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:--

"You sent me the 'Reader' with a notice of the book, and I have
received one or two others, one of them from Bennoch. The English
critics seem to think me very bitter against their countrymen, and
it is, perhaps, natural that they should, because their self-conceit
can accept nothing short of indiscriminate adulation; but I really
think that Americans have more cause than they to complain of me.