Vagabonds," a very sensational melodrama, capitally acted.
"Dick" and "Wally" were played by Kate Tyndall and Sydney
Fairbrother, whom I guess to be about fifteen and twelve.
Both were excellent, and the latter remarkable for the
perfect realism of her acting. There was some beautiful
religious dialogue between "Wally" and a hospital nurse--
most reverently spoken, and reverently received by the
audience.

_Dec._ 17_th._--I have given books to Kate Tyndall and
Sydney Fairbrother, and have heard from them, and find I was
entirely mistaken in taking them for children. Both are
married women!

The following is an extract from a letter written in 1896 to one of
his sisters, in allusion to a death which had recently occurred in the
family:--

It is getting increasingly difficult now to remember _which_
of one's friends remain alive, and _which_ have gone "into
the land of the great departed, into the silent land." Also,
such news comes less and less as a shock, and more and more
one realises that it is an experience each of _us_ has to
face before long. That fact is getting _less_ dreamlike to
me now, and I sometimes think what a grand thing it will be
to be able to say to oneself, "Death is _over_ now; there is
not _that_ experience to be faced again."

I am beginning to think that, if the _books I_ am still
hoping to write are to be done _at all,_ they must be done