I am so glad to hear that Bay is doing so well, and doubly glad (as Mrs. Dibblee tells me from Anita) that H. J. is going to sit to her for his portrait. I am a bit sorry that the youthful Harry didn't accept your invitation, but his time was after all so short that it has been perhaps good for him to get the massive English impression. What times we live in! Dreyfus, Cuba, and Khartoum!--I keep well, though fragile as a worker. You will have heard of my Edinburgh appointment and my election to the Institut de France as _Correspondant_. The latter is silly, but the former a serious scrape out of which I am praying all the gods to help me, as the time for preparation is so short. All Cambridge friends are well. You heard of dear Child's death, last summer, I suppose. Good-bye! Write to me, dear old Rosina. Kiss Bay and Leslie--even _effleurez_ your own cheek, for me. Give my best love to your mother, and believe me always your affectionate W. J. _To Dickinson S. Miller._ Cambridge, _Dec. 3, 1898_. ILLUSTRIOUS FRIEND AND JOY OF MY LIVER,--I am much pleased to hear from you, for I have wished to know of your destinies, and Bakewell couldn't give me a very precise account. I congratulate you on getting your review of me off your hands--you must experience a relief similar to that of Christian when he lost his bag of sin. I imagine your account of its unsatisfactoriness is a little hyperæsthetic, and that what you have brooded over so long will, in spite of anything in the accidents of its production, prove solid and deep, and reveal _ex pede_ the Hercules. Of course, if you do not unconditionally subscribe to my "Will to Believe" essay, it shows that you still are groping in the darkness of misunderstanding either of my meaning or of the truth; for in spite of "the bludgeonings of fate," my head is "bloody but unbowed" as to the rightness of my contention there, in both its parts. But we shall see; and I hope you are now free for more distant flights. I am extremely sorry to hear you have been not well again, even though you say you are so much better now. You ought to be _entirely_ well and every inch a king. Remember that, _whenever_ you need a change, your bed is made in this house for as many weeks as you care to stay. I know there will come feelings of disconsolateness over you occasionally, from being so out of the academic swim. But that is nothing! And while this time is on, you should think exclusively of its unique characteristics of blessedness, which will be irrecoverable when you are in the harness again.