Miserable comforters are ye all! I read your esteemed pages
this morning by lamplight and the glimmer of the dawn, and as
soon as breakfast was over, I must turn to and tackle these
despised labours! Some courage was necessary, but not
wanting. There is one thing at least by which I can avenge
myself for my drubbing, for on one point you seem
impenetrably stupid. Can I find no form of words which will
at last convey to your intelligence the fact that THESE
LETTERS WERE NEVER MEANT, AND ARE NOT NOW MEANT, TO BE OTHER
THAN A QUARRY OF MATERIALS FROM WHICH THE BOOK MAY BE DRAWN?
There seems something incommunicable in this (to me) simple
idea; I know Lloyd failed to comprehend it, I doubt if he has
grasped it now; and I despair, after all these efforts, that
you should ever be enlightened. Still, oblige me by reading
that form of words once more, and see if a light does not
break. You may be sure, after the friendly freedoms of your
criticism (necessary I am sure, and wholesome I know, but
untimely to the poor labourer in his landslip) that mighty
little of it will stand.

Our Paul has come into a fortune, and wishes to go home to
the Hie Germanie. This is a tile on our head, and if a
shower, which is now falling, lets up, I must go down to
Apia, and see if I can find a substitute of any kind. This
is, from any point of view, disgusting; above all, from that
of work; for, whatever the result, the mill has to be kept
turning; apparently dust, and not flour, is the proceed.
Well, there is gold in the dust, which is a fine consolation,
since - well, I can't help it; night or morning, I do my