than I had
expected. And it was only taken up, when the proposed volume, _Beach de
Mar_, petered out. It petered out thus: the chief of the short stories
got sucked into _Sophia Scarlet_--and _Sophia_ is a book I am much taken
with, and mean to get to, as soon as--but not before--I have done _David
Balfour_ and _The Young Chevalier_. So you see you are like to hear no
more of the Pacific or the nineteenth century for a while. _The Young
Chevalier_ is a story of sentiment and passion, which I mean to write a
little differently from what I have been doing--if I can hit the key;
rather more of a sentimental tremolo to it. It may thus help to prepare
me for _Sophia_, which is to contain three ladies, and a kind of a love
affair between the heroine and a dying planter who is a poet! large
orders for R. L. S.

O the German taboo is quite over; no soul attempts to support the C. J.
or the President, they are past hope; the whites have just refused their
taxes--I mean the council has refused to call for them, and if the
council consented, nobody would pay; 'tis a farce, and the curtain is
going to fall briefly. Consequently in my History, I say as little as
may be of the two dwindling stars. Poor devils! I liked the one, and the
other has a little wife, now lying in! There was no man born with so
little animosity as I. When I heard the C. J. was in low spirits and
never left his house, I could scarce refrain from going to him.

It was a fine feeling to have finished the History; there ought to be a
future state to reward that grind! It's not literature, you know; only
journalism, and pedantic journalism. I had but the one desire, to get
the thing as right as might be, and avoid false concords--even if that!
And it was more than there was time for. However, there it is: done. And
if Samoa turns up again, my book has to be counted with, being the only
narrative extant. Milton and I--if you kindly excuse the
juxtaposition--harnessed ourselves to strange waggons, and I at least
will be found to have plodded very soberly with my load. There is not
even a good sentence in it, but perhaps--I don't know--it may be found
an honest, clear volume.

_Wednesday._--Never got a word set down, and continues on Thursday, 19th
May, his own marriage day as ever was. News; yes. The C. J. came up to
call on us! After five months' cessation on my side, and a decidedly
painful interchange of letters, I could not go down--_could_ not--to see
him.