theatres and the second-class theatres are pestering me daily for it.  But I will not allow it to be produced except at a first-class theatre.  I have wrested it by four actions in law and equity from the hands of pirates, and now they shall smart for pirating me.  At the present time, therefore, any American manager who may have the sense and honesty to treat with me will be quite secure from the competition of English copies.  I have licked old Conquest, and the lawyers are now fighting tooth and nail over the costs.  The judges gave me one hundred and sixty pounds damages, but, as I lost the demurrer with costs, the balance will doubtless be small.  But, if the pecuniary result is small, the victory over the pirates and the venal part of the press is great.”

He wrote on May 30, 1862, “As for writing a short story on the spur, it is a thing I never could do in my life.  My success in literature is owing to my throwing my whole soul into the one thing I am doing.  And at present I am over head and ears in the story for Dickens” ("Very Hard Cash").  “Write to me often.  The grand mistake of friends at a distance is not corresponding frequently enough.  Thus the threads of business are broken, as well as the silken threads of sentiment.  Thanks about the drama” ("It is Never Too Late to Mend").  “I have but faint hopes.  It is the best thing I ever wrote of any kind, and therefore I fear no manager will ever have brains to take it.”

On June 20, 1862, he wrote of his forthcoming story, “Between ourselves, the story” ("Very Hard Cash”) “will be worth as many thousands as I have asked hundreds.  I suppose they think I am an idiot, or else that I have no idea of the value of my works in the United States.  I put 6 Bolton Row” (the usual address on his letters) “because that is the safest address for you to write to; but in reality I have been for the last month, and still am, buried in Oxford, working hard upon the story.  My advice to you is to enter into no literary speculations during this frightful war.  Upon its conclusion, by working in concert, we might do something considerable together.”

On August 5, 1862, he wrote from Magdalen College, where he was to remain until the 1st of October, “I shall be truly thankful if you postpone your venture till peace is re-established.  I am quite sure that a new weekly started now would inevitably fail.  You could not print the war as Leslie and Harper do, and who cares for the still small voice of literature and fiction amongst the braying of trumpets and the roll of drums?  Do the right thing at the right time, my boy:  that is how hits are made.  If you will postpone till a convenient season, I will work with you and will hold myself free of all engagements in order to do so.  I am myself accumulating subjects with a similar view, and we might do something more than a serial story, though a serial story must always be the mainspring of success.”

He wrote on September 6, 1862, “I am glad you have varied your project by purchasing an established monthly” ("The Knickerbocker Magazine”) “instead of starting a new weekly.  I will form no new engagements nor promise early sheets without first consulting you.  I will look out for you, and as soon as my large story is completed will try if I cannot do something for you myself.”