ut Adela Chart.

Though oft I've been touched by the volatile dart,
To none have I grovelled but Adela Chart,
There are passable ladies, no question, in art--
But where is the marrow of Adela Chart?

I dreamed that to Tyburn I passed in the cart--
I dreamed I was married to Adela Chart:
From the first I awoke with a palpable start,
The second dumbfoundered me, Adela Chart!

Another verse bursts from me, you see; no end to the violence of the
Muse.

To E. L. BURLINGAME

_[Vailima], October 8th, 1891._

MY DEAR BURLINGAME,--All right, you shall have the _Tales of my
Grandfather_ soon, but I guess we'll try and finish off _The Wrecker_
first. _A propos_ of whom, please send some advanced sheets to
Cassell's--away ahead of you--so that they may get a dummy out.

Do you wish to illustrate _My Grandfather_? He mentions as excellent a
portrait of Scott by Basil Hall's brother. I don't think I ever saw this
engraved; would it not, if you could get track of it, prove a taking
embellishment? I suggest this for your consideration and inquiry. A new
portrait of Scott strikes me as good. There is a hard, tough,
constipated old portrait of my grandfather hanging in my aunt's house,
Mrs. Alan Stevenson, 16 St. Leonard's Terrace, Chelsea, which has never
been engraved--the better portrait, Joseph's bust, has been reproduced,
I believe, twice--and which, I am sure, my aunt would let you have a
copy of. The plate could be of use for the book when we get so far, and
thus to place it in the Magazine might be an actual saving.

I am swallowed up in politics for the first, I hope for the last, time
in my sublunary career. It is a painful, thankless trade; but one thing
that came up I could not pass in silence. Much drafting, addressing,
deputationising has eaten up all my time, and again (to my contrition)
I leave you Wreckerless. As soon as the mail leaves I tackle it
straight.--Yours very sincerely,

ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.

TO E. L. BURLINGAME

[_Vailima, October 1891._]

MY DEAR BURLINGAME,--The time draws nigh, the mail is near due, and I
snatch a moment of collapse so that you may have at least some sort of a
scratch of note along with the

\ end
\ of
\ _The_
\ _Wrecker_. Hurray!

which I mean to go herewith. It has taken me a devil of a pull, but I
think it's going to be ready. If I did not know you were on the stretch
waiting for it and trembling f