Phew! it takes a body’s breath away, the way you two are buckling down to your work! I do not think I could pass an examination in anything, except ignorance. But it doesn’t matter; I am on the downslope of the hill of life, & don’t have to study much of anything except how to retard the motion. You, on the contrary, are on the upgrade, & the morning is fair & the landscape gracious before you—so climb along & enjoy it, & we will enjoy watching you achieve height after height & win the summit.

We are healthy, comfortable, & prospering. Proofs of a hundred & fifty of the engravings for my new book came yesterday, & I like them far better than any that have ever been made for me before. I have asked my publisher to send me two or three sets of them when they are all done; & I shall try my very best to remember to send one set to you when they come. I think they are very graceful & beautiful. The book will be published next November.

They keep sending K. of H. accounts or assessments to me (both manuscript & printed,) but it doesn’t bother me any longer, because I shove them into the waste-basket & forget them right off. I wouldn’t act so if they were business people, but it aggravates me to have to deal with idiots, & nothing can ever convince me that they are anything else. To my jaundiced & prejudiced mind it seems preposterous that they should be trying to handle other people’s money. They don’t know enough to come in when it rains.

If you can’t get that Iliad at Galignani’s, order it of my publishers, Chatto & Windus, Picadilly, London, & tell them to charge it to me. Send them this letter, as their authority, & they will fix you all right.

I’m not through, but the supper bell has rung—so with the love of the tribe of Clemenses, small & great, I am