ore one of the kings of that
country of rhyme without my singing robes. For less than this, if we may
trust the book of Esther, favourites have tasted death; but I conceive
the kingdom of the Muses mildlier mannered; and in particular that
county which you administer and which I seem to see as a half-suburban
land; a land of hollyhocks and country houses; a land where at night, in
thorny and sequestered bypaths, you will meet masqueraders going to a
ball in their sedans, and the rector steering homeward by the light of
his lantern; a land of the windmill, and the west wind, and the
flowering hawthorn with a little scented letter in the hollow of its
trunk, and the kites flying over all in the season of kites, and the far
away blue spires of a cathedral city.

Will you forgive me, then, for my delay and accept my thanks not only
for your present, but for the letter which followed it, and which
perhaps I more particularly value, and believe me to be, with much
admiration, yours very truly,

ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.

TO W. E. HENLEY

Stevenson and his wife were still busy on _More New Arabian Nights_
(the romance of the _Great North Road_ having been begun and
postponed). The question here touched is, to what publishers should
they be offered.

_Bonallie Towers, Bournemouth, December 1884._

DEAR LAD,--For Cassell, I thought the G.N.R. (not railway this time) was
the motto. What are Cassells to do with this eccentric mass of blague
and seriousness? Their poor auld pows will a' turn white as snaw, man.
They would skriegh with horror. You see, the lot of tales is now coming
to a kind of bearing. They are being quite rehandled; all the three
intercalary narratives have been condemned and are being replaced--two
by picturesque and highly romantic adventures; one by a comic tale of
character; and the thing as it goes together so far, is, I do think,
singularly varied and vivid, coming near to laughter and touching tears.

Will Cassell stand it? No.

_Et de deux._

I vote for the syndicate, and to give Cassell the _North Road_ when
done. _Et sic subscr._

R. L. S.

My health is better. I never sleep, to be sure; Cawdor hath butchered
sleep; and I am twinged a bit by aches and rheumatism; but I get my five
to seven hours of work; and if that is not health, it is the nearest I
am like to have.

TO HENRY JAMES

The following to Mr. Henry James refers to the essay of R