i do not expect to find you, so i shan’t spend many words on you to wind up in the pe[r]dition of some european dead letter office. i only just want to say that the closing installments of the story are prodigious. all along i was afraid it would be impossible for you to keep up so splendidly to the end; but you were only, i see now, striking eleven. it is in these last chapters that you struck eleven. go on and write, you can write good books yet, but you can never match this one. and speaking of the book, i inclose something which has been happening here lately.

we have only just arrived at home, and i have not seen clark on our matters. i cannot see him or any one else, until i get my book finished. the weather turned cold Ⓐemendation, and we had to rush home, while i still lacked thirty thousand words. i had been sick and got delayed. i am going to write all day and two thirds of the night, until the thing is done, or break down at it. the spur and burden of the contract are intolerable to me. i can endure the irritation of it no longer. i went to work at nine o’clock yesterday morning, and went to bed an hour after mid-night. result of the day, (mainly stolen from books, tho’ credit given,) 9500 words. so i reduced my burden by one third in one day. it was five days work in one. i have nothing more to borrow or steal; the rest must all be writing. it is ten days work, and unless something breaks, it will be finished in five.

we all send love to you and mrs. howells, and all the family.