_Foxholes, September 12th._--I have sent your corrected proofs [Footnote: 'The French in Madagascar,' October 1895.] to Spottiswoode, with a few slight suggestions of my own. They will send you a revise.... I see you have now so far modified your opinion that you think with me that the position of the French is most critical. Unless they can announce some signal success in the next two weeks, there will be a disaster and an awful row. I see by the map that on the 5th of this month they were still at Andriba, which I take to be about three-fifths of the distance to Antananarivo. They have been five months getting there, and as they advance the difficulty of bringing up stores, supplies, and reliefs increases, and will increase. In my opinion, the Hovas are quite right _not_ to treat for peace till they see what the rains will do for them. I hope they will hold out, but avoid fighting. Captain Oliver writes that 'One of Reeve's last pieces of work connected with the "Edinburgh Review" must have been the paragraphs which he substituted for my ending to the article. He was doubtful of the eventual French success, whereas I felt pretty certain that affairs would terminate as they have done in that island.' The forecast of the result of a complicated business was erroneous, but to make one at all, and to commit it to paper, was a remarkable display of energy in a dying man who was now in his eighty-third year. _To Mr. T. Norton Longman_ _Foxholes, September 12th_.--Thanks for your birthday congratulations, but I doubt whether great age is a subject of congratulation at all. _29th_.--I am extremely feeble, faculties low, eyesight weak. I should like, if I live so long, to edit the January number of the 'Review;' but after that I must stop. _October 2nd._--Much obliged to you for your very kind note.... You will doubtless pay me on November 15th the sum due then; but I wish to say that I cannot go on to receive remuneration for services I am scarcely capable of rendering. Therefore this payment in November will be the last on that account [as literary adviser].