has it
been possible to make sure what was the enclosure mentioned. The
special illness referred to seems to be that of the preceding May at
Hyeres.

[_Wensleydale, Bournemouth, October 1884?_]

DEAR BOY,--I trust this finds you well; it leaves me so-so. The weather
is so cold that I must stick to bed, which is rotten and tedious, but
can't be helped.

I find in the blotting book the enclosed, which I wrote to you the eve
of my blood. Is it not strange? That night, when I naturally thought I
was coopered, the thought of it was much in my mind; I thought it had
gone; and I thought what a strange prophecy I had made in jest, and how
it was indeed like to be the end of many letters. But I have written a
good few since, and the spell is broken. I am just as pleased, for I
earnestly desire to live. This pleasant middle age into whose port we
are steering is quite to my fancy. I would cast anchor here, and go
ashore for twenty years and see the manners of the place. Youth was a
great time, but somewhat fussy. Now in middle age (bar lucre) all seems
mighty placid. It likes me; I spy a little bright cafe in one corner of
the port, in front of which I now propose we should sit down. There is
just enough of the bustle of the harbour and no more; and the ships are
close in, regarding us with stern-windows--the ships that bring deals
from Norway and parrots from the Indies. Let us sit down here for twenty
years, with a packet of tobacco and a drink, and talk of art and women.
By-and-by, the whole city will sink, and the ships too, and the table,
and we also; but we shall have sat for twenty years and had a fine talk;
and by that time, who knows? exhausted the subject.

I send you a book which (or I am mistook) will please you; it pleased
me. But I do desire a book of adventure--a romance--and no man will get
or write me one. Dumas I have read and re-read too often; Scott, too and
I am short. I want to hear swords clash. I want a book to begin in a
good way; a book, I guess, like _Treasure Island_, alas! which I have
never read, and cannot though I live to ninety. I would God that some
one else had written it! By all that I can learn, it is the very book
for my complaint. I like the way I hear it opens; and they tell me John
Silver is good fun. And to me it is, and must ever be, a dream
unrealised, a book unwritten. O my sighings after romance, or even
Skeltery, and O! the weary age which will produce me neither!