utograph letter brought $43 yesterday at the auction
by the Merwin-Clayton Company of the library and correspondence of
the late Thomas Nast, cartoonist. The letter is nine pages
note-paper, is dated Hartford, Nov. 12, 1877, and it addressed to
Nast. It reads in part as follows:

Hartford, _Nov. 12_.

MY DEAR NAST: I did not think I should ever stand on a platform
again until the time was come for me to say I die innocent. But the
same old offers keep arriving that have arriven every year, and
been every year declined--$500 for Louisville, $500 for St. Louis,
$1,000 gold for two nights in Toronto, half gross proceeds for New
York, Boston, Brooklyn, &c. I have declined them all just as usual,
though sorely tempted as usual.

Now, I do not decline because I mind talking to an audience, but
because (1) travelling alone is so heart-breakingly dreary, and (2)
shouldering the whole show is such cheer-killing responsibility.

Therefore I now propose to you what you proposed to me in November,
1867--ten years ago, (when I was unknown,) viz.; That you should
stand on the platform and make pictures, and I stand by you and
blackguard the audience. I should enormously enjoy meandering
around (to big towns--don't want to go to little ones) with you for
company.

The letter includes a schedule of cities and the number of
appearances planned for each.

This is as it should be. This is worthy of all praise. I say it myself
lest other competent persons should forget to do it. It appears that
four of my ancient letters were sold at auction, three of them at
twenty-seven dollars, twenty-eight dollars, and twenty-nine dollars
respectively, and the one above mentioned at forty-three dollars. There
is one very gratifying circumstance about this, to wit: that my
literature has more than held its own as regards money value through
this stretch of thirty-six years. I judge that the forty-three-dollar
letter must have gone at about ten cents a word, whereas if I had
written it to-day its market rate would be thirty cents--so I have
increased in value two or three hundred per cent. I note another
gratifying circumstance--that a letter of General Grant's sold at
something short of eighteen dollars. I can't rise to General Grant's
lofty place in the estimation of this nation, but it