gorical
confession from you that the second edition of the _Donkey_ was a false
alarm, which I conclude from hearing no more.

I have twice written to the Marky de Stephen; each time with one of my
bright papers, so I should hear from him soon. How are Baron Payn, Sir
Robert de Bob, and other members of the Aristocracy?

Here's breid an' wine an' kebbuck an' canty cracks at e'en
To the folks that mind o' me when I'm awa',
But them that hae forgot me, O ne'er to be forgi'en--
They may a' gae tapsalteerie in a raw!

I have mighty little to say, dear boy, to seem worth 2-1/2d. I have
thought of the Piper, but he does not seem to come as yet; I get him too
metaphysical. I shall make a shot for _Hester_, as soon as I have
finished the _Emigrant_ and the _Vendetta_ and perhaps my _Dialogue on
Character and Destiny_. Hester and Don Juan are the two that smile on
me; but I will touch nothing in the shape of a play until I have made my
year's income sure. You understand, and you see that I am right?

I have read _M. Auguste_ and the _Crime inconnu_, being now abonne to a
library, and found them very readable, highly ingenious, and so French
that I could not keep my gravity. The _Damned Ones of the Indies_ now
occupy my attention; I have myself already damned them repeatedly. I am,
as you know, the original person the wheels of whose chariot tarried;
but though I am so slow, I am rootedly tenacious. Do not despair.
_Hester_ and the _Don_ are sworn in my soul; and they shall be.

Is there no _news_? Real news, newsy news. Heavenly blue, this is
strange. Remember me to the lady of the Cawstle, my toolip, and ever
was,

GEORGE THE PIEMAN.

TO SIDNEY COLVIN

With reference to the following, it must be explained that the first
draft of the first part of the _Amateur Emigrant_, when it reached me
about Christmas, had seemed to me, compared to his previous travel
papers, a somewhat wordy and spiritless record of squalid
experiences, little likely to advance his still only half-established
reputation; and I had written to him to that effect, inopportunely
enough, with a fuller measure even than usual of the frankness which
always marked our intercourse.

_608 Bush Street, San Francisco, California [January 1880]._

MY DEAR COLVIN,--I received this morning your long letter from Paris.
Well, God's will be done; if it's dull, it's dull; it was a fair fight,
and it's lost, an