Yours of 9th rec'd —am a little surprised you take to L of G so quickly2—I guess it is because the last five years had been preparing & fixing the ground, more & more & more—& now that the seed is dropt in it sprouts quickly—my own feeling ab't my book is that it makes (tries to make) every fellow see himself, & see that he has got to work out his salvation himself—has got to pull the oars & hold the plow, or swing the axe himself—& that the real3 blessings of life are not the fictions generally supposed, but are real, & are mostly within reach of all—you chew on this—
Hank, I am still feeling under the weather—My appetite is fair, (when I can get what I like)—& sleep middling, but I am as weak as a cat, & dull half-dizzy spells every day—I sent off two sets of books to-day, got the money for them—one set to a big lady in England4—I enclose you a slip of a piece out to-morrow in the N Y Critic, about the old man Carlyle, 85 years old, the grandest writer in England, just dead5—they sent for me to write it ($10 worth)—You read it carefully—read it twice—then show it to your mother, I want her to read it, without fail—(Hank, you do not appreciate your mother—there is not a nobler woman in Jersey)—
Your Walt