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Rh London! How you will miss the cold clear North and all the ice-fun; but you will be so busy finishing the book that surroundings won't matter much. It seemed quite home-like to see the familiar address on the note-paper.

To-day I am going to devote entirely to writing. Surely my book will make some progress now. How many words should there be in a book? I've got 18,000 now; "ragged incompetent words" they are, too. I wonder what makes a writer of books! Would knowing all the words in the dictionary help me? My statements are so bald, somehow. It doesn't seem an interesting tale to me, so I'm afraid I can't expect an unprejudiced reader to find it thrilling. The Mutiny is perhaps too large a subject for me—though, mind you, there is one bit that sounds rather well. I have taken great pains with it, and, as Viola said of her declaration, "'tis poetical!" The worst of it is, when I write poetically I am never quite sure that I am writing sense. I dare say I would be wise to take the Moorwife's advice. You remember in The Will-o'-the Wisps are in Town, when the man had listened to the Moorwife's tale he said, "I might write a book about that, a novel in twelve volumes, or better, a popular play."