“I am very glad you did not go to B. & H.'s, as the day after my letter to you went I received one from them, saying, ‘In your letter,’ etc.
“As the proceedings have been of an entirely private nature, without any cost of money, and with the outlay of but a few pages of note paper on their part, I do not see why the question of time is so important.
“What I propose now to do, is to have you, if you see no objection, send them by mail the note which I inclose to you for them.
“Legal proceedings I cannot, for a moment, think of instituting. Even if I should gain the case, it would be at a cost altogether too great. I think it would be far wiser for me to go on winning new laurels than to spend my energies in trying to pick up the withered twigs of last year's growth! The figure, I perceive, has serious defects, but you don't, so we will let it pass. I think now the whole thing would far better be suffered to remain quiet. I shall be gathering facts which will one day take shape, but I do not know what. Knowledge, however, is always useful, and certainly one cannot move an army unless one has an army.
“So I suppose there is no need of answering your other questions.
“I think it is as well to let the books be where they are.... Unless I find there is more advantage to be gained by a removal than I can see, the game would not be worth the candle.
“I feel more satisfied than I have done at any time since the trouble began. (While the child was yet alive, I fasted and wept. But now he is dead, wherefore should I fast?) Their refusal to refer seems to put me in open seas again.
“You say you are not cross, and I know you tried hard not to be. In fact, you have been an angel of patience all through, and I mean to reward you by conducting you honorably through some difficult Hell-gate of your own. I use the term in a marine and figurative sense.... From the beginning of your letter, I infer that you thought my last letter found some fault with you client-wise. I cannot recall the letter enough to know what may have given rise to the feeling, but I assure you nothing was further from the truth. And nothing can be more friendly and helpful than your whole course towards me has been. I shall never cease to hold it in grateful remembrance until you offend me, and then it will crisp up like flax in the flames, and I shall bear down on you just as heavily as if you had never done me a good turn in your life. Such, alas! is human nature.”
M. N. TO B. & H., SEPTEMBER 11.
“I have received your letter of the 8th inst., declining arbitration.