in order to get a chance to finish my book, i am reading and answering letters only once a week; but you do not propose to wait for your turn to come round; if i did not answer promptly by letter or telegram, you are going to take my silence as meaning assent to your electric proposition. silence can mean assent only when both parties have agreed that it shall bear that meaning. in this case one of the parties protests. i could have written you a week ago that i did not want anything whatever to do with the electric business, and i would have done so if i had supposed yourownⒶemendation interest in it would keep alive a whole week. i had no sort of reason to suppose you would still have that subject in your mind at this late day. i imagined that you would be tired of it before this, and that it would not be necessary to write anything about it. if there is any money in thatⒶemendation project, there are people all round you who will easily see it and be prompt to go into it. you will not need to go east to find the needed capital. if you find that business men in yourownⒶemendation town decline to take hold of it, that will be ample proof that i have no business to meddle with it. i wish you may make a success of the thing, but by yourownⒶemendation showing there is little or nothing in it.

we are all glad to hear that ma is flourishing so finely, and we hope and believe that it will continue, for she has not been so wholesomely and agreeably situated for years as she is now.

everybody here is well but me. i am only tolerably well, and am full of devilish irritation besides, on account of my inability to work steadily and to my satisfaction on my book.