wn, and I
hope that a period of comparative peace lies before us.

Good-bye, old chap, and never think that I forget you. Your letters are
read and re-read with avidity. I think I have every line you ever wrote
me. You simply knock Paley out every time. I am so glad that you got out
of that brewery business all right. For a time I was really afraid that
you must either lose your money or else risk more upon the shares. I can
only thank you for your kind offer of blank cheques.

It is wonderful that you should have slipped back into your American
life so easily after your English hiatus. As you say, however, it is
not a change but only a modification, since the root idea is the same
in each. Is it not strange how the two great brothers are led to
misunderstand each other? A man is punished for private libel (over here
at any rate), although the consequences can only be slight. But a
man may perpetrate international libel, which is a very heinous and
far-reaching offence, and there is no law in the world which can punish
him. Think of the contemptible crew of journalists and satirists who for
ever picture the Englishman as haughty and h-dropping, or the American
as vulgar and expectorating. If some millionaire would give them all a
trip round the world we should have some rest--and if the plug came out
of the boat midway it would be more restful still. And your vote-hunting
politicians with their tail-twisting campaigns, and our editors of the
supercilious weeklies with their inane tone of superiority, if they
were all aboard how much clearer we should be! Once more adieu, and good
luck!

XV. OAKLEY VILLAS, BIRCHESPOOL, 3rd August, 1883.

Do you think that such a thing as chance exists? Rather an explosive
sentence to start a letter with; but pray cast your mind back over your
own life, and tell me if you think that we really are the sports of
chance. You know how often the turning down this street or that, the
accepting or rejecting of an invitation, may deflect the whole current
of our lives into some other channel. Are we mere leaves, fluttered
hither and thither by the wind, or are we rather, with every conviction
that we are free agents, carried steadily along to a definite and
pre-determined end? I confess that as I advance through life, I become
more and more confirmed in that fatalism to which I have always had an
inclination.

Look at it in this way. We know that many of the permanent facts of the
u