hero_, a genuine Tahitian legend. A fourth dances before,
me. A Hawaiian fellow this, _The Priest's Drought_, or some such name.
If, as I half suspect, I get enough subjects out of the islands,
_Ticonderoga_ shall be suppressed, and we'll call the volume _South Sea
Ballads_. In health, spirits, renewed interest in life, and, I do
believe, refreshed capacity for work, the cruise has proved a wise
folly. Still we're not home, and (although the friend of a crowned head)
are penniless upon these (as one of my correspondents used to call them)
"lovely but _fatil_ islands." By the way, who wrote the _Lion of the
Nile_? My dear sir, that is Something Like. Overdone in bits, it has a
true thought and a true ring of language. Beg the anonymous from me, to
delete (when he shall republish) the two last verses, and end on "the
lion of the Nile." One Lampman has a good sonnet on a "Winter Evening"
in, I think, the same number: he seems ill named, but I am tempted to
hope a man is not always answerable for his name.[28] For instance, you
would think you knew mine. No such matter. It is--at your service and
Mr. Scribner's and that of all of the faithful--Teriitera (pray
pronounce Tayree-Tayra) or (_gallice_) Teri-tera.

R. L. S.

More when the mail shall come.

I am an idiot. I want to be clear on one point. Some of Hole's drawings
must of course be too late; and yet they seem to me so excellent I would
fain have the lot complete. It is one thing for you to pay for drawings
which are to appear in that soul-swallowing machine, your magazine:
quite another if they are only to illustrate a volume. I wish you to
take a brisk (even a fiery) decision on the point; and let Hole know. To
resume my desultory song, I desire you would carry the same fire
(hereinbefore suggested) into your decision on _The Wrong Box_; for in
my present state of benighted ignorance as to my affairs for the last
seven months--I know not even whether my house or my mother's house have
been let--I desire to see something definite in front of me--outside the
lot of palace doorkeeper. I believe the said _Wrong Box_ is a real lark;
in which, of course, I may be grievously deceived; but the typewriter is
with me. I may also be deceived as to the numbers of _The Master_ now
going and already gone; but to me they seem First Chop, sir, First Chop.
I hope I shall pull off that damned ending; but it still depresses me:
this is your doing, Mr. Burlingame: you would ha