I have not hitherto been to see either you or your brother or Mrs. Docimer because I have been altogether unaware whether you or your brother or Mrs. Docimer would be glad to see me. As you say yourself, there was a storm on the Tyrolese hill-side,--in which there was more than one wind blowing at the same time. I do not find fault with anybody,--perhaps a storm was needed to clear the air. But I hate storms. I do not pretend to be a very grand fellow, but I do endeavour not to be disagreeable. Your brother, if you remember, was a little hard. But, in truth, I say this only to account for my apparent incivility. And, perhaps, with another object;--to gain a little time before I plunge into the stern necessity of answering all that you say in your very comprehensive letter of five lines. The first four lines I have answered. There will be no such Mrs. Frank Houston as that suggested. And then, as to the last line. Of course, you will see me again, and that very speedily. So it would seem that the whole letter is answered. But yet it is not answered. There is so much in it that whole sheets would not answer it. A quire of note-paper stuffed full would hardly contain all that I might find to say in answer to it,--on one side and the other. Nay, I might fill as many reams of folio as are required for a three-volume novel. And then I might call it by one of two names, "The Doubts of Frank Houston," or "The Constancy of Imogene Docimer,"--as I should at last bring my story to one ending or the other. But the novel would contain that fault which is so prevalent in the novels of the present day. The hero would be a very namby-mamby sort of a fellow, whereas the heroine would be too perfect for human nature. The hero would be always repeating to himself a certain line out of a Latin poet, which, of all lines, is the most heart-breaking;-- The better course I see and know;-- The worser one is where I go. But then in novels the most indifferent hero comes out right at last. Some god comes out of a theatrical cloud and leaves the poor devil ten thousand a-year and a title. He isn't much of a hero when he does go right under such inducements, but he suffices for the plot, and everything is rose-coloured. I would be virtuous at a much cheaper rate;--if only a young man with his family might have enough to eat and drink. What is your idea of the lowest income at which a prudent,--say not idiotically-quixotic hero,--might safely venture to be heroic?