it to acquire.Books must be placed where the public can readily get at them.It will not, of its own volition, seek them.It did not do so with magazines; it will not do so with books.

In the meanwhile, Bok's literary letter had prospered until it was now published in some forty-five newspapers.One of these was the Philadelphia Times.In that paper, each week, the letter had been read by Mr.Cyrus H.K.Curtis, the owner and publisher of The Ladies' Home Journal.Mr.Curtis had decided that he needed an editor for his magazine, in order to relieve his wife, who was then editing it, and he fixed upon the writer of Literary Leaves as his man.He came to New York, consulted Will Carleton, the poet, and found that while the letter was signed by William J.Bok, it was actually written by his brother who was with the Scribners.So he sought Bok out there.

The publishing house had been advertising in the Philadelphia magazine, so that the visit of Mr.Curtis was not an occasion for surprise.Mr.

Curtis told Bok he had read his literary letter in the Philadelphia Times, and suggested that perhaps he might write a similar department for The Ladies' Home Journal.Bok saw no reason why he should not, and told Mr.Curtis so, and promised to send over a trial installment.The Philadelphia publisher then deftly went on, explained editorial conditions in his magazine, and, recognizing the ethics of the occasion by not offering Bok another position while he was already occupying one, asked him if he knew the man for the place.

"Are you talking at me or through me?" asked Bok.

"Both," replied Mr.Curtis.

This was in April of 1889.

Bok promised Mr.Curtis he would look over the field, and meanwhile he sent over to Philadelphia the promised trial "literary gossip"installment.It pleased Mr.Curtis, who suggested a monthly department, to which Bok consented.He also turned over in his mind the wisdom of interrupting his line of progress with the Scribners, and in New York, and began to contemplate the possibilities in Philadelphia and the work there.

He gathered a collection of domestic magazines then published, and looked them over to see what was already in the field.Then he began to study himself, his capacity for the work, and the possibility of finding it congenial.He realized that it was absolutely foreign to his Scribner work: that it meant a radical departure.But his work with his newspaper syndicate naturally occurred to him, and he studied it with a view of its adaptation to the field of the Philadelphia magazine.

His next step was to take into his confidence two or three friends whose judgment he trusted and discuss the possible change.Without an exception, they advised against it.The periodical had no standing, they argued; Bok would be out of sympathy with its general atmosphere after his Scribner environment; he was now in the direct line of progress in New York publishing houses; and, to cap the climax, they each argued in turn, he would be buried in Philadelphia: New York was the centre, etc., etc.

More than any other single argument, this last point destroyed Bok's faith in the judgment of his friends.He had had experience enough to realize that a man could not be buried in any city, provided he had the ability to stand out from his fellow-men.He knew from his biographical reading that cream will rise to the surface anywhere, in Philadelphia as well as in New York: it all depended on whether the cream was there: it was up to the man.Had he within him that peculiar, subtle something that, for the want of a better phrase, we call the editorial instinct?

That was all there was to it, and that decision had to be his and his alone!

A business trip for the Scribners now calling him West, Bok decided to stop at Philadelphia, have a talk with Mr.Curtis, and look over his business plant.He did this, and found Mr.Curtis even more desirous than before to have him consider the position.Bok's instinct was strongly in favor of an acceptance.A natural impulse moved him, without reasoning, to action.Reasoning led only to a cautious mental state, and caution is a strong factor in the Dutch character.The longer he pursued a conscious process of reasoning, the farther he got from the position.

But the instinct remained strong.

On his way back from the West, he stopped in Philadelphia again to consult his friend, George W.Childs; and here he found the only person who was ready to encourage him to make the change.

Bok now laid the matter before his mother, in whose feminine instinct he had supreme confidence.With her, he met with instant discouragement.

But in subsequent talks he found that her opposition was based not upon the possibilities inherent in the position, but on a mother's natural disinclination to be separated from one of her sons.In the case of Fanny Davenport's offer the mother's instinct was strong against the proposition itself.But in the present instance it was the mother's love that was speaking; not her instinct or judgment.

Bok now consulted his business associates, and, to a man, they discouraged the step, but almost invariably upon the argument that it was suicidal to leave New York.He had now a glimpse of the truth that there is no man so provincially narrow as the untravelled New Yorker who believes in his heart that the sun rises in the East River and sets in the North River.

He realized more keenly than ever before that the decision rested with him alone.On September 1, 1889, Bok wrote to Mr.Curtis, accepting the position in Philadelphia; and on October 13 following he left the Scribners, where he had been so fortunate and so happy, and, after a week's vacation, followed where his instinct so strongly led, but where his reason wavered.

On October 20, 1889, Edward Bok became the editor of The Ladies' Home Journal.