Note 3 — LETTER XXXVIII.
Reading edition
“How am I to know exactly what a day’s maintenance is?” I don’t want to know exactly. I don’t know exactly how much dinner I ought to eat; but, on the whole, I eat enough, and not too much. And I shall not know ‘exactly’ how much a painter ought to have for a picture. It may be a pound or two under the mark—a pound or two over. On the average it will be right,—that is to say, his decent keep3 during the number of days’ work that are properly accounted for in the production.