"Your letter of March 31 is before me. If you will be so good as to
refer to my letter to which yours is a reply, I think you will find a
declaration to the effect that my wish to leave the magazine was not
founded on any dissatisfaction connected with it. I certainly meant
to guard against the possibility of any such supposition on your part.
That I failed to do so, I must beg you to attribute to inability and
not to disinclination or indifference.
"Nor did your previous letter give me the faintest shadow of offense.
I was never otherwise than gratified whenever you asked me to write.
When you say 'your contributions, which were originally expected to
be monthly or when desired,' do you mean to intimate that there was
an agreement between us to that effect? If so, permit me to say that
such an agreement never existed. Mr. Hunt came to me in Zoar with a
request for service and an offer of salary, which I felt obliged to
refuse. He then offered me $500 per year for the use of my name as one
of the editors and for such service as I chose to give the magazine. He
said they should be glad to have me write every month, but I should be
left absolutely free not to write at all. I thought the sum altogether
too great for what I should be able to do; and it was with the utmost
reluctance, and only after much urgency,--and because it was Mr. Hunt
who urged it,--that I consented to the arrangement. I made no promises,
but I determined in my own mind that I would send something every
month; and I satisfied my editorial conscience by carefully reading
every number as it came out, and noting its points, as you perhaps
have sometimes found to your sorrow, or at least fatigue. I did this
for a long time. Every gap in the earlier numbers is owing to a story
rejected or delayed by you, not to any failure on my part to send you
a story. When I found that a paper would lie two or three months in
your hands, I thought it was because you had so much better things to
print, and I considered that I was doing you a kindness by not sending
so frequently; and therefore, whenever you did ask me to write, I took
it as a compliment, and was always pleased. You cannot speak more
disparagingly than I think of my actual services on the 'Buddhist,'
but I could wish that your opinion had found an earlier expression.
Permit me distinctly to say that, until the reception of your last
letter, my relations towards you in connection with the magazine were
always agreeable; while my original scruples regarding the money value
of such an editorial arrangement were long ago set at rest in the most
conclusive manner by other publishers.
"I do wish you to understand that I desire my relations with the
magazine shall cease at the earliest possible moment.
"That part of your letter which refers to my reasons for breaking my
connection with your house, it is impossible for me to characterize,
and equally impossible for me to reply to."