here or hereafter, but I
please myself with hoping that my father will not always think so badly
of my conduct nor so very slightingly of my affection as he does at
present.

You may now understand that the quiet economical citizen of San
Francisco who now addresses you, a bonhomme given to cheap living, early
to bed though scarce early to rise in proportion (que diable! let us
have style, anyway), busied with his little bits of books and essays and
with a fair hope for the future, is no longer the same desponding,
invalid son of a doubt and an apprehension who last wrote to you from
Monterey. I am none the less warmly obliged to you and Mrs. Gosse for
your good words. I suppose that I am the devil (hearing it so often),
but I am not ungrateful. Only please, Weg, do not talk of genius about
me; I do not think I want for a certain talent, but I am heartily
persuaded I have none of the other commodity; so let that stick to the
wall: you only shame me by such friendly exaggerations.

When shall I be married? When shall I be able to return to England? When
shall I join the good and blessed in a forced march upon the New
Jerusalem? That is what I know not in any degree; some of them, let us
hope, will come early, some after a judicious interval. I have three
little strangers knocking at the door of Leslie Stephen: _The Pavilion
on the Links_, a blood and thunder story, _accepted_; _Yoshida
Torajiro_, a paper on a Japanese hero who will warm your blood,
_postulant_; and _Henry David Thoreau_: _his character and
opinions_--postulant also. I give you these hints knowing you to love
the best literature, that you may keep an eye at the mast-head for these
little tit-bits. Write again, and soon, and at greater length to your
friend.--Your friend,

(signed) R. L. S.

TO CHARLES BAXTER

_608 Bush Street, San Francisco, Jan. 26, '80._

MY DEAR CHARLES,--I have to drop from a 50 cent to a 25 cent dinner;
to-day begins my fall. That brings down my outlay in food and drink to
45 cents or 1s. 10-1/2d. per day. How are the mighty fallen! Luckily,
this is such a cheap place for food; I used to pay as much as that for
my first breakfast in the Savile in the grand old palmy days of yore. I
regret nothing, and do not even dislike these straits, though the flesh
will rebel on occasion. It is to-day bitter cold, after weeks of lovely
warm weather, and I am all in a chitter. I am about to issue for my
little shilling an