TO W. E. HENLEY

The verses herein alluded to were addressed to Rossetti's friend, Dr.
Gordon Hake, physician and poet (1809-1895), in return for some
received from him. They are those beginning "In the beloved hour that
ushers day" and printed as No. xix. in _Songs of Travel_.

_New York [September 1887]._

MY DEAR LAD,--Herewith verses for Dr. Hake, which please communicate. I
did my best with the interviewers;

I don't know if Lloyd sent you the result; my heart was too sick: you
can do nothing with them; and yet ----literally sweated with anxiety to
please, and took me down in long hand!

I have been quite ill, but go better. I am being not busted, but
medallioned, by St. Gaudens, who is a first-rate, plain, high-minded
artist and honest fellow; you would like him down to the ground. I
believe sculptors are fine fellows when they are not demons. O, I am now
a salaried person, L600, a year,[21] to write twelve articles in
Scribner's Magazine; it remains to be seen if it really pays, huge as
the sum is, but the slavery may overweigh me. I hope you will like my
answer to Hake, and specially that he will.

Love to all.--Yours affectionately,

R. L. S.
(_le salarie_).

TO R. A. M. STEVENSON

_Saranac Lake, Adirondacks, New York, U.S.A. [October 1887]._

MY DEAR BOB,--The cold [of Colorado] was too rigorous for me; I could
not risk the long railway voyage, and the season was too late to risk
the Eastern, Cape Hatteras side of the steamer one; so here we stuck and
stick. We have a wooden house on a hill-top, overlooking a river, and a
village about a quarter of a mile away, and very wooded hills; the whole
scene is very Highland, bar want of heather and the wooden houses.

I have got one good thing of my sea voyage: it is proved the sea agrees
heartily with me, and my mother likes it; so if I get any better, or no
worse, my mother will likely hire a yacht for a month or so in summer.
Good Lord! What fun! Wealth is only useful for two things: a yacht and a
string quartette. For these two I will sell my soul. Except for these I
hold that L700 a year is as much as any body can possibly want; and I
have had more, so I know, for the extry coins were for no use, excepting
for illness, which damns everything.

I was so happy on board that ship, I could not have believed it
possible. We had the beastliest weather, and many discomforts; but the
mere fact of its being a tr