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Isaac Nov. 19 1848

"ancients had not said all our good things before us. Would he not be more likely to write a Foust or a Festus, perhaps still more Festered, rather than a Paradise Lost? I do not know though come to think of it but you think of writing a book yourself. If so- I take back all I have written- I you feel that you that you can really write a book which will make the world wiser or better, or yourself richer & better, my advice is positive- do it. Better be pretty sure of it first though. That projected title - the envious wafer destroyed it. the one word necessary to the sense of the whole story. What was it? The Battles --unfought? No. Of life? There is such a title already of Dickens. Of the World? That is it. You say similar to those books of Headly &c. Don't you write it however without you can write a far better book than those sham concerns - That is without you have the assurance of some such introduction as shall make it profitable as those have been. It is however a much better subject than they - more difficult though - and less likely, even if well written to "take." That "what might have been" is a great field. Without one single new idea or fact, ten times the amount ever written could be spun in that way. Yes - a new three volume novel on every page of History or fiction ever written! The best example of that I ever saw was a "Continuation" of Walter Scott's great Novel "Ivanhoe". It really seemed wicked to mutilate such a splendid thing & such characters but the "Continuation" was great. It was reprinted in Littell.