I shall try to do the Whistle as suggested; but I can usually do whistles only by giving my whole mind to it: to produce even such limping verse demanding the whole forces of my untuneful soul. I have other two anyway: better or worse. I am now deep, deep, ocean deep in _Otto_: a letter is a curst distraction. About 100 pp. are near fit for publication; I am either making a spoon or spoiling the horn of a Caledonian bull, with that airy potentate. God help me, I bury a lot of labour in that principality; and if I am not greatly a gainer, I am a great loser and a great fool. However, _sursum corda_; faint heart never writ romance. Your Dumas I think exquisite; it might even have been stronglier said: the brave old godly pagan, I adore his big footprints on the earth. Have you read Meredith's _Love in the Valley_? It got me, I wept; I remembered that poetry existed. "When her mother tends her before the laughing mirror." I propose if they (Lippincotts) will let me wait till next Autumn, and go when it is safest, to accept L450 with L100 down; but it is now too late to go this year. November and December are the months when it is safest; and the back of the season is broken. I shall gain much knowledge by the trip; this I look upon as one of the main inducements. R. L. S. TO SIDNEY COLVIN The following is in answer to a letter containing remarks on the proofs of the _Child's Garden_, then going round among some of his friends, and on the instalments of _Silverado Squatters_ and the _Black Arrow_, which were appearing in the Century Magazine and Young Folks respectively. The remarks on Professor Seeley's literary manner are _apropos_ of the _Expansion of England_, which I had lately sent him. _La Solitude, Hyeres [October 1883]._ COLVIN, COLVIN, COLVIN,--Yours received; also interesting copy of _P. Whistles_. "In the multitude of councillors the Bible declares there is wisdom," said my great-uncle, "but I have always found in them distraction." It is extraordinary how tastes vary: these proofs have been handed about, it appears, and I have had several letters; and--distraction. AEsop: the Miller and the Ass. Notes on details:-- 1. I love the occasional trochaic line; and so did many excellent writers before me. 2. If you don't like _A Good Boy_, I do. 3. In _Escape at Bedtime_, I found two suggestions. "Shove" for "above" is a correction of the press; it was so written. "Twinkled" is just the error; to the child the stars appear to be there; any word that suggests illusion is a horror. 4. I don't care; I take a different view of the vocative. 5. Bewildering and childering are good enough for me. These are rhymes, jingles; I don't go for eternity and the three unities.