'Correspondents and Critics. 271 



promising the book on receipt of a satisfactory 

 reply, for which, I will add, I am still waiting. 

 Publishers cannot say henceforth that I have 

 not been duly alive to their interests. So far 

 as I am aware, merchants are not plagued with 

 letters asking a gift of the wares in which they 

 deal. Schoolmistresses, even, do not beg, but 

 buy their candy and clothing, so why not the 

 books they desire ? To single out the product 

 of an author's brain from all other material 

 things as objects not coming under commercial 

 considerations is, from the author's point of 

 view, inexplicable. It is sadly true there is 

 precious little money in the average book, but 

 then, just so much the more reason for the 

 author wishing to receive the whole of that 

 little. I do not know if publishers are as pes- 

 tered as are authors in this way ; probably not ; 

 and certainly the former are not sentimental 

 to the point of startling generosity unless some 

 how or way they are roundly well paid for it. 

 May the Indiana schoolmistress never see my 

 concluding sentence : what wonderful people 

 do we have in this world, truly ! 



One letter from a man this time asks me 



