If you want to live from the proceeds of your work, if you want
to sell even moderately, you must ~cut out the nature stuff." "Now
to put in the nature stuff," continues the author, "was the express
purpose for which the book had been written. I had had one year's
experience with `The Song of the Cardinal,' frankly a nature book,
and from the start I realized that I never could reach the
audience I wanted with a book on nature alone. To spend time
writing a book based wholly upon human passion and its outworking
I would not. So I compromised on a book into which I put all the
nature work that came naturally within its scope, and seasoned it
with little bits of imagination and straight copy from the lives of
men and women I had known intimately, folk who lived in a simple,
common way with which I was familiar. So I said to my publishers:
`I will write the books exactly as they take shape in my mind. You
publish them. I know they will sell enough that you will not lose.
If I do not make over six hundred dollars on a book I shall never
utter a complaint. Make up my work as I think it should be and
leave it to the people as to what kind of book they will take into
their hearts and homes.' I altered `Freckles' slightly, but from
that time on we worked on this agreement.
"My years of nature work have not been without considerable insight
into human nature, as well," continues Mrs. Porter. "I know its
failings, its inborn tendencies, its weaknesses, its failures, its
depth of crime; and the people who feel called upon to spend their
time analyzing, digging into, and uncovering these sources of
depravity have that privilege, more's the pity! If I had my way
about it, this is a privilege no one could have in books intended
for indiscriminate circulation.
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