darndest, and if I cannot charge for merit, I must e'en
charge for toil, of which I have plenty and plenty more ahead
before this cup is drained; sweat and hyssop are the
ingredients.

We are clearing from Carruthers' Road to the pig fence,
twenty-eight powerful natives with Catholic medals about
their necks, all swiping in like Trojans; long may the sport
continue!

The invoice to hand. Ere this goes out, I hope to see your
expressive, but surely not benignant countenance! Adieu, O
culler of offensive expressions - 'and a' - to be a posy to
your ain dear May!' - Fanny seems a little revived again
after her spasm of work. Our books and furniture keep slowly
draining up the road, in a sad state of scatterment and
disrepair; I wish the devil had had K. by his red beard
before he had packed my library. Odd leaves and sheets and
boards - a thing to make a bibliomaniac shed tears - are
fished out of odd corners. But I am no bibliomaniac, praise
Heaven, and I bear up, and rejoice when I find anything safe.


19TH.


However, I worked five hours on the brute, and finished my
Letter all the same, and couldn't sleep last night by
consequence. Haven't had a bad night since I don't know
when; dreamed a large, handsome man (a New Orleans planter)