such a speculation: "quitting the old
highways," as I say, "in indignation at the excessive tolls, with
hope that you will arrive cheaper in the steeple-chase way!" It
is clear, however, that said highways are of the corduroy sort,
said tolls an anomaly that must be remedied soon; and also that
in all England there is no Book in a likelier case to adventure
it with than this same,--which did not sell at all for two
months, as I hear, which all Booksellers got terrified for, and
which has crept along mainly by its own gravitation ever since.
We will consider well, we shall see. You can understand that
such a thing, for your market too, is in agitation; if any
pirate step in before us in the meanwhile, we cannot help it.

Thanks again for your swift attention to the _Miscellanies;_
poor Fraser is in great haste to see them; hoping for his forty-
per-cent division of the spoil. If you have not yet got to the
very end with your printing, I will add a few errata; if they
come too late, never mind; they are of small moment....

This foggy Babylon tumbles along as it was wont; and, as for my
particular case, uses me not worse, but better, than of old.
Nay, there are many in it that have a real friendliness for me.
For example, the other night, a massive portmanteau of Books,
sent according to my written list, from the Cambridge University
Library, from certain friends there whom I have never seen; a
gratifying arrival. For we have no Library here, from which we
can borrow books home; and are only in these weeks striving to
get one:* think of that! The worst is the sore tear and wear of
this huge roaring Niagara of things on such a poor excitable set
of nerves as mine. The velocity of all things, of the very word
you hear on the streets, is at railway rate: joy itself is
unenjoyable, to be avoided like pain; there is no wish one has
so pressing as for quiet. Ah me! I often swear I will be buried
at least in free breezy Scotland, out of this insane hubbub,
where Fate tethers me in life! If Fate always tether me;--but if
ever the smallest competence of worldly means be mine, I will fly
this whirlpool as I would the Lake of _Malebolge,_ and only visit
it now and then! Yet perhaps it is the proper place after all,
seeing all places are improper: who knows? Meanwhile I lead a
most dyspeptic, solitary, self-shrouded life: consuming, if
possible in silence, my considerable daily allotment of pain;
glad whe