ates of discharge of Cedercrantz
and Pilsach.

I am particularly pleased with this idea of yours, because I am come to
a dead stop. I never can remember how bad I have been before, but at any
rate I am bad enough just now, I mean as to literature; in health I am
well and strong. I take it I shall be six months before I'm heard of
again, and this time I could put in to some advantage in revising the
text and (if it were thought desirable) writing prefaces. I do not know
how many of them might be thought desirable. I have written a paper on
_Treasure Island_, which is to appear shortly. _Master of Ballantrae_--I
have one drafted. _The Wrecker_ is quite sufficiently done already with
the last chapter, but I suppose an historic introduction to _David
Balfour_ is quite unavoidable. _Prince Otto_ I don't think I could say
anything about, and _Black Arrow_ don't want to. But it is probable I
could say something to the volume of _Travels_. In the verse business I
can do just what I like better than anything else, and extend
_Underwoods_ with a lot of unpublished stuff. _A propos_, if I were to
get printed off a very few poems which are somewhat too intimate for the
public, could you get them run up in some luxuous manner, so that fools
might be induced to buy them in just a sufficient quantity to pay
expenses and the thing remain still in a manner private? We could supply
photographs of the illustrations--and the poems are of Vailima and the
family--I should much like to get this done as a surprise for Fanny.

R. L. S.

TO H. B. BAILDON

_Vailima, January 15th, 1894._

MY DEAR BAILDON,--Last mail brought your book and its Dedication.
"Frederick Street and the gardens, and the short-lived Jack o' Lantern,"
are again with me--and the note of the east wind, and Froebel's voice,
and the smell of soup in Thomson's stair. Truly, you had no need to put
yourself under the protection of any other saint, were that saint our
Tamate himself! Yourself were enough, and yourself coming with so rich a
sheaf.

For what is this that you say about the Muses? They have certainly never
better inspired you than in "Jael and Sisera," and "Herodias and John
the Baptist," good stout poems, fiery and sound. "'Tis but a mask and
behind it chuckles the God of the Garden," I shall never forget. By the
by, an error of the press, page 49, line 4, "No infant's lesson are the
ways of God." _The_ is dropped.

And this reminds me you h