“I thank you for your note of the 15th instant, and have delayed my reply thus long in order to ponder deeply on your advice, smoke cigars over it, and see what it might be possible for me to do towards taking it.  I find that it would be a piece of poltroonery in me to withdraw either the dedication or the dedicatory letter.  My long and intimate personal relations with Pierce render the dedication altogether proper, especially as regards this book, which would have had no existence without his kindness; and if he is so exceedingly unpopular that his name is enough to sink the volume, there is so much the more need that an old friend should stand by him.  I cannot, merely on account of pecuniary profit or literary reputation, go back from what I have deliberately felt and thought it right to do; and if I were to tear out the dedication, I should never look at the volume again without remorse and shame.  As for the literary public, it must accept my book precisely as I think fit to give it, or let it alone.

“Nevertheless, I have no fancy for making myself a martyr when it is honorably and conscientiously possible to avoid it; and I always measure out my heroism very accurately according to the exigencies of the occasion, and should be the last man in the world to throw away a bit of it needlessly.  So I have looked over the concluding paragraph and have amended it in such a way that, while doing what I know to be justice to my friend, it contains not a word that ought to be objectionable to any set of readers.  If the public of the North see fit to ostracize me for this, I can only say that I would gladly sacrifice a thousand or two of dollars rather than retain the good-will of such a herd of dolts and mean-spirited scoundrels.  I enclose the rewritten paragraph, and shall wish to see a proof of that and the whole dedication.

“I had a call from an Englishman yesterday, and kept him to dinner; not the threatened ——­, but a Mr. ——­, introduced by ——.  He says he knows you, and he seems to be a very good fellow.  I have strong hopes that he will never come back here again, for J——­ took him on a walk of several miles, whereby they both caught a most tremendous ducking, and the poor Englishman was frightened half to death by the thunder....  On the other page is the list of presentation people, and it amounts to twenty-four, which your liberality and kindness allow me.  As likely as not I have forgotten two or three, and I held my pen suspended over one or two of the names, doubting whether they deserved of me so especial a favor as a portion of my heart and brain.  I have few friends.  Some authors, I should think, would require half the edition for private distribution.”

“Our Old Home” was published in the autumn of 1863, and although it was everywhere welcomed, in England the strictures were applied with a liberal hand.  On the 18th of October he writes to me:—­