e narrative talent--a talent that few will have the wit to
understand, a talent of strength, spirit, capacity, sufficient vision,
and sufficient self-sacrifice, which last is the chief point in a
narrator.

As a whole, it is (of course) a fever dream of the most feverish. Over
Bashville the footman I howled with derision and delight; I dote on
Bashville--I could read of him for ever; _de Bashville je suis le
fervent_--there is only one Bashville, and I am his devoted slave;
_Bashville est magnifique, mais il n'est guere possible_. He is the note
of the book. It is all mad, mad and deliriously delightful; the author
has a taste in chivalry like Walter Scott's or Dumas', and then he daubs
in little bits of socialism; he soars away on the wings of the romantic
griffon--even the griffon, as he cleaves air, shouting with laughter at
the nature of the quest--and I believe in his heart he thinks he is
labouring in a quarry of solid granite realism.

It is this that makes me--the most hardened adviser now extant--stand
back and hold my peace. If Mr. Shaw is below five-and-twenty, let him go
his path; if he is thirty, he had best be told that he is a romantic,
and pursue romance with his eyes open;--or perhaps he knows it;--God
knows!--my brain is softened.

It is HORRID FUN. All I ask is more of it. Thank you for the pleasure
you gave us, and tell me more of the inimitable author.

(I say, Archer, my God, what women!)--Yours very truly,

ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.

1 part Charles Reade; 1 part Henry James or some kindred author badly
assimilated; 1/2 part Disraeli (perhaps unconscious); 1-1/2 parts
struggling, over-laid original talent; 1 part blooming, gaseous folly.
That is the equation as it stands. What it may be, I don't know, nor any
other man. _Vixere fortes_--O, let him remember that--let him beware of
his damned century; his gifts of insane chivalry and animated narration
are just those that might be slain and thrown out like an untimely birth
by the Daemon of the epoch. And if he only knew how I have adored the
chivalry! Bashville!--_O Bashville! j'en chortle_ (which is fairly
polyglot).

R. L. S.

TO WILLIAM ARCHER

[_Saranac Lake, February 1888._]

MY DEAR ARCHER,--Pretty sick in bed; but necessary to protest and
continue your education.

Why was Jenkin an amateur in my eyes? You think because not amusing (I
think he often was amusing). The reason is this: I never, or almost
neve