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To Fred J. Hall, in New York:
MUNICH, July 3, '93.
DEAR MR. HALL,--You make a suggestion which has once or twice flitted
dimly through my mind heretofore to wit, sell L. A. L.
I like that better than the other scheme, for it is no doubt feasible,
whereas the other is perhaps not.
The firm is in debt, but L. A. L. is free--and not only free but has
large money owing to it. A proposition to sell that by itself to a big
house could be made without embarrassment we merely confess that we
cannot spare capital from the rest of the business to run it on the huge
scale necessary to make it an opulent success.
It will be selling a good thing--for somebody; and it will be getting
rid of a load which we are clearly not able to carry. Whoever buys
will have a noble good opening--a complete equipment, a well organized
business, a capable and experienced manager, and enterprise not
experimental but under full sail, and immediately able to pay 50 per
cent a year on every dollar the publisher shall actually invest in it--I
mean in making and selling the books.
I am miserably sorry to be adding bothers and torments to the
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