It began by responding to some theories and warnings, which Page had recently written him, relative to the unwholesomeness of beer-drinking. DEAR GORHAM,—Your interesting and instructive letter just received. It has been an unusual length of time on the road, and it was an ill fate that delayed your temperance lecture, and deprived me of that aid to sobriety any longer than was necessary, in view of the rapidity with which I am traveling the downward road. It arrived, however, at a critical period. A friend in the pension, whose besotted fancy could not rise from the miry slough in which intemperance has sunk her, has just made me a philopena present. Instead of bestowing upon me some airy and diverting German philosophy, or fascinating English tract, or an elevating necktie,—instead of finding something which, in the guise of a trifling gift, should have brought to a debauched young man blessed suggestions of a reformed life and renewed respectability, she presented me a beer mug with a painting of Lohengrin, Swan and Co. on the outside, and a line or two of German words around the rim, having some reference to Parsifal and the Holy Grail! That of course drives the last nail into my coffin! That puts me beyond the pale of—water! In vain do you exclaim, "Be a man! Have some backbone about you! Be content to look at your new beer mug, without making other use of it. Keep it as bric-a-brac, dry, and always perpendicular! Let its rigid uprightness be also that of your moral character. Resist the dreadful power of this unrighteous alliance of a refined taste for æsthetic pottery with a depraved taste for strong drink!" Alas, I cannot. How appalling and yet how interesting it is to observe how Fate inclines to kick a fellow when he’s down. Everything conspires against the reform of one who has fallen. As to my own case, even if I could overcome my craving for liquor, I should still be obliged to go right on drinking my pint of beer at dinner every day, for it seems that the German words around the rim of my mug are not "fast colors;" they come off gradually as I drink; and after long-drawn-out attempts by the other process, I conclude that this is the only way in which I can ever get any German into me, so I must go on to the bitter end. _Bitte sehr!_ I have decided to come home before the New Year. I dread it, as you know, but the plunge into the new family circle must be taken some time, and I want to see my father. I am sure he wants to see me, too, though he doesn’t say much about it. In a recent letter, he admitted that he had not been very well during the summer. Bless him! I suppose _her_ griefs have shaken him very much. Of course I’m sorry for her, but I can’t be resigned to father’s having had to shoulder the Bryants’ affairs. I tell you I am glad to know he is himself again. His letter made me feel an intolerable distance away. Yes, I shall see him by the New Year, whatever happens.