hope so for the sake of books to come.  And is he of any profession?  Does he depend altogether upon literature, as too many writers do here?  At all events, he is one of the glories of your most glorious part of great America.  Tell me, too, what is become of Mr. Cooper, that other great novelist?  I think I heard from you, or from some other Transatlantic friend, that he was less genial and less beloved than so many other of your notabilities have been.  Indeed, one sees that in many of his recent works; but I have been reading many of his earlier books again, with ever-increased admiration, especially I should say “The Pioneers”; and one cannot help hoping that the mind that has given so much pleasure to so many readers will adjust itself so as to admit of its own happiness,—­for very clearly the discomfort was his own fault, and he is too clever a person for one not to wish him well.

I think that the most distinguished of our own young writers are, the one a dear friend of mine, John Ruskin; the other, one who will shortly be so near a neighbor that we must know each other.  It is quite wonderful that we don’t now, for we are only twelve miles apart, and have scores of friends in common.  This last is the Rev. Charles Kingsley, author of “Alton Locke” and “Yeast” and “The Saint’s Tragedy.”  All these books are full of world-wide truths, and yet, taken as a whole, they are unsatisfactory and inconclusive, knocking down without building up.  Perhaps that is the fault of the social system that he lays bare, perhaps of the organization of the man, perhaps a little of both.  You will have heard probably that he, with other benevolent persons, established a sort of socialist community (Christian socialism) for journeymen tailors, he himself being their chaplain.  The evil was very great, for of twenty-one thousand of that class in London, fifteen thousand were ill-paid and only half-employed.  For a while, that is, as long as the subscription lasted, all went well; but I fear this week that the money has come to an end, and so very likely will the experiment.  Have you republished “Alton Locke” in America?  It has one character, an old Scotchman, equal to anything in Scott.  The writer is still quite a young man, but out of health.  I have heard (but this is between ourselves) that ——­’s brain is suffering,—­the terrible malady by which so many of our great mental laborers (Scott and Southey, above all) have fallen.  Dr. Buckland is now dying of it.  I am afraid ——­ may be so lost to the world and his friends, not merely because his health is going, but because certain peculiarities have come to my knowledge which look like it.  A brother clergyman saw him the other day, upon a common near his own house, spouting, singing, and reciting verse at the top of his voice at one o’clock in the morning.  Upon inquiring what was the matter, the poet said that he never went to bed till two or three o’clock, and frequently went out in that way to exercise his lungs.