ch for
my dog, who has never seen you, but he would like, on general
principles, to bite you.

TO W. E. HENLEY

By this time _Treasure Island_ was out in book form, and the
following is in reply to some reflections on its seamanship which had
been conveyed to him through Mr. Henley:--

[_La Solitude, Hyeres, November 1883._]

MY DEAR LAD,-- ... Of course, my seamanship is jimmy: did I not beseech
you I know not how often to find me an ancient mariner--and you, whose
own wife's own brother is one of the ancientest, did nothing for me? As
for my seamen, did Runciman ever know eighteenth century Buccaneers? No?
Well, no more did I. But I have known and sailed with seamen too, and
lived and eaten with them; and I made my put-up shot in no great
ignorance, but as a put-up thing has to be made, _i.e._ to be coherent
and picturesque, and damn the expense. Are they fairly lively on the
wires? Then, favour me with your tongues. Are they wooden, and dim, and
no sport? Then it is I that am silent, otherwise not. The work, strange
as it may sound in the ear, is not a work of realism. The next thing I
shall hear is that the etiquette is wrong in Otto's Court! With a
warrant, and I mean it to be so, and the whole matter never cost me half
a thought. I make these paper people to please myself, and Skelt, and
God Almighty, and with no ulterior purpose. Yet am I mortal myself; for,
as I remind you, I begged for a supervising mariner. However, my heart
is in the right place. I have been to sea, but I never crossed the
threshold of a court; and the courts shall be the way I want 'em.

I'm glad to think I owe you the review that pleased me best of all the
reviews I ever had; the one I liked best before that was ----'s on the
_Arabians_. These two are the flowers of the collection, according to
me. To live reading such reviews and die eating ortolans--sich is my
aspiration.

Whenever you come you will be equally welcome. I am trying to finish
_Otto_ ere you shall arrive, so as to take and be able to enjoy a
well-earned--O yes, a well-earned--holiday. Longman fetched by _Otto_:
is it a spoon or a spoilt horn? Momentous, if the latter; if the former,
a spoon to dip much praise and pudding, and to give, I do think, much
pleasure. The last part, now in hand, much smiles upon me.--Ever yours,

R. L. S.

TO MRS. THOMAS STEVENSON

_La Solitude, Hyeres [November 1883]._

MY DEAR MOTHER,--You must