Thanks for the paper "A Ship over Niagara" & "Parodies." I recollect the story of the ship very well, it was often told and referred to when I was a little boy. Your letter of 23d and 24th also came this morning. I am glad the binding is settled and I think from your description it will do very well tho' nothing to become especially enthusiastic about. I shall be glad to see it. Will not the price of binding cut into the price of the book a good deal? [—] $1.24 is a big slice off $6. [—] The price of the book should have been more than $6. I would not have put it a cent below $10. if I had had my way. I predict that a copy of that book will be worth $50 in ten years and $100. in 25 years. But I suppose you will say "we are living in '89 not '99 or '14." [—] So Rice wants you to write for his review? I wouldn't mind if he would print some pieces written by your friends and leave out such miserable trash as that written by Kennedy a few years ago—Do you recollect when Pearsall Smith brought it home and reads extracts from it at the teatable? The Inspector came while I was writing the above and I had to break off [.] (It is now noon, Sunday) [.] at 11.30 last night a fire broke out in the north cottage I was at work there untill 5o'c. this morning. The centre building was gutted but no life lost. The damage [mutilation] will be $4000 or $5000. [—] A lively snow storm has set in, we may have sleighing at last (the last snow storm /I/ told you about was a failure, did not amount to any thing after all /no sleighing at all this winter yet./). Every body at the asylum is hard at work making provision for accommodation of the sixty patients who occupied the north cottage. Goodly, dear Walt
Love to you R M Bucke