"No letter has come.... There is no use in waiting. I do not understand
Mr. Hunt's course, nor do I care to understand it.
"The more I think of it, the more I am inclined _not_ to have you do
anything about the past. Let the dead bury their dead. It will be only
a disagreeable personal affair, whose sole satisfaction will be the
money. It will in effect be arguing and claiming a greater value than
he has set upon me. For my part, I would a great deal rather let it
all go. You just call and get the money that the account says is due.
Make as much of a settlement as can be settled; and if he chooses to
let everything remain as it is, I choose it also. If he can afford to
dispense with an explanation, so can I."
I had given to Mr. Dane an order upon Mr. Hunt for what money of mine
he had in his possession.
Mr. Dane called for the money on the 24th of February, and on the
same day,--but whether before or after Mr. Dane's call, I can only
infer,--Mr. Hunt wrote to me:--
"DEAR M. N.:--
"On my return home on Saturday, I found your note without date,
informing me that you had received no reply to your 'note of last
Tuesday.' I have not replied to your note of February 11th, because I
could not understand the purport of it, and hoped you might be in town
soon to explain it.
"In the last letter I received from you, some days before the note
referred to above, written in the old friendly spirit and faith,
you tell me you have a juvenile book nearly ready, and ask if it
shall be sent for publication. I reply, please send it at once; and
then comes your note of the 11th inst., with this passage in it: 'I
cannot see how it will be for my interest that you should publish any
more of my books. Unhappily, it is not necessary that I should give
any explanation, since the reason, if it do not exist to your own
knowledge, and by your own arrangement, does not exist at all.' Now
there must have been something in my note to you (to which this note of
February 11th is a reply) which has offended you; else why this sudden
change from the sentiments in your long and friendly letter to those
of the unhappy note of February 11th? Now, pray let us understand each
other; and in all kindness, I ask you to tell me the ground of your
sudden dissatisfaction.
"Very sincerely yours,
"R. S. HUNT."
Mr. Hunt's ignorance in face of my letters, his absolute inability to
conjecture in what direction the trouble lay, his misgiving that some
unremembered sentence in his letter had offended me, seemed to me not a
little remarkable. I wrote again.