Another letter, also in my possession, I have caused to be printed elsewhere. It is addressed to Ollier, and was written from Farnham, Surrey, on July 26, 1848.
My dear Ollier: I do not suppose that I shall be in town for a few days, and I think in the meantime it would be better to send me down the sheets with any observations you may have to make. I shall be very happy to cut, carve, alter and amend to the best of my ability. The ‘sum’ can only be described as ‘Heaven, Hell and Earth’, or if you like it better, ‘upstairs, downstairs, in my lady’s chamber.’ But I suppose neither of these descriptions would be very attractive and therefore perhaps you had better put ‘The Sky, the hall of Eblis, South Asia’. When it maketh its appearance you had better for your own sake take care of the reviewing; for I cannot help thinking that with the critics at least, my name attached to it is likely to do it more harm than good, unless friendly hands undertake the reviewing. The literary world always puts me in mind of the account which naturalists give of the birds called Puffs and Rees which alight in great bodies upon high downs and then each bird forms a little circle in which he runs round and round. As long as each continues this healthful exercise on the spot he has first chosen, all goes on quietly; but the moment any one ventures out of his own circle, all the rest fall upon him and very often a general battle ensues. I wish you could do anything for my book Gowrie or the King’s Plot. I had a good deal of money embarked in it.
Yours faithfully,
G. P. R. James.
My letter of latest date indicates the time when he was transferred to Richmond.
British Consulate, Norfolk, Va.
3 May, 1856.
My Dear Mr. Kennedy: *** Lord Clarendon has ordered me to make every preparation for moving the Consulate of Virginia up to Richmond but not to do so until he has nominated a Vice Consul for Norfolk. He also wishes me to send him a detailed report regarding the late epidemic here and what between house hunting, office hunting, and trying to run down those foxes called rumors into their holes and to draw truth up from the bottom of her well in a place where people are as fanatical upon contagion and non-contagion as if they were articles of faith, I have had no peace of my life. My book I would have sent you but I could not get a copy worth sending. It has found favor in the South and is powerfully abused in the North, both which circumstances tend to increase the sale so that it has been wonderfully well read.***
I am sorry I did not think of taking notes of all the winning conversations at Berkeley. We might have made out together some few from the Noctes Berkelianae.
Yours ever,