_Saranac Lake_, _October_ 1887.
DEAR ARCHER,—Many thanks for the Wondrous Tale. It is scarcely a work of
genius, as I believe you felt. Thanks also for your pencillings; though
I defend ‘shrew,’ or at least many of the shrews.
We are here (I suppose) for the winter in the Adirondacks, a hill and
forest country on the Canadian border of New York State, very unsettled
and primitive and cold, and healthful, or we are the more bitterly
deceived. I believe it will do well for me; but must not boast.
My wife is away to Indiana to see her family; my mother, Lloyd, and I
remain here in the cold, which has been exceeding sharp, and the hill
air, which is inimitably fine. We all eat bravely, and sleep well, and
make great fires, and get along like one o’clock.
I am now a salaried party; I am a _bourgeois_ now; I am to write a weekly
paper for Scribner’s, at a scale of payment which makes my teeth ache for
shame and diffidence. The editor is, I believe, to apply to you; for we
were talking over likely men, and when I instanced you, he said he had
had his eye upon you from the first. It is worth while, perhaps, to get
in tow with the Scribners; they are such thorough gentlefolk in all ways
that it is always a pleasure to deal with them. I am like to be a
millionaire if this goes on, and be publicly hanged at the social
revolution: well, I would prefer that to dying in my bed; and it would be
a godsend to my biographer, if ever I have one. What are you about? I
hope you are all well and in good case and spirits, as I am now, after a
most nefast experience of despondency before I left; but indeed I was
quite run down. Remember me to Mrs. Archer, and give my respects to
Tom.—Yours very truly,