Autograph letter signed : [London], to Thomas Richmond, [1868] Nov. 9.

Thanking him for the two letters that arrived this morning; rejoicing in his kindness and affection; saying he is finding he can now work with some comfort, "not in the work itself but in the certainty that it is done as well as I can do it and will give some degree of pleasure to others--and I have even skill enough now--in my own small way, to feel some complacency in the mere skill or trick of the thing--though never in the result. I hate the work, as compared with what great painters do, or what nature is; nevertheless is it cunning enough to make me pleased with it as far as it reaches."