Note 248 — Chapter XI
Reading edition
I give the letter in which he put the scheme formally before me, after the renewed and larger offers had been submitted. "If there were reasonable hope and promise, I could make up my mind to go to Australia and get money. I would not accept the Australian people's offer. I would take no money from them; would bind myself to nothing with them; but would merely make them my agents at such and such a per centage, and go and read there. I would take some man of literary pretensions as a secretary (Charles Collins? What think you?) and with his aid" (he afterwards made the proposal to his old friend Mr. Thomas Beard) "would do, for All the Year Round while I was away, The Uncommercial Traveller Upside Down. If the notion of these speculators be anything like accurate, I should come back rich. I should have seen a great deal of novelty to boot. I should have been very miserable too. . . . Of course one cannot possibly count upon the money to be realized by a six months' absence, but, £12,000 is supposed to be a low estimate. Mr. S. brought me letters from members of the legislature, newspaper editors, and the like, exhorting me to come, saying how much the people talk of me, and dwelling on the kind of reception that would await me. No doubt this is so, and of course a great deal of curious experience for after use would be gained over and above the money. Being my own master too, I could 'work' myself more delicately than if I bound myself for money beforehand. A few years hence, if all other circumstances were the same, I might not be so well fitted for the excessive wear and tear. This is about the whole case. But pray do not suppose that I am in my own mind favourable to going, or that I have any fancy for going." That was late in October. From Paris in November (1862), he wrote: "I mentioned the question to Bulwer when he dined with us here last Sunday, and he was all for going. He said that not only did he think the whole population would go to the Readings, but that the country would strike me in some quite new aspect for a Book; and that wonders might be done with such book in the way of profit, over there as well as here."