Henry George had surprised himself, and he wrote another editorial to explain the first. These editorials extended themselves into a series, and hand-polished and sandpapered, were reprinted in pamphlet form in Eighteen Hundred Seventy-one, under the title of "Our Land Policy." The temerity which prompted the printing of this pamphlet was evolved through a letter from John Stuart Mill. Henry George knew he was right in his conclusions, but he felt that he needed the corroboration of a great mind that had grappled with abstruse problems; so he sent one of his editorials to Mill, the greatest living intellect of his time. Mill showed his interest by replying in a long letter, wherein he addressed George as a man with a mind equal to his own, not as a sophomore trying his wings. The letter from Mill was to him a white milepost. The corroboration gave him courage, confidence, poise. The thousand copies of the pamphlet cost Henry George seventy-five dollars. The retail price was twenty-five cents each. Twenty-one copies were sold. The rest were given away to good people who promised to read them. Pamphlets are for the pamphleteer, but let the fact here be recorded that new ideas have always been issued at the author's expense--and also risk. Martin Luther, Dean Swift, John Milton, Paine, Voltaire, Sam Adams were all pamphleteers. The early Colonial "broadsides" were pamphlets issued by men with thoughts plus, and all of the men just named fired inky volleys which proved to be shots heard 'round the world. As the years passed, Henry George was gathering gear; he was getting an education. Providence was preparing him for his work. All he expressed by tongue or pen had land, labor, production and distribution in mind. He was getting acquainted with every phase of the subject--anticipating the objections, meeting the objectors, opening up side-paths. And so, in Eighteen Hundred Seventy-eight, when he sat down to write a magazine article on "Our Government Land Policy," the air was full of reasons. Soon the article stretched itself beyond magazine length, and in order to cover the theme he set down headings: 1 Wages 2 Capital 3 Division of Labor 4 Population 5 Subsistence 6 Rent 7 Interest 8 The Remedy for Unequal Distribution He wrote all one night--wrote in a fever. The next day his pulse got back to normal, and on talking the matter over with his wife he decided to begin it all over and work his philosophy up into a book, writing as he could, only one or two hours a day. He was absolutely without capital, dependent on his income from space- writing in the daily newspapers, but he began and the work grew. It was all done on "stolen time," to use the phrase of Macaulay, and therefore vital, for things done because you have to do them--done to get rid of them--contain the red corpuscle.