This decided me; I did publish, at my own expense, with Messrs. Saul, Samuel, Moss & Co.  I had to pay down L150, then L35 for advertisements, then L70 for Publisher’s Commission.  Other expenses fell grievously on me, as I sent round printed postcards to everyone whose name is in the Red Book, asking them to ask for Geoffrey’s Cousin at the Libraries.  I also despatched six copies, with six anonymous letters, to Mr. Gladstone, signing them, “A Literary Constituent,” “A Wavering Anabaptist,” and so forth, but, extraordinary to relate, I have received no answer, and no notice has been taken of my disinterested presents.  The reviews were of the most meagre and scornful description.  Messrs. Saul, Samuel, Moss & Co. have just written to me, begging me to remove the “remainder” of my book, and charging L23 15s. 6d. for warehouse expenses.  Yet, when I read Geoffrey’s Cousin, I fail to see that it falls, in any way, beneath the general run of novels.  I enclose a marked copy, and solicit your earnest attention for the passage in which Geoffrey’s Cousin blights his hopes for ever.  The story, Sir, is one of controversy, and is suited to this time. Geoffrey McPhun is an Auld Licht (see Mr. BARRIE’s books, passim).  His cousin is an Esoteric Buddhist.  They love each other dearly, but Geoffrey, a rigid character, cannot marry any lady who does not burn, as an Auld Licht, “with a hard gem-like flame.” Violet Blair, his cousin, is just as staunch an Esoteric Buddhist.  Nothing stands between them but the differences of their creed.

“How can I contemplate, GEOFFREY,” said VIOLET, with a rich blush, “the possibility of seeing our little ones stray from the fold of the Lama of Thibet into a chapel of the Original Secession Church?”

They determine to try to convert each other. Geoffrey lends Violet all his theological library, including WODROW’s Analecta.  She lends him the learned works of Mr. SINNETT and Madame BLAVATSKY.  They retire, he to the Himalayas, she to Thrums, and their letters compose Volume II. (Local colour a la KIPLING and BARRIE.) On the slopes of the Himalayas you see Geoffrey converted; he becomes a Cheela, and returns by overland route.  He rushes to Ramsgate, and announces his complete acceptance of the truth as it is in Mahatmaism.  Alas! alas! Violet has been over-persuaded by the seductions of Presbyterianism, she has hurried down from Thrums, rejoicing, a full-blown Auld Licht.  And, in her Geoffrey, she finds a convinced Esoteric Buddhist!  They are no better off than they were, their union is impossible, and Vol.  III. ends in their poignant anguish.

Now, Mr. Punch, is not this the very novel for the times; rich in adventure (in Kafiristan), teeming with philosophical suggestiveness, and sparkling with all the epigrams of my commonplace book.  Yet I am about L300 out of pocket, and, moreover, a blighted being.