Do you think you are right to send _Macaire_ and the _Admiral_ about? Not a copy have I sent, nor (speaking for myself personally) do I want sent. The reperusal of the _Admiral_, by the way, was a sore blow; eh, God, man, it is a low, black, dirty, blackguard, ragged piece: vomitable in many parts--simply vomitable. Pew is in places a reproach to both art and man. But of all that afterwards. What I mean is that I believe in playing dark with second and third-rate work. Macaire is a piece of job-work, hurriedly bockled; might have been worse, might have been better; happy-go-lucky; act it or-let-it-rot piece of business. Not a thing, I think, to send in presentations. Do not let us _gober_ ourselves--and, above all, not _gober_ dam pot-boilers--and p.b.'s with an obvious flaw and hole in them, such as is our unrealised Bertrand in this one. But of this also, on a meeting. I am not yet done with my proofs, I am sorry to say; so soon as I am, I must tackle _Kidnapped_ seriously, or be content to have no bread, which you would scarcely recommend. It is all I shall be able to do to wait for the Young Folk money, on which I'll have to live as best I can till the book comes in. Plays at that rate I do not think I can possibly look at before July; so let that be a guide to you in your views. July, or August, or September, or thereabouts: these must be our times, whichever we attack. I think you had better suspend a visit till we can take you in and till I can speak. It seems a considerable waste of money; above all, as just now I could not even offer you meals with my woman in such a state of overwork. My father and mother have had to go to lodgings.--Post. R. L. S. TO W. E. HENLEY [_Bournemouth, March 1885._] DEAR LAD,--Much better, but rather unequal to do what I ought, a common complaint. The change of weather much helped me, not too soon. I have thought as well as I could of what you said; and I come unhesitatingly to the opinion that the stage is only a lottery, must not be regarded as a trade, and must never be preferred to drudgery. If money comes from any play, let us regard it as a legacy, but never count upon it in our income for the year. In other words, I must go on and drudge at _Kidnapped_, which I hate, and am unfit to do; and you will have to get some journalism somehow. These are my cold and blighting sentiments. It is bad enough to have to live by an art--but to think to live by an art combined with commercial speculation--that way madness lies. Time is our only friend. The _Admiral_, pulled simply in pieces and about half deleted, will act some day: such is my opinion. I can no more.--Yours ever, R. L. S. TO WILLIAM ARCHER