I am pretty certain: that I
never will take them at all, unless with you on your own conditions.

With an affectionate regard for you and your brother, believe me always,

Very faithfully yours.

[Sidenote: Mr. Rusden.]

"ALL THE YEAR ROUND" OFFICE,
_Tuesday, 18th May, 1869._

MY DEAR MR. RUSDEN,

As I daresay some exaggerated accounts of my having been very ill have
reached you, I begin with the true version of the case.

I daresay I _should_ have been very ill if I had not suddenly stopped my
Farewell Readings when there were yet five-and-twenty remaining to be
given. I was quite exhausted, and was warned by the doctors to stop (for
the time) instantly. Acting on the advice, and going home into Kent for
rest, I immediately began to recover, and within a fortnight was in the
brilliant condition in which I can now--thank God--report myself.

I cannot thank you enough for your care of Plorn. I was quite prepared
for his not settling down without a lurch or two. I still hope that he
may take to colonial life. . . . In his letter to me about his leaving
the station to which he got through your kindness, he expresses his
gratitude to you quite as strongly as if he had made a wonderful
success, and seems to have acquired no distaste for anything but the one
individual of whom he wrote that betrayed letter. But knowing the boy, I
want to try him fully.

You know all our public news, such as it is, at least as well as I do.
Many people here (of whom I am one) do not like the look of American
matters.

What I most fear is that the perpetual bluster of a party in the States
will at last set the patient British back up. And if our people begin to
bluster too, and there should come into existence an exasperating
war-party on both sides, there will be great danger of a daily-widening
breach.

The first shriek of the first engine that traverses the San Francisco
Railroad from end to end will be a death-warning to the disciples of Jo
Smith. The moment the Mormon bubble gets touched by neighbours it will
break. Similarly, the red man's course is very nearly run. A scalped
stoker is the outward and visible sign of his utter extermination. Not
Quakers enough to reach from here to Jerusalem will save him by the term
of a single year.

I don't know how it may be with you, but it is the fashion here to