FRIEND BLISS,--Yrs rec'd enclosing check for $703.35 The old “Innocents”
holds out handsomely.
I have MS. enough on hand now, to make (allowing for engravings) about
400 pages of the book--consequently am two-thirds done. I intended
to run up to Hartford about the middle of the week and take it along;
because it has chapters in it that ought by all means to be in the
prospectus; but I find myself so thoroughly interested in my work, now
(a thing I have not experienced for months) that I can't bear to lose
a single moment of the inspiration. So I will stay here and peg away
as long as it lasts. My present idea is to write as much more as I have
already written, and then cull from the mass the very best chapters and
discard the rest. I am not half as well satisfied with the first part of
the book as I am with what I am writing now. When I get it done I want
to see the man who will begin to read it and not finish it. If it falls
short of the “Innocents” in any respect I shall lose my guess.
When I was writing the “Innocents” my daily stunt was 30 pages of MS and
I hardly ever got beyond it; but I have gone over that nearly every day
for the last ten. That shows that I am writing with a red-hot interest.
Nothing grieves me now--nothing troubles me, nothing bothers me or gets
my attention--I don't think of anything but the book, and I don't have
an hour's unhappiness about anything and don't care two cents whether
school keeps or not. It will be a bully book. If I keep up my present
lick three weeks more I shall be able and willing to scratch out half of
the chapters of the Overland narrative--and shall do it.
You do not mention having received my second batch of MS, sent a week or
two ago--about 100 pages.
If you want to issue a prospectus and go right to canvassing, say
the word and I will forward some more MS--or send it by hand--special
messenger. Whatever chapters you think are unquestionably good, we will
retain of course, so they can go into a prospectus as well one time
as another. The book will be done soon, now. I have 1200 pages of MS
already written and am now writing 200 a week--more than that, in
fact; during the past week wrote 23 one day, then 30, 33, 35, 52, and
65.--How's that?
It will be a starchy book, and should be full of snappy
pictures--especially pictures worked in with the letterpress. The
dedication will be worth the price of the volume--thus:
To the Late Cain.
This Book is Dedicated:
Not on account of respect for his memory, for it merits little respect;
not on account of sympathy with him, for his bloody deed placed him
without the pale of sympathy, strictly speaking: but out of a mere human
commiseration for him that it was his misfortune to live in a dark age
that knew not the beneficent Insanity Plea.