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London. Nov. 15. 1884.

My Dearest Emmie,

Well here we are; we went on the principle of-  He who fights and runs away will live to fight another day. So we foulded our traps and escaped and not too quickly either for there was a case quite near us the night before we went and all the wealthy french people are going back into the country to spend the winter also all the students who had just come up. A fellow dont get much chance to study too hard, between the cholera and illness. I have not studied a month yet and as the thing looks now I dont know when I shall. I have travelled all over London and I was going to say all over England and hav'nt found but one place where we can draw in the french method: that is this is the only school where you can draw as you like; all the others you have to draw just as they tell you.

We had some great fun looking them up, at one place they told us that we would have to pass a satisfactory examination in free hand drawing and then pay 5£ or $25, in advance.

We quickly consigned the man and the school to the hot place and went on then we went to another and it was the same story.

We would have to make a satisfactory drawing from the flat cop or cast or something like that. Well we [[strikethrough]] guyeed [[/strikethrough]] guyed them a 

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little and then looked at all the drawings we could find and guyed them and then said "thank you sir" and walked out. If I ever said anything against Paris I take it all back every word of it, even to the drains which I know are frightful.

Well I praise Paris collectively and seperately now, for this is the nastiest, dirtiest, filthiest, foggiest, coldest, dampest, disagreeablest, black headedest english town that I ever struck. There I have used two lines of adjectives and hav'nt half expressed myself, so I will leave the rest to the imagination. You may supply any superlative adjectives you may think necessary. My longing for Paris is only exceeded by desire to see you and home; I can stand Paris because it is more like an American city. They call any day pleasant here when it does'nt rain guns, no matter if the fog is so thick you can cut it with a dull axe.

We had a very pleasant passage excepting my futile attempt at sleeping on board the boat; not that it was rough at all but it was so beastly cold that I woke up every half minute or so and every time I awoke I was colder than the time before, till at last I gave it up as a bad job and went over and sat down by the stove; there at least I got the appearance of heat and I find that that is a great deal in this country. I think a candle put inside

Transcription Notes:
to guy = to ridicule spelling and grammatical errors reproduced as written