Many is the time I have purposed dropping a line to thank you & Mrs. Gray for the hospitable entertainment which I enjoyed under your roof, but one thing & another interfered. As I grow older I neglect one common decency after another; & I seem to foresee that by & by I shall have no common decency left. I hope you are drifting in the same direction, for shame loves company.

Howells reviewed my book in the Tribune, & there will be a review in the next Atlantic. Osgood & I were intending to send other copies to personal friends on the press, but our lawyer said no, stop right where we were, till day of publication, Dec. 3, for a further dissemination now might be construed into “publication” & invalidate or impair the strength of English & Canadian copyright.

This book being inscribed to our little children, I wanted to get up a couple of fancy copies for them; & had the luck to hit upon the device (suggested by Anthony the engraver,) of printing them upon China paper—the same used for etchings & the finer sort of steel engravings. The extravagance will be merely in the cost of the paper, for the printing will amount to nothing. I Anthony writes me that he has found the best China paper he has seen for years. I have ordered eight copies, & they will be ready just before Christmas. I want to send one of them to you, if you won’t mind. Anthony says he has never seen a whole book printed on China paper beforeⒶemendation, but only engravings.

David, you have got plenty to do, & you must not let me add to it. Do not answer this letter—put in your labor where you’ve got to put it in, & save your strength.

I offer my kindest regards & remembrances to Mrs. Gray & Mrs. Guthrie—& I hold that tomato-dressing in grateful esteem to this day.