_October 29th, 1879._ I am much obliged to you for your courtesy in sending me the letters. I am not, however, inclined to enter into any controversy, being painfully overwhelmed with the very duties which Mr. Ruskin seems to think that we don't do--looking after the material and religious interests of the sick, the suffering, the hungry, the drunken, and the extremely wretched. Yours very truly, F. W. FARRAR. 23. SHEFFIELD, _October 17th, 1879_. DEAR MR. MALLESON,--I am sincerely interested and moved by your history of your laborious life--and shall be entirely glad to leave the completed volume as your property, provided always you sell it to no publisher--but take just percentage on the editions: and provided also that an edition be issued of the letters themselves in their present simple form of which the profits, if any, shall be for the poor of the district.[30] It would lower your position in the whole matter if it could be hinted that I had written the letters with any semi-purpose of serving my friend. On the other hand you will have just and honourable right to the profits of the completed edition which your labour and judgment will have made possible and guided into the most serviceable form. [30] This, of course, with Mr. Allen's concurrence, is my intention.--ED. I am thankful to see that the letters read clearly and easily, and contain all that it was in my mind to get said; that nothing can be possibly more right in every way than the printing and binding--nor more courteous and firm than your preface. Yes--there _will_ be a chasm to cross--a tauriformis Aufidus[31]--greater than Rubicon, and the roar of it for many a year has been heard in the distance, through the gathering fog on earth more loudly. [31] Sic tauriformis volvitur Aufidus, Qui regna Dauni præfluit Appuli Quum sævit, horrendamque cultis Diluviem meditatur agris. --HOR. _Carm._ iv. 14. The River of Spiritual Death in this world--and entrance to Purgatory in the other, come down to us. When will the feet of the Priests be dipped in the still brim of the water? Jordan overflows his banks already. * * * * * When you have got your large edition with its correspondence into form, I should like to read the sheets as they are issued, and put merely letters of reference, _a_, _b_, and _c_, to be taken up in a short epilogue. But I don't want to do or say anything till you have all in perfect readiness for publication. I should merely add my reference letters in the margin, and the shortest possible notes at the end. Please send me ten more of these private ones for my own friends.