hear what one of my fellow countrymen, who is not a Hebrew scholar,
or a reader of hiero-glyphics, but a good-humored traveler with a
pair of sharp, twinkling Yankee (in the broader sense) eyes in his
head, has to say about the things that learned travelers often make
unintelligible, and sentimental ones ridiculous or absurd .... I
hope your booksellers will sell a hundred thousand copies of your
travels." A wish that was realized in due time, though it is
doubtful if Doctor Holmes or any one else at the moment believed
that a book of that nature and price (it was $3.50 a copy) would
ever reach such a sale.



To Mrs. Moffett, in St. Louis:

BOSTON, Nov. 9, 1869.
MY DEAR SISTER,--Three or four letters just received from home. My first
impulse was to send Orion a check on my publisher for the money he wants,
but a sober second thought suggested that if he has not defrauded the
government out of money, why pay, simply because the government chooses
to consider him in its debt? No: Right is right. The idea don't suit
me. Let him write the Treasury the state of the case, and tell them he
has no money. If they make his sureties pay, then I will make the
sureties whole, but I won't pay a cent of an unjust claim. You talk of
disgrace. To my mind it would be just as disgraceful to allow one's self
to be bullied into paying that which is unjust.

Ma thinks it is hard that Orion's share of the land should be swept away
just as it is right on the point (as it always has been) of becoming
valuable. Let her rest easy on that point. This letter is his ample