92 THE EULOGY OF RICHARD JEFFERIES. 



pleasure of sending you some copies when 

 it appears." 



Alas 1 he was mistaken, There was much 

 more than the remuneration to be settled 

 before the work was published ; in fact, it 

 never was published. 



The last letter of the packet has no other 

 date than May 7. From internal evidence, 

 however, it must have been written in the 

 year 1873. 



" I have just had a great disappointment. 

 After keeping the manuscript of my novel 



more than two months, Mr. has 



written to decline it. It really does seem 

 like Sisyphus just as one has rolled the 

 stone close to the top of the hill, down it 

 goes again, and all one's work has to be done 

 over again. For some time after I began 

 literary work I did not care in the least about 

 a failure, because I had a perpetual spring of 

 hope that the next would be more fortunate. 

 But now, after eight years of almost continual 

 failure, it is very hard indeed to make a fresh 

 effort, because there is no hope to sustain 



