help, unite us to the end."

Thirdly, two scraps from letters from Stevenson to Henley, to show
that the latter was not always a depreciator of R. L. Stevenson's
work:

"1. I'm glad to think I owe you the review that pleased me best of all
the reviews I ever had. . . . To live reading such reviews and die
eating ortolans--sich is my aspiration.

"2. Dear lad,--If there was any more praise in what you wrote, I
think--(the editor who had pruned down Mr Henley's review of
Stevenson's _Prince Otto_) has done us both a service; some of it
stops my throat. . . . Whether (considering our intimate relations)
you would not do better to refrain from reviewing me, I will leave to
yourself."

And, lastly, this extract from the very last of Stevenson's letters to
Henley, published in the two volumes of _Letters_:

"It is impossible to let your new volume pass in silence. I have not
received the same thrill of poetry since G. M.'s _Joy of Earth_
volume, and _Love in a Valley_; and I do not know that even that was
so intimate and deep. . . . I thank you for the joy you have given me,
and remain your old friend and present huge admirer, R. L. S."

It is difficult to decide on which side in this literary friendship lies
the true modesty and magnanimity? I had rather be the author of the last
message of R. L. Stevenson to W. E. Henley, than of the last words of W.
E. Henley concerning R. L. Stevenson.

CHAPTER XXV--MR CHRISTIE MURRAY'S IMPRESSIONS

MR CHRISTIE MURRAY, writing as "Merlin" in our handbook in the _Referee_
at the time, thus disposed of some of the points just dealt with by us:

"Here is libel on a large scale, and I have purposely refrained from
approaching it until I could show my readers something of the spirit
in which the whole attack is conceived. 'If he wanted a thing he went
after it with an entire contempt for consequences. For these, indeed,
the Shorter Catechist was ever prepared to answer; so that whether he
did well or ill, he was safe to come out unabashed and cheerful.' Now
if Mr Henley does not mean that for the very express picture of a
rascal without a conscience he has been most strangely infelicitous in
his choice of terms, and he is one of those who make so strong a
profession of duty towards mere vocables that we are obliged to take
him _au pied de la lettre_. A man who goes after whatever h