And now, _mon bon_, I must babble about _The Merry Men_, my favourite work. It is a fantastic sonata about the sea and wrecks. Chapter I. "Eilean Aros"--the island, the roost, the "merry men," the three people there living--sea superstitions. Chapter II. "What the Wreck had brought to Aros." Eh, boy? what had it? Silver and clocks and brocades, and what a conscience, what a mad brain! Chapter III. "Past and Present in Sandag Bay"--the new wreck and the old--so old--the Armada treasure-ship, Sant^ma Trini^d--the grave in the heather--strangers there. Chapter IV. "The Gale"--the doomed ship--the storm--the drunken madman on the head--cries in the night. Chapter V. "A Man out of the Sea." But I must not breathe to you my plot. It is, I fancy, my first real shoot at a story; an odd thing, sir, but, I believe, my own, though there is a little of Scott's _Pirate_ in it, as how should there not? He had the root of romance in such places. Aros is Earraid, where I lived lang syne;[40] the Ross of Grisapol is the Ross of Mull; Ben Ryan, Ben More. I have written to the middle of Chapter IV. Like enough, when it is finished I shall discard all chapterings; for the thing is written straight through. It must, unhappily, be re-written--too well written not to be. The chair is only three months in summer; that is why I try for it. If I get it, which I shall not, I should be independent at once. Sweet thought. I liked your Byron well; your Berlioz better. No one would remark these cuts; even I, who was looking for it, knew it not at all to be a torso. The paper strengthens me in my recommendation to you to follow Colvin's hint. Give us an 1830; you will do it well, and the subject smiles widely on the world:-- 1830: _A Chapter of Artistic History_, by William Ernest Henley (or _of Social and Artistic History_, as the thing might grow to you). Sir, you might be in the Athenæum yet with that; and, believe me, you might and would be far better, the author of a readable book.--Yours ever, R. L. S. The following names have been invented for Wogg by his dear papa:-- Grunty-pig (when he is scratched), Rose-mouth (when he comes flying up with his rose-leaf tongue depending), and Hoofen-boots (when he has had his foots wet). How would _Tales for Winter Nights_ do? TO W. E. HENLEY The spell of good health did not last long, and with a break of the weather came a return of catarrhal troubles and hemorrhage. This letter answers some criticisms made by his correspondent on _The Merry Men_ as drafted in MS. _Pitlochry, if you please [August], 1881._