n the
party. I was very nearly sunk in a squall. I am sorry I ever left
England, for here there are no books to be had, and without books there
is no stable situation for, dear Giver, your affectionate

WOODEN PAPER-CUTTER.

A neighbouring pair of scissors snips a kiss in your direction.

TO SIDNEY COLVIN

The ballad referred to in the letter which follows is the _Feast of
Famine_, published with others in the collection of 1890 _Ballads_
(Chatto & Windus). I never very much admired his South Sea ballads
for any quality except their narrative vigour, thinking them unequal
and uncertain both in metre and style.

_Taiti, October 16th, 1888._

MY DEAR COLVIN,--The cruiser for San Francisco departs to-morrow morning
bearing you some kind of a scratch. This much more important packet will
travel by way of Auckland. It contains a ballant; and I think a better
ballant than I expected ever to do. I can imagine how you will wag your
pow over it; and how ragged you will find it, etc., but has it not
spirit all the same? and though the verse is not all your fancy painted
it, has it not some life? And surely, as narrative, the thing has
considerable merit! Read it, get a typewritten copy taken, and send me
that and your opinion to the Sandwiches. I know I am only courting the
most excruciating mortification; but the real cause of my sending the
thing is that I could bear to go down myself, but not to have much MS.
go down with me. To say truth, we are through the most dangerous; but it
has left in all minds a strong sense of insecurity, and we are all for
putting eggs in various baskets.

We leave here soon, bound for Uahiva, Raiatea, Bora-Bora, and the
Sandwiches.

O, how my spirit languishes
To step ashore on the Sanguishes;
For there my letters wait,
There shall I know my fate.
O, how my spirit languidges
To step ashore on the Sanguidges.

_18th._--I think we shall leave here if all is well on Monday. I am
quite recovered, astonishingly recovered. It must be owned these
climates and this voyage have given me more strength than I could have
thought possible. And yet the sea is a terrible place, stupefying to the
mind and poisonous to the temper, the sea, the motion, the lack of
space, the cruel publicity, the villainous tinned foods, the sailors,
the captain, the passengers--but you are amply repaid when you sight an
island, and drop anchor in a new world. Much trouble