At least, my dear Meiklejohn, I hope you will believe in the sincerely warm and friendly regard in which I hold you, and the pleasure with which I look forward, not only to hearing from you shortly, but to seeing you again in the flesh with another good luncheon and good talk. Tell me when you don't like my work.--Your friend, ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. TO W. E. HENLEY The essays here mentioned on Benjamin Franklin and William Penn were projects long cherished but in the end abandoned: _The Forest State_ came to maturity three years later as _Prince Otto_. _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