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

                                 India House
                                    22d  May 
                                      1842
                                            
  You are now probably at Bonn & the agonies 
of the article for the Edinburgh are over. I know 
what those agonies must have been but I think 
I also know what must be the relief from them 
& from that relief conjointly with the coming of a 
German summer, so much warmer & dryer & 
less variable than ours, one may hope good 
results for his health: but above all from the 
consciousness of having achieved something, & he 
is sure to find by its reception that he has not 
toiled in vain, for he never wrote anything which 
did not satisfy all whom he would wish it to
satisfy, except himself. I suppose there is 
something physical & organic in that incapacity 
of persuading himself that anything he does is 
done sufficiently well. Everybody who hears 
him talk on any subject in which he is interested 
would be quite satisfied if he would write the 
very words which he talks; almost any framework 
would serve to hold them together & that is 
exactly what Stephen expressed to me about the 
article now in question, he wished that the 
two lectures as he called them which he heard 
could be merely put on paper. By the bye I have 
no reason to believe that Mr Stephen was in 
any misapprehension about the subject of the 
article, although I was. About your own 
literary projects I hope the article or articles 
for the Edin. Have come zu Stande as I think 
it is a kind of writing which suits you, & which 
is likely to be a better speculation than translating.
For a translation to succeed, unless it be of something 
merely trumpery & gossiping there must be some 
peculiarly English interest involved in it, as 
in the case of Ranke the interest of Protestantism. 
If those German relations have done no more 
than pay their expenses I do not know what 
on the score of intrinsic merit could have any 
better chance. Of the books you mention I 
should think those on Rome, Naples & Venice
would have the best. Are they by Otfried Müller? 
His name is known here, which is seldom the case 
with any Germans not of the very first rank 
but I fancy I was wrong in concluding as I did 
as first from your letter that these books were by him. 
I know how much better suited the business of 
translating must often be to the state of your 
occupations & spirits than the more continuous
exertion of even a review article & it is very 
desirable that you should have something of the 
kind in hand. You might finish Egmont which 
would not take you very long & then offer it to 
Macready, he is from what I hear, exceedingly 
on the alert for any new theatrical speculation 
which has even a chance of taking & surely 
that would have a considerable chance. At 
any rate it might be published either alone 
or as part of a little volume of dramatic 
translations. - It is very dreary to think of 
you remaining in exile!‐the only thing which 
could make it not exile would be your having
friends near you, in the sense of real intimacy 
& that I thought it possible you & even he might 
have in Germany, but it seems not at Dresden: 
& although the German people are much more 
to your taste (as to mine) than the English. You 
seem to have fallen upon a time when all 
sorts of odious feelings are rife among them & 
besides as one grows older one is less & less capable 
of taking the species in general as an equivalent 
for the two or three whom one knows well enough 
to value them most in it. But I doubt if you would 
be better off in this respect anywhere in England; except London 
& its immediate neighbourhood, than in Germany. 
You ask me about cheapness of living. The experience 
of all whom I am able to speak of, is that in such 
places as Dorking there is no advantage whatever in 
cheapness, over London but rather a disadvantage. 
Of Selborne & such little places off the high roads 
I am unable to speak, but that would be a still 
more complete isolation than you are in at present. 
There is cheapness in remote parts as for example 
in Wales or Cornwall. The best place I know, of the 
kind is Falmouth, because there are really interesting 
& superior people there, even without counting Sterling 
who is now fixed there. Whether this would be 
better or worse than the Continent you can best judge. 
I have very little to tell you about myself. 
My book is to be published by Parker who 
has in every respect behaved so well about it 
that I really begin to care a little about 
its chances of sale, as I should be sorry that he 
lost any money by the speculation. It is some 
encouragement to know that Deighton, the 
Cambridge bookseller (whom Parker very much 
consults) thinks that a book of the kind if 
competently executed may sell. I am sure I do 
not expect any such opinion from any publishers. 
Murray's procrastination lost the present season 
& Parker proposes to publish the book about 
Christmas & to begin printing it in July. You have 
I suppose more news of most of your friends here 
through other channels than I could give. The Grotes 
are just returned from Italy‐Sterling was obliged 
to go there two months ago on account of 
his usual spring symptoms but they went off before 
he reached Gibraltar & he will soon I suppose 
return. The black seal of my letter indicated no 
death that I care about. George has had to pass 
the winter at Clifton but his state has greatly 
improved – he has been with Dr. Carpenter, the 
physiologist, son of Dr. Lant Carpenter & a man whom 
I have a great esteem for & I have no doubt 
he will have been much improved by it. 
  Mrs Taylor is no better, but she means to try 
all remedies that are practicable here before 
going abroad.
         Yours ever affectionately
                                     J. S. Mill.