R. L. S. TO W. E. HENLEY 608 _Bush Street_, _San Francisco_, _Cal._, _February_ 1880. MY DEAR HENLEY,—Before my work or anything I sit down to answer your long and kind letter. I am well, cheerful, busy, hopeful; I cannot be knocked down; I do not mind about the _Emigrant_. I never thought it a masterpiece. It was written to sell, and I believe it will sell; and if it does not, the next will. You need not be uneasy about my work; I am only beginning to see my true method. (1) As to _Studies_. There are two more already gone to Stephen. _Yoshida Torajiro_, which I think temperate and adequate; and _Thoreau_, which will want a really Balzacian effort over the proofs. But I want _Benjamin Franklin and the Art of Virtue_ to follow; and perhaps also _William Penn_, but this last may be perhaps delayed for another volume—I think not, though. The _Studies_ will be an intelligent volume, and in their latter numbers more like what I mean to be my style, or I mean what my style means to be, for I am passive. (2) The _Essays_. Good news indeed. I think _Ordered South_ must be thrown in. It always swells the volume, and it will never find a more appropriate place. It was May 1874, Macmillan, I believe. (3) _Plays_. I did not understand you meant to try the draft. I shall make you a full scenario as soon as the _Emigrant_ is done. (4) _Emigrant_. He shall be sent off next week. (5) Stories. You need not be alarmed that I am going to imitate Meredith. You know I was a Story-teller ingrain; did not that reassure you? The _Vendetta_, which falls next to be finished, is not entirely pleasant. But it has points. _The Forest State_ or _The __Greenwood State_: _A Romance_, is another pair of shoes. It is my old Semiramis, our half-seen Duke and Duchess, which suddenly sprang into sunshine clearness as a story the other day. The kind, happy _dénouement_ is unfortunately absolutely undramatic, which will be our only trouble in quarrying out the play. I mean we shall quarry from it. _Characters_—Otto Frederick John, hereditary Prince of Grünwald; Amelia Seraphina, Princess; Conrad, Baron Gondremarck, Prime Minister; Cancellarius Greisengesang; Killian Gottesacker, Steward of the River Farm; Ottilie, his daughter; the Countess von Rosen. Seven in all. A brave story, I swear; and a brave play too, if we can find the trick to make the end. The play, I fear, will have to end darkly, and that spoils the quality as I now see it of a kind of crockery, eighteenth century, high-life-below-stairs life, breaking up like ice in spring before the nature and the certain modicum of manhood of my poor, clever, feather-headed Prince, whom I love already. I see Seraphina too. Gondremarck is not quite so clear. The Countess von Rosen, I have; I’ll never tell you who she is; it’s a secret; but I have known the countess;