ess[23] at Montreal.

My news is not much, my mother is away to Niagara and Fanny to Indiana;
the Port Admiral and I and Valentine keep house together in our
verandahed cottage near a wood. I am writing, and have got into the
vein. When I got to N. Y. a paper offered me L2000 a year to do critical
weekly articles for them; the sum was so enormous that I tottered;
however, Scribner at once offered me the same scale to give him a
monthly paper in his magazine; indeed it is rather higher, L720 for the
twelve papers. This I could not decently refuse; and I am now a yoked
man, and after a fit of my usual impotence under bondage, seem to have
got into the swing. I suppose I shall scarce manage to do much else; but
there is the fixed sum, which shines like a sun in the firmament. A
prophet has certainly a devil of a lot of honour (and much coins) in
another country, whatever he has in his own.

I got Gleeson White; your best work and either the best or second best
in the book is the Ballade in Hot Weather; that is really a masterpiece
of melody and fancy. Damn your Villanelles--and everybody's. G.
Macdonald comes out strong in his two pious rondels; _Fons Bandusiae_
seems as exquisite as ever. To my surprise, I liked two of the Pantoums,
the blue-bottle, and the still better after-death one from _Love in
Idleness_. Lang cuts a poor figure, except in the Cricket one; your
patter ballade is a great _tour de force_, but spoiled by similar
caesuras. On the whole 'tis a ridiculous volume, and I had more pleasure
out of it than I expected. I forgot to praise Grant Allen's excellent
ballade, which is the one that runs with yours,--and here, to the point,
a note from you at Margate--among East Winds and Plain Women, damn them!
Well, what can we do or say? We are only at Saranac for the winter; and
if this _Deacon_ comes off, why you may join us there in glory; I would
I had some news of it. Saranac is not _quite_ so dear, in some ways, as
the rest of this land, where it costs you a pound to sneeze, and fifty
to blow your nose; but even here it costs $2.50 to get a box from the
station! Think of it! Lift it up tenderly! They had need to pay well!
but how poor devils live; and how it can pay to take a theatre company
over to such a land, is more than I can fancy. The devil of the States
for you is the conveyances, they are so dear--but O, what is not!

I have thrown off my cold in excellent style, though still very groggy
about the kn