doubt if he has grasped it now; and I despair, after all these efforts,
that you should ever be enlightened. Still, oblige me by reading that
form of words once more, and see if a light does not break. You may be
sure, after the friendly freedoms of your criticism (necessary I am
sure, and wholesome I know, but untimely to the poor labourer in his
landslip) that mighty little of it will stand.

Our Paul has come into a fortune, and wishes to go home to the Hie
Germanie. This is a tile on our head, and if a shower, which is now
falling, lets up, I must go down to Apia, and see if I can find a
substitute of any kind. This is, from any point of view, disgusting;
above all, from that of work; for, whatever the result, the mill has to
be kept turning; apparently dust, and not flour, is the proceed. Well,
there is gold in the dust, which is a fine consolation, since--well, I
can't help it; night or morning, I do my darndest, and if I cannot
charge for merit, I must e'en charge for toil, of which I have plenty
and plenty more ahead before this cup is drained; sweat and hyssop are
the ingredients.

We are clearing from Carruthers' Road to the pig fence, twenty-eight
powerful natives with Catholic medals about their necks, all swiping in
like Trojans; long may the sport continue!

The invoice to hand. Ere this goes out, I hope to see your expressive,
but surely not benignant countenance! Adieu, O culler of offensive
expressions--'and a' to be a posy to your ain dear May!'--Fanny seems a
little revived again after her spasm of work. Our books and furniture
keep slowly draining up the road, in a sad state of scatterment and
disrepair; I wish the devil had had K. by his red beard before he had
packed my library. Odd leaves and sheets and boards--a thing to make a
bibliomaniac shed tears--are fished out of odd corners. But I am no
bibliomaniac, praise Heaven, and I bear up, and rejoice when I find
anything safe.

_19th._--However, I worked five hours on the brute, and finished my
Letter all the same, and couldn't sleep last night by consequence.
Haven't had a bad night since I don't know when; dreamed a large
handsome man (a New Orleans planter) had insulted my wife, and, do what
I pleased, I could not make him fight me; and woke to find it was the
eleventh anniversary of my marriage. A letter usually takes me from a
week to three days; but I'm sometimes two days on a page--I was once
three--and then my friends kick me. _C'est-y