oured forth like blood and water on the
groaning organ. If your heart (which was what I addressed) remained
unmoved, let us refer to the affair no more: crystallised emotion, the
statement and the reconciliation of the sorrows of the race and the
individual, is obviously no more to you than supping sawdust. Well,
well. If ever I write another Threnody! My next op. will probably be a
Passepied and fugue in G (or D).

The mind is in my case shrunk to the size and sp. gr. of an aged Spanish
filbert. O, I am so jolly silly. I now pickle with some freedom (1) the
refrain of _Martini's Moutons_; (2) _Sul margine d'un rio_, arranged for
the infant school by the Aged Statesman; (3) the first phrase of Bach's
musette (Sweet Englishwoman,[18] No. 3), the rest of the musette being
one prolonged cropper, which I take daily for the benefit of my health.
All my other works (of which there are many) are either arranged (by R.
L. Stevenson) for the manly and melodious forefinger, or else prolonged
and melancholy croppers.... I find one can get a notion of music very
nicely. I have been pickling deeply in the Magic Flute; and have
arranged _La dove prende_, almost to the end, for two melodious
forefingers. I am next going to score the really nobler _Colomba o
tortorella_ for the same instruments.

This day is published
The works of Ludwig van Beethoven
arranged
and wiederdurchgearbeiteted
for two melodious forefingers
by,
Sir,--Your obedient servant,
PIMPERLY STIPPLE.

That's a good idea? There's a person called Lenz who actually does
it--beware his den; I lost eighteenpennies on him, and found the
bleeding corpses of pieces of music divorced from their keys, despoiled
of their graces, and even changed in time; I do not wish to regard music
(nor to be regarded) through that bony Lenz. You say you are "a
spoon-fed idiot"; but how about Lenz? And how about me, sir, me?

I yesterday sent Lloyd by parcel post, at great expense, an empty
matchbox and empty cigarette-paper book, a bell from a cat's collar, an
iron kitchen spoon, and a piece of coal more than half the superficies
of this sheet of paper. They are now (appropriately enough) speeding
towards the Silly Isles; I hope he will find them useful. By that, and
my telegram with prepaid answer to yourself, you may judge of my
spiritual state. The finances have much brightened; and if _Kidnapped_
ke