I will delete some of those condemned, but not all. I don't care for the name Penny Whistles; I sent a sheaf to Henley when I sent 'em. But I've forgot the others. I would just as soon call 'em "Rimes for Children" as anything else. I am not proud nor particular. Your remarks on the _Black Arrow_ are to the point. I am pleased you liked Crookback; he is a fellow whose hellish energy has always fixed my attention. I wish Shakespeare had written the play after he had learned some of the rudiments of literature and art rather than before. Some day, I will re-tickle the Sable Missile, and shoot it, _moyennant finances_, once more into the air; I can lighten it of much, and devote some more attention to Dick o' Gloucester. It's great sport to write tushery. By this I reckon you will have heard of my proposed excursiolorum to the Isles of Greece, the Isles of Greece, and kindred sites. If the excursiolorum goes on, that is if _moyennant finances_ comes off, I shall write to beg you to collect introductiolorums for me. Distinguo: 1. _Silverado_ was not written in America, but in Switzerland's icy mountains. 2. What you read is the bleeding and disembowelled remains of what I wrote. 3. The good stuff is all to come--so I think. "The Sea Fogs," "The Hunter's Family," "Toils and Pleasures"--_belles pages_.--Yours ever, RAMNUGGER. O!--Seeley is too clever to live, and the book a gem. But why has he read too much Arnold? Why will he avoid--obviously avoid--fine writing up to which he has led? This is a winking, curled-and-oiled, ultra-cultured, Oxford-don sort of an affectation that infuriates my honest soul. "You see"--they say--"how unbombastic _we_ are; we come right up to eloquence, and, when it's hanging on the pen, dammy, we scorn it!" It is literary Deronda-ism. If you don't want the woman, the image, or the phrase, mortify your vanity and avoid the appearance of wanting them. TO W.E. HENLEY The first paragraph of the following refers to contributions of R. L. S. to the Magazine of Art under Mr. Henley's editorship:-- _La Solitude, Hyeres [Autumn 1883]._ DEAR LAD,--Glad you like _Fontainebleau_. I am going to be the means, under heaven, of aerating or literating your pages. The idea that because a thing is a picture-book all the writing should be on the wrong tack is _triste_ but widespread. Thus _Hokusai_ will be really a gossip on convention, or in great part. And the Skelt will be as like a Charles Lamb as I can get it. The writer should write, and not illustrate pictures: else it's bosh....