days. Remember that, the next time you think
I regret my exile. And however low the lights are, the stuff is true,
and I believe the more effective; after all, what I wish to fight is the
best fought by a rather cheerless presentation of the truth. The world
must return some day to the word duty, and be done with the word reward.
There are no rewards, and plenty duties. And the sooner a man sees that
and acts upon it like a gentleman or a fine old barbarian, the better
for himself.

There is my usual puzzle about publishers. Chatto ought to have it, as
he has all the other essays; these all belong to me, and Chatto
publishes on terms. Longman has forgotten the terms we are on; let him
look up our first correspondence, and he will see I reserved explicitly,
as was my habit, the right to republish as I choose. Had the same
arrangement with Henley, Magazine of Art, and with Tulloch,
Fraser's.--For any necessary note or preface, it would be a real service
if you would undertake the duty yourself. I should love a preface by
you, as short or as long as you choose, three sentences, thirty pages,
the thing I should like is your name. And the excuse of my great
distance seems sufficient. I shall return with this the sheets corrected
as far as I have them; the rest I will leave, if you will, to you
entirely; let it be your book, and disclaim what you dislike in the
preface. You can say it was at my eager prayer. I should say I am the
less willing to pass Chatto over, because he behaved the other day in a
very handsome manner. He asked leave to reprint _Damien_; I gave it to
him as a present, explaining I could receive no emolument for a personal
attack. And he took out my share of profits, and sent them in my name to
the Leper Fund. I could not bear after that to take from him any of that
class of books which I have always given him. Tell him the same terms
will do. Clark to print, uniform with the others.

I have lost all the days since this letter began rehandling Chapter IV.
of the Samoa racket. I do not go in for literature; address myself to
sensible people rather than to sensitive. And, indeed, it is a kind of
journalism, I have no right to dally; if it is to help, it must come
soon. In two months from now it shall be done, and should be published
in the course of March. I propose Cassell gets it. I am going to call it
_A Footnote to History: Eight Years of Trouble in Samoa_, I believe. I
recoil from serious names; they s