"
_May_ 10, 1842.
"I am coming up to London tomorrow, and intend to call at Albemarle
Street.... I make no doubt that we shall be able to come to terms; I
like not the idea of applying to second-rate people. I have been
dreadfully unwell since I last heard from you--a regular nervous attack;
at present I have a bad cough, caught by getting up at night in pursuit
of poachers and thieves. A horrible neighbourhood this--not a magistrate
that dares to do his duty.
"P.S.--Ford's book not out yet?"
There seems to have been some difficulty about coming to terms. Borrow
had promised his friends that his book should be out by October 1, and
he did not wish them to be disappointed:
_Mr. George Borrow to John Murray_.
_July_ 4, 1842.
Why this delay? Mr. Woodfall [the printer] tells me that the state of
trade is wretched. Well and good! But you yourself told me so two months
ago, when you wrote requesting that I would give you the preference,
provided I had not made arrangements with other publishers. Between
ourselves, my dear friend, I wish the state of the trade were ten times
worse than it is, and then things would find their true level, and an
original work would be properly appreciated, and a set of people who
have no pretensions to write, having nothing to communicate but
tea-table twaddle, could no longer be palmed off upon the public as
mighty lions and lionesses.
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