Dear Mr. Anstruther,--We are very happy here just now because Papa's new book, at which he has been working two years, is finished. I am copying it out, and until that is done we shall indulge in the pleasantest day-dreams. It is our time, this interval between the finishing of a book of his and its offer to a publisher, for being riotously happy. We build the most outrageous castles in the air. Nothing is certain, and everything is possible. The pains of composition are over, and the pains of rejection are not begun. Each time we suppose they never will, and that at last ears will be found respectfully ready to absorb his views. Few and far between have the ears been till now. His books have fallen as flat as books can fall. Nobody wanted to hear all, or even half, that he could tell them about Goethe. Jena shrugged its shoulders, the larger world was blank. The books have brought us no fame, no money, some tragic hours, but much interest and amusement. Always tragic hours have come when Papa clutched at his hair and raved rude things about the German public; and when the money didn't appear there have been uncomfortable moments. But these pass; Papa leaves his hair alone; and the balance remains on the side of nice things. We don't really want any more money, and Papa is kept busy and happy, and just to see him so eager, so full of his work, seems to warm the house with pleasant sunshine. Once, for one book, a check did come; and when we all rushed to look we found it was for two marks and thirty pfennings--' being the amount due,' said the accompanying stony letter, 'on royalties for the first year of publication.' Papa thought this much worse than no check at all, and took it round to the publisher in the molten frame of mind of one who has been insulted. The publisher put his thumbs in the armholes of his waistcoat, leaned back in his chair, gazed with refreshing coolness at Papa who was very hot, and said that as trade went it was quite a good check and that he had sent one that very morning to another author--a Jena celebrity who employs his leisure writing books about the Universe--for ninety pfennings. Papa came home beaming with the delicious feeling that money was flowing in and that he was having a boom. The universe man was a contemptuous acquaintance who had been heard to speak lightly of Papa's books. Papa felt all the sweetness of success, of triumph over a disagreeable rival; and since then we have looked upon that special book as his _opus magnum_.