[Letter] 1843 Feb 28, India House [to Mrs Sarah Austin]

                                         India House
                                       28th Feb. 1843

I should have answered your letter much 
sooner, if only an account of the proposal 
to Parker, but that he told me he would 
himself write & no doubt you have long 
since received an answer from him, more 
explicit as to details than the answer he gave me. 
The History of the Reformation he thought 
would not suit him, but the other book 
you mentioned, he thought would, & was 
quite willing to close with the project, but 
did not seem confident as to the sufficiency 
of such pecuniary terms as the state of the
market in his opinion allowed him to offer 
and as your doing the thing at all would of 
course depend upon his making it with yours 
while, it is for him to make his 
proposition. Au reste, everything I have seen of 
him is in his favour: pretending to no character 
but that of a tradesman, he has in every respect 
in which I have had to do with him acted like 
a gentleman, which Murray who sets up for a 
gentleman & a patron of letters seems to me
in reality a mere tradesman & not a good 
one. I believe however this is not the same 
with the Oxford Parker, so that there may 
be a chance there if this fails. This 
one is bookseller to the University of 
Cambridge.‐In the meanwhile I am glad 
you are going on writing for the Edinburgh which 
I suspect is more lucrative work than even 
your translating & which you are so well 
qualified for. I liked your article on Mad Schopenhauer 
very much, both as pleasant reading & for the 
tone of its remarks, which are of a kind very 
much wanted here, & now likely as far as 
I can judge to be well received, for the eyes 
of a great number of English people are decidedly
opening to much of what is wrong in their 
own country & comparatively right elsewhere. 
I hear your article underwent much excision 
from Napier, & that he wants more painting 
of manners & less general reflection. I think
him wrong, &, as he always is, arrièrè, for 
the Edinburgh review & the Holland-house 
set who preside over it are the last refuge 
of the ideas & tastes of a generation ago, but 
I suppose his mandates must be complied
with, & he has left quite as much of valuable 
remark in this article as it needed & more 
than is in all the other articles taken together 
which he published along with it in his exceedingly 
poor extra number.
    What you tell me about Grote does not 
surprise me though I am sorry for it both 
on his account & on yours. As for Mrs Grote 
you know her, & would not expect either 
good feeling or good taste from her. But Grote has
always seemed rather a sensitive person-however 
he is a disappointed man, & has come to the 
time of life at which people generally fold their 
wings & take to their comforts. At that stage 
very few men, in my experience, retain their 
sympathies at all strongly towards those with whom 
they are not in habits of daily intercourse. Perhaps 
too, half of the evil in Grote is shyness; & not 
knowing how to express sympathy; especially 
being perhaps in some degree concious of having 
already shewn less of it than you had reason 
to expect.‐As to the calamity itself, I could 
have told you months before, all that he can 
have had to tell, but I thought you would 
know it quite soon enough. The concern 
has declared itself insolvent & is in the hands 
of trustees, but from what I hear I do not believe 
it to be hopeless that something may be saved 
for the shareholders, though in any such case
the probabilities are of course against it. Grote 
as you know, habitually looks at the 
gloomiest side of things. The Mississippi matter
however is of much more importance really, 
as you were deriving an income from the money in 
the company before, so that in regard to present 
exigencies & interests the loss of the principal is 
only minimal. The Mississippi bonds I feel 
satisfied must ultimately be paid though I fear 
not quite so soon as I once thought. In the mean 
time I cannot help reverting to the idea I 
once threw out in a letter to you & which you 
promised to take into consideration at a proper 
time, & there seems none so proper as now. I 
really believe something might be done, though 
it is not very easy to hit upon the exact shape 
which would be best.
    I have sent the remaining sheets of 
my book, addressed to Mr Austin, in the 
parcel from Asher, correspondent here (Nutt 
of Fleet Street) which was made up yesterday. 
The book is to be published tomorrow. But 
do not let Mr Austin suppose because the sheets 
are sent that he is under any engagement 
to make the use of them which he so kindly 
proposed. I should of course have sent the book 
to him in any case & though he would be the
best of all reviewers for it he must not plague 
himself about it. It must take its chance.
     I inclose a line from my sister Clara- 
I have neither encouraged nor opposed her 
project, of the feasibility of which nobody can 
so well judge as you. If it be otherwise feasible 
of course the “cannot” in her note is not to be 
taken literally, as long as there are others 
who “can”.
             Yours affectionately
                         J. S. Mill.