There is also another thing I must write to you about.

I adore this place. The whole country is lovely, and full of forest and
deep meadow. It is simple and healthy. If I live in Paris I may be
doomed to things I don't desire. I am afraid of big towns. Here I get up
at 7.30. I am happy all day. I go to bed at 10. I am frightened of
Paris. I want to live here.

I have seen the "terrain." It is the best here, and the only one left. I
must build a house. If I could build a chalet for 12,000
francs--L500--and live in a home of my own, how happy I would be. I must
raise the money somehow. It would give me a home, quiet, retired,
healthy, and near England. If I live in Egypt I know what my life would
be. If I live in the south of Italy I know I should be idle and worse. I
want to live here. Do think over this and send me over the
architect.[18] M. Bonnet is excellent and is ready to carry out any
idea. I want a little chalet of wood and plaster walls, the wooden beams
showing and the white square of plaster diapering the framework--like, I
regret to say--Shakespeare's house--like old English sixteenth-century
farmers' houses. So your architect has me waiting for him, as he is
waiting for me.

Do you think the idea absurd?

I got the _Chronicle_, many thanks. I see the writer on
Prince--A.2.11.--does not mention my name--foolish of her--it is a
woman.

I, as you, the poem of my days, are away, am forced to write. I have
begun something that I think will be very good.

I breakfast to-morrow with the Stannards: what a great passionate,
splendid writer John Strange Winter is! How little people understand her
work! _Bootle's Baby_ is an "oeuvre symboliste"--it is really only the
style and the subject that are wrong. Pray never speak lightly of
_Bootle's Baby_--Indeed pray never speak of it at all--I never do.

Yours,

OSCAR.

Please send a _Chronicle_ to my wife.

MRS. C.M. HOLLAND,
Maison Benguerel,
Bevaix,
Pres de Neuchatel,

just marking it--and if my second letter appears, mark that.

Also cut out the letter[19] and enclose it in an envelope to:

MR. ARTHUR CRUTHENDEN,
Poste Restante, G.P.O., Reading,

with just these lines:

Dear friend,

The enclosed will interest you. There is also another letter
waiting in the post office for you from me with a little money.
Ask for it if you have not got it.

Yours sincerely,

C.3.3.

I have no one bu