eyes and my business I fear it would be hard for me to re-write, but if
I could put it into the hands of any other person who could, and who
would extract from my papers anything worth having, that might do.

"As regards myself, if I go on and publish, I shall be quite prepared to
find some persons surprised, but this, if it should prove so, cannot be
helped. I shall not knowingly exaggerate anything; and when a man
expects to be washed overboard he must tie himself with a rope to
the mast.

"I shall trust to your friendship for frankness in the discharge of your
irksome task. Pray make verbal corrections without scruple where they
are needed."

Again: "I thank you most cordially for your remarks, and I rejoice to
find you act so entirely in the spirit I had anticipated. I trust you
will continue to speak with freedom, which is the best compliment as
well as the best service you can render me.

"I think it very probable that you may find that V and VI require quite
as rigorous treatment as II, and I am very desirous to set both my mind
and eyes at liberty before I go to the Continent, which I can now hardly
expect to do before the first week in September. This interval I trust
would suffice unless you find that the other chapters stand in
equal need.

"I entirely concur with your view regarding the necessity of care and of
not grudging labor in a matter so important and so responsible as an
endeavor to raise one of the most momentous controversies which has
ever agitated human opinion,"