ts prevailed. There were two chief ventures--the
business of Charles L. Webster & Co. and the promotion of the Paige
type-setting machine. They were closely identified in fortunes, so
closely that in time the very existence of each depended upon the
success of the other; yet they were quite distinct, and must be so
treated in this story.

The success of the Grant Life had given the Webster business an immense
prestige. It was no longer necessary to seek desirable features for
publication. They came uninvited. Other war generals preparing
their memoirs naturally hoped to appear with their great commander.
McClellan's Own Story was arranged for without difficulty. A Genesis of
the Civil War, by Gen. Samuel Wylie Crawford, was offered and accepted.
General Sheridan's Memoirs were in preparation, and negotiations with
Webster & Co. for their appearance were not delayed. Probably neither
Webster nor Clemens believed that the sale of any of these books would
approach those of the Grant Life, but they expected them to be large,
for the Grant book had stimulated the public taste for war literature,
and anything bearing the stamp of personal battle experience was
considered literary legal-tender.

Moreover, these features, and even the Grant book itself, seemed likely
to dwindle in importance by the side of The Life of Pope Leo XIII.,
who in his old and enfeebled age had consented to the preparation of
a memoir, to be published with his sanction and blessing.--[By Bernard
O'Reilly, D.D., LL.D. "Written with the Encouragement, Approbation, and
Blessings of His Holiness the Pope."]--Clemens and Webster--every one,
in fact, who heard of the project--united in the belief that no book,
with the exception of the Holy Scripture itself or the Koran, would have
a wider acceptance than the biography of the Pope. It was agreed by
good judges--and they included Howells and Twichell and even the shrewd
general agents throughout the country--that every good Catholic would
regard such a book not only as desirable, but as absolutely necessary
to his salvation. Howells, recalling Clemens's emotions of this time,
writes:

He had no words in which to paint the magnificence of the project or
to forecast its colossal success. It would have a currency bounded
only by the number of Catholics in Christendom. It would be
translated into every language which was anywhere written or
printed; it would be circulated literally in every