Up to where Shargar & Robert overtake the Ⓐemendationvessell, on Lord Rothie’s horses, the book is just splendid—but from that to the end it is is pretty flat.1explanatory note My! but the first half of it is superb! We just kept our pencils going, marking brilliant & beautiful things—but there was nothing to mark, after the middle. Up to the middle of the book we did so admire & like Robert—& after that we began to dislike & finally ended by despising him for a self-righteous humbug, devoured with egotism.

I guess we hated his grandmother from the first. I did not. I liked her all the time, her heart was all right and what was wrong came of her education— Livy The author was always telling us her goodness, but seldom letting us see any of it.

Shargar was the only character in the book worthy to live & worthy of who was always welcome, & him of him the author gave us just as little as possible, & filled him his Ⓐemendationempty pages with the added emptiness of that tiresome Ericson & his dismal “poetry”—hogwashⒶemendation, I call it.

Oh, yes, & there was Dooble Sanny, an imperial character—but of course he had to die in order to give Robert a chance to air some of his piety., & talk like a blessed Sunday-school book with a marbled cover to it. thats not correct— thats not correct—

But Ⓐemendation what on earth the author lugged in that inane ity, Miss Lindsay, for, goes clear beyond my comprehension. Page after page, & page after page about that ineffable doughnut, & not even the poor satisfaction of reflecting that Lord Rothie ruined her, after all. how dreadful Hang such an author! a character!

And Miss St. John—well there w never was any interest about her, from the first. And when she concluded that the man she first loved was small potatoes & that that big booby of an Ericson was the mann that completely filled her idea of masculine perfection I just wanted to send her a dose of salts with my compliments.

Mind you, we are not through yo yetⒶemendation—two or three chapters still to read—& that idiot is still hunting for his father. I hoped that as he grew to years of discretion he would eventually appreciate the efforts of a wise p Providence Ⓐemendationto get the old man out of the way (seeing that he wasn’t eli very eligible property, take him how you would,)—but no, nothing would do him, clear from in juvenile stupidity to up to mature imbecility but tag around after that old bummer. scandalous I do just wonder what he is going to make of him now that he is about to find him. A missionary, likely, along with Rev. De Fleaur Fleuri, & trot him around peddling sentiment to London guttersnipes while he continues his special mission upon earth of reclaiming venerable strumpets and trotting out exhibiting his little wonders at midnight for the astonishment & admiration of chance strangers like the applauding Gordon.

I would make erasures in this letter but it is a hopeless undertaking, I should have to erase the last three pages of the book letter it— However I know that he is rather ashamed of it because he said that he had left plenty of room for me to say something pleasant—

The last part of the book we have not enjoyed as much as the first part, but the first we did enjoy intensely—