We are all better, but we have been of late a poor household.
LETTER 43.

TO J.D.HOOKER.

Down [1855].
I should have less scruple in troubling you if I had any confidence what my work would turn out.

Sometimes I think it will be good, at other times I really feel as much ashamed of myself as the author of the "Vestiges" ought to be of himself.

I know well that your kindness and friendship would make you do a great deal for me, but that is no reason that I should be unreasonable.