s absolutely desert.
I have sailed there now some years; and scarce ever seen a ship except
in port or close by; I think twice. It was the hurricane season besides,
and hurricane waters. Well, our chief engineer got the shaft--it was the
middle crank shaft--mended; thrice it was mended, and twice broke down;
but now keeps up--only we dare not stop, for it is almost impossible to
start again. The captain in the meanwhile crowded her with sail;
fifteen sails in all, every stay being gratified with a stay-sail, a
boat-boom sent aloft for a maintop-gallant yard, and the derrick of a
crane brought in service as bowsprit. All the time we have had a fine,
fair wind and a smooth sea; to-day at noon our run was 203 miles (if you
please!), and we are within some 360 miles of Sydney. Probably there has
never been a more gallant success; and I can say honestly it was well
worked for. No flurry, no high words, no long faces; only hard work and
honest thought; a pleasant, manly business to be present at. All the
chances were we might have been six weeks--ay, or three months at
sea--or never turned up at all, and now it looks as though we should
reach our destination some five days too late.

TO MARCEL SCHWOB

_Sydney, January 19th, 1891._

MY DEAR SIR,--_Sapristi, comme vous y allez!_ Richard III. and Dumas,
with all my heart: but not Hamlet. Hamlet is great literature; Richard
III. a big, black, gross, sprawling melodrama, writ with infinite spirit
but with no refinement or philosophy by a man who had the world,
himself, mankind, and his trade still to learn. I prefer the Vicomte de
Bragelonne to Richard III.; it is better done of its kind: I simply do
not mention the Vicomte in the same part of the building with Hamlet, or
Lear, or Othello, or any of those masterpieces that Shakespeare survived
to give us.

Also, _comme vous y allez_ in my commendation! I fear my _solide
education classique_ had best be described, like Shakespeare's, as
"little Latin and no Greek" and I was educated, let me inform you, for
an engineer. I shall tell my bookseller to send you a copy of _Memories
and Portraits_, where you will see something of my descent and
education, as it was, and hear me at length on my dear Vicomte. I give
you permission gladly to take your choice out of my works, and translate
what you shall prefer, too much honoured that so clever a young man
should think it worth the pains. My own choice would lie between
_Ki