To Rev. Samuel J. May.
Wayland, January, 1866.
I was greatly refreshed by your affectionate letter about “The freedmen's book.”
I live so entirely apart from the world that when I publish anything I rarely see or hear anything about the effect it produces.
I sent the slave-holders, the year before the war, over twelve hundred copies of “The right way the Safe way,” directed them with my own hand, and paid the postage out of my own purse; and I received but one response.
I had a feeling that such a book as the “Freedmen's book” was needed at the present time and might do good.
In order to adapt it carefully for them, I wrote over two hundred letter pages of manuscript copy; and then, despairing of getting it published, I paid $600 to get it through the press; which sum, if it ever returns, will be a fund to help in the education of the freedmen and their children.
I have done what I could, and I hope a blessing will rest upon it. That you approve of it so heartily is one guaranty that it will be useful.