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. FOOTNOTES: [23] _Engraisser_, grow fat. [24] Pall Mall Gazette. [25] Here follows a long calculation of ways and means. [26] Addison's.