ood }
Secretary John Blind }
Vain-hope Go-to-bed } witnesses
Israel Sciatica }

-----
The finger on the mouth.
-----

* Originally reversed print.
** Originally sideways print.

TO SIDNEY COLVIN

The allusions in the second paragraph are to the commanders in the
Nile campaigns of those years.

_La Solitude, Hyeres, 9th March 1884._

MY DEAR S. C.,--You will already have received a not very sane note from
me; so your patience was rewarded--may I say, your patient silence?
However, now comes a letter, which on receipt, I thus acknowledge.

I have already expressed myself as to the political aspect. About
Grahame, I feel happier; it does seem to have been really a good, neat,
honest piece of work. We do not seem to be so badly off for commanders:
Wolseley and Roberts, and this pile of Woods, Stewarts, Alisons,
Grahames, and the like. Had we but ONE statesman on any side of the
house!

Two chapters of _Otto_ do remain: one to rewrite, one to create; and I
am not yet able to tackle them. For me it is my chief o' works; hence
probably not so for others, since it only means that I have here
attacked the greatest difficulties. But some chapters towards the end:
three in particular--I do think come off. I find them stirring,
dramatic, and not unpoetical. We shall see, however; as like as not,
the effort will be more obvious than the success. For, of course, I
strung myself hard to carry it out. The next will come easier, and
possibly be more popular. I believe in the covering of much paper, each
time with a definite and not too difficult artistic purpose; and then,
from time to time, drawing oneself up and trying, in a superior effort,
to combine the facilities thus acquired or improved. Thus one
progresses. But, mind, it is very likely that the big effort, instead of
being the masterpiece, may be the blotted copy, the gymnastic exercise.
This no man can tell; only the brutal and licentious public, snouting in
Mudie's wash-trough, can return a dubious answer.

I am to-day, thanks to a pure heaven and a beneficent, loud-talking,
antiseptic mistral, on the high places as to health and spirits. Money
holds out wonderfully. Fanny has gone for a drive to certain meadows
which are now one sheet of jonquils: sea-bound meadows, the thought of
which may freshen you in Bloomsbury. "Ye have been fresh and fair, Y