I have Jack London's books--the one from you and the one from him. I
thank you and shall find the time to read them. I've been back but a
few days and find a brace of dozen of books "intitualed" "Shapes of
Clay." That the splendid work done by Scheff and Wood and your other
associates in your labor of love is most gratifying to me should "go
without saying." Surely _I_ am most fortunate in having so good
friends to care for my interests. Still, there will be an aching void
in the heart of me until _your_ book is in evidence. Honest, I feel
more satisfaction in the work of you and Scheff than in my own. It is
through you two that I expect my best fame. And how generously you
accord it!--unlike certain others of my "pupils," whom I have assisted
far more than I did you.
My trip through the mountains has done my health good--and my heart
too. It was a "sentimental journey" in a different sense from
Sterne's. Do you know, George, the charm of a new emotion? Of course
you do, but at my age I had thought it impossible. Well, I had it
repeatedly. Bedad, I think of going again into my old "theatre of
war," and setting up a cabin there and living the few days that remain
to me in meditation and sentimentalizing. But I should like you to be
near enough to come up some Saturday night with some'at to drink.
Sincerely yours,