afternoon instead of Monday morning, but if a supplementary bag should be made up on Monday I will write again.  I hope that in future you will direct my letters to Melbourne instead of Ballaarat, for I seldom get them until the return mail is about to start.  We have had some rather cold weather lately; that is, the thermometer has been below thirty-two degrees once or twice, which is cold for us.  I am glad to hear that Charley has been appointed to the Bank, as it is a good thing for all parties at present.  I fear that I shall be unable to send you a News Letter this time.  I wish you would tell me whether you find anything of interest in them; also whether you would like to have the Argus sometimes.  Adieu for the present, my dear mother,

Your affectionate son,

William J. Wills.

. . .

August 6th, 1859.

My dear mother,

You see I have sent you the News Letter for this month, with a long account of an unfortunate shipwreck that happened on the coast last month.  It is a wonder how those passengers that were saved managed to exist so long without food.  The only reasonable explanation that has been offered is, that as they were continually wet, from the sea breaking over them, a large quantity of moisture must have been absorbed by the skin, otherwise they could never have lived so long without fresh water.  It must have been an awkward situation to be in.  I fancy I would rather have been drowned at once; but it is not easy to judge how we should feel under the circumstances, unless we had tried it.  As Pope says, ‘Hope springs eternal in the human breast; man never is,’ etc. (of course you know the rest).  It strikes me that the height of happiness is, to hope everything and expect nothing, because you have all the satisfaction of hope, and if you get nothing you are not disappointed; but if you obtain what you want, you are agreeably surprised.

Your affectionate son,

William J. Wills.

. . .

Flagstaff Observatory, Melbourne, August 15th, 1859.

My dear mother,

I am glad to be able to acknowledge the receipt by this mail of the first letter that you have sent to me direct since I have been in Melbourne.  It is satisfactory to know that you are pleased with the News Letters; I must endeavour to send them regularly.  I had a letter from my father to-day.  He has received yours, which we feared was lost, as he saw nothing of it for some days after the mail was in; but he found it at Bath’s Hotel.  One must make some little allowance for a mother’s partiality in your account of B. and H.; I hope your prejudice against novels does not prevent their reading those of Thackeray and Dickens, every one of whose works, especially the former, should be read by them, for they contain some of the best things, both in a moral and literary point of view, that we have in the English language.  I shall be more careful in future about the postage; and now, my dear mother, with love to yourself and all,