MY DEAR MRS. MOULTON: I hope you have believed that all this while I have been away my letters were not forwarded and only now can I thank you for the beautiful volume you have sent me. I have wandered through it reading over and over special poems that fascinate me. I have not really read them all yet, though I ought to know this volume very well, for I bought it some years ago. I am particularly pleased with the poems, "A Painted Fan," and "The House of Death." The poem called "Annie's Daughter" is picturesque to a great degree. By the way I have a letter from an American magazine asking me to write for them "anything." The letter is in French. Now why should I not write for them an article on your poems? They tell me they will faithfully translate all I send. Your informant was right. I am French only on one side of the house. Lest I may forget, I want to say here and now how much I like your "At Étretat." I should have known it meant that place, even without the title. The picture is so vivid. Do you know the Riviera? There is material for you in grays and browns, and the sound of the sea. But I think the poetry of the "fan" expresses you best, and there you have the advantage of being alone in your beautiful thought. What lonely things beauty, truth, and the soul are! The atoms never touch. Forgive the length of this if you can, and believe me, Your faithful servant, PASCAL GERMAIN. _From the same_ 17, AVENUE GOURGARD (MONCEAU), PARIS, December 24, 1891. MADAME: I trust it will not displease you to hear from me again, though my fate is perilously uncertain, since not from you, nor from any mutual friend, can I be sure that my "Rhea" has not fallen under your displeasure. But I offer something more welcome to your poet's hands than any work of mine. The laurel which I enclose is from the casket of dear Owen Meredith. You may have seen in the newspapers an account of the brilliantly solemn funeral, when honors were paid him which only before have been paid to the Chief Marshals of France; and how through all that pomp and pageantry, but one laurel wreath rested on his casket,--the crown laid upon his beloved clay by his wife. There was a good deal of talk about this wreath, though no one but Lady Lytton and the sender knew from whence it came. It was I--yet not altogether myself,--for it was a late (too late) atonement for an undelivered message of love and thanks to the author of "Lucile" sent to him by a dear friend of mine, a Sister of Charity.