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; well, I will tell you; it's my old Russian friend, Madame Zassetsky. Certain scenes are, in conception, the best I have ever made, except for _Hester Noble_. Those at the end, Von Rosen and the Princess, the Prince and Princess, and the Princess and Gondremarck, as I now see them from here, should be nuts, Henley, nuts. It irks me not to go to them straight. But the _Emigrant_ stops the way; then a reassured scenario for _Hester_; then the _Vendetta_; then two (or three) essays--_Benjamin Franklin_, _Thoughts on Literature as an Art_, _Dialogue on Character and Destiny between two Puppets_, _The Human Compromise_; and then, at length--come to me, my Prince. O Lord, it's going to be courtly! And there is not an ugly person nor an ugly scene in it. The _Slate_ both Fanny and I have damned utterly; it is too morbid, ugly, and unkind; better starvation. R. L. S. TO SIDNEY COLVIN I had written proposing that a collected volume of his short stories should be published with illustrations by Caldecott. At the end of this letter occurs his first allusion to his now famous _Requiem_. [_608 Bush Street, San Francisco, February 1880._] MY DEAR COLVIN,--I received a very nice letter from you with two enclosures. I am still unable to finish the _Emigrant_, although there are only some fifteen pages to do. The _Vendetta_ is, I am afraid, scarce Fortnightly form, though after the _Pavilion_ being taken by Stephen, I am truly at sea about all such matters. I dare say my _Prince of Grünewald_--the name still uncertain--would be good enough for anything if I could but get it done: I believe that to be a really good story. The _Vendetta_ is somewhat cheap in motive; very rum and unlike the present kind of novels both for good and evil in writing; and on the whole, only remarkable for the heroine's character, and that I believe to be in it.