[Letter] 1842 August 22, India House [to Mrs Sarah Austin]

                                        India House
                                        22d August 
                                        1842
I write to you today without having much 
to say, in order to tell you what I have 
done or rather tried to do respecting your 
commissions. Senior never viewed 
your note, as he had set off before 
it reached me. He could not therefore 
have taken anything to you. I could 
have sent through Mr. Klingemann 
but I found that Laing's book was 
out of print & a bookseller whom 
I employed was not able to procure 
me a copy. There is to be another 
edition soon, & when it comes out I 
will send it to you if you think of it. But 
I would rather recommend your making 
Napier get it, as he certainly ought to 
do. I have no doubt a copy was sent 
to him.‐I could not send any sheets 
of my Logic because I have not yet 
begun to print it. The delay is not 
with me but with Parker who talked 
of beginning to print in July but has 
given no notice of being ready, & as the 
thing really does not press & he has 
behaved very well I do not chuse to 
urge him on the subject. It is very 
satisfactory that Napier has consented 
to take an article on the book from Mr Austin 
& I am particularly glad to hear of two 
articles on the stocks. It is a sign at least 
that Napier is not displeased with 
the reception of the former article, & 
he is likely to hear whatever complaints 
there are. As for dryness it is a fault 
belonging to the matter rather than the manner 
which was considerably more lively than 
I expected it to be though a little overcharged 
with classification in the first few pages. 
    I had heard of that offer & of Mr. Austin's 
refusal of it. Though I did not know the grounds 
of the refusal I felt that he was the best judge-
& that no bystander can possibly judge 
for any person in such a case, especially for 
a person of his peculiarities & of his superiority 
of intellect. The expression of regret, however, at 
his determination, has been by no means confined 
to the persons whom you mention. I have not heard
any of them speak of it but I have heard, & heard 
of several others, of whose friendship for you & Mr Austin 
you have less doubt, & who expressed, not dissent, 
much less had they the presumption to express 
disapprobation, but rather seemed to feel 
discouragement, from an idea of its being very
unlikely that anything should offer itself which 
would be liable to fewer objections than this Malta 
plan. Now however when I know his reasons I do not 
think so: & at all events if you are better as your 
are than with this, you are better as you are than 
with anything only as good as this.
      I hope you will write other things like Steffens 
both for Kemble & for Napier. I am sure they would
be successful & profitable. I should have thought 
just the same of that article if it had been written 
by anybody else‐it tells people with elegance & in 
an amusing garb & lively manner a number of the 
things which they most need to be told.
       Thanks for your copious list of German books 
on Rome: I wish there was a chance of meeting; 
with half of them, without buying 
chat en poche‐there are too many of them for 
such an experiment, nor is the occasion worth it. 
I shall read Wachsmuth & one or two others if 
I can borrow them. I have already read to weariness 
about Rome for if one is particular about
writing only what is true one has enough to do. 
I could have written a dashing article on the Romans 
such as Macaulay would write (though of course not so 
brilliantly) in a week, with the knowledge I had 
when I began to read up the subject. In the meantime 
I have been writing again for the old Westminster. 
Bailey of Sheffield has published a book to demolish
 Berkeley’s theory of vision: & I have answered him,
feeling it my special vocation to stand up for the old 
orthodox faith of that school. I will send the 
article to Mr Austin for it will have a chance 
of interesting him, though few people else. It is 
the first fruits of my partial recovery from a 
two months illness, or rather out-of-health-ness, 
& it at least helps to pay my debt to Hickson who 
used to write for the review without pay when I had it.
     It will be some comfort to get a real philosophical 
account of Prussia as the result of your winter 
in Berlin & I hope to hear from yourself somewhat 
at about the Berlinische aufklarüng from 
personal knowledge. From what you say I imagine 
it to be rather an un-German thing without
the simplicity, cordiality, & above all the quietness, 
which are so agreeable in German life & ways 
to a person wearied with discontented, struggling
(Benthamicè) devil-by-the-tail-pulling:England. 
But my notion of it is quite vague & may be all 
wrong.
       adieu
              J. S. Mill.