Received James’s _Hawthorne_, on which I meditate a blast, Miss Bird, Dixon’s _Penn_, a _wrong Cornhill_ (like my luck) and _Coquelin_: for all which, and especially the last, I tender my best thanks. I have opened only James; it is very clever, very well written, and out of sight the most inside-out thing in the world; I have dug up the hatchet; a scalp shall flutter at my belt ere long. I think my new book should be good; it will contain our adventures for the summer, so far as these are worth narrating; and I have already a few pages of diary which should make up bright. I am going to repeat my old experiment, after buckling-to a while to write more correctly, lie down and have a wallow. Whether I shall get any of my novels done this summer I do not know; I wish to finish the _Vendetta_ first, for it really could not come after _Prince Otto_. Lewis Campbell has made some noble work in that Agamemnon; it surprised me. We hope to get a house at Silverado, a deserted mining-camp eight miles up the mountain, now solely inhabited by a mighty hunter answering to the name of Rufe Hansome, who slew last year a hundred and fifty deer. This is the motto I propose for the new volume: ‘_Vixerunt nonnulli in agris_, _delectati re sua familiari_. _His idem propositum fuit quod regibus_, _ut ne qua re egerent_, _ne cui parerent_, _libertate uterentur_; _cujus proprium est sic vivere ut velis_.’ I always have a terror lest the wish should have been father to the translation, when I come to quote; but that seems too plain sailing. I should put _regibus_ in capitals for the pleasantry’s sake. We are in the Coast Range, that being so much cheaper to reach; the family, I hope, will soon follow.—Love to all, ever yours, R. L. S. V ALPINE WINTERS AND HIGHLAND SUMMERS, AUGUST 1880–OCTOBER 1882 TO A. G. DEW-SMITH [_Hotel Belvedere_, _Davos_, _November_ 1880.] Figure me to yourself, I pray— A man of my peculiar cut— Apart from dancing and deray, {185} Into an Alpine valley shut; Shut in a kind of damned Hotel, Discountenanced by God and man; The food?—Sir, you would do as well To cram your belly full of bran. The company? Alas, the day That I should dwell with such a crew, With devil anything to say, Nor any one to say it to! The place? Although they call it Platz, I will be bold and state my view; It’s not a place at all—and that’s The bottom verity, my Dew. There are, as I will not deny, Innumerable inns; a road; Several Alps indifferent high; The snow’s inviolable abode; Eleven English parsons, all Entirely inoffensive; four True human beings—what I call Human—the deuce a cipher more; A climate of surprising worth; Innumerable dogs that bark; Some air, some weather, and some earth; A native race—God save the mark!—