But I should like a kind neighbour like you to know something about me, and I have therefore desired my publisher to send you one[21] of my many books which, after doing the work that I have done, you would have to read before you could really use words in my meaning.
If you will read the introduction carefully, and especially dwell on the 10th to 15th lines of the 15th page, you will at least know me a little better than to think I believe in my own resurrection—but not in Christ's: and if you look to the final essay on War, you may find some things in it which will be of interest to you in your own[22] work.
[21] Crown of Wild Olive.—Ed.
[22] Translating some of Erckmann-Chatrian's.—Ed.
4.
Venice, 8th September, 1879.
* * * * There is nothing whatever said as far as I remember in the July 'Fors,' about "people's surrendering their judgment." A colonel does not surrender his judgment in obeying his general, nor a soldier in obeying his colonel. But there can be no army where they act on their own judgments.
The Society of Jesuits is a splendid proof of the power of obedience, but its curse is falsehood. When the Master of St. George's Company bids you lie, it will be time to compare our discipline to the Jesuits. We are their precise opposites—fiercely and at all costs frank, while they are calmly and for all interests lying.
5.
Brantwood, Coniston,
July 30th, 1879.