substantively is dropped - at once, both on account of
expostulation, and because it measured shorter than I had
expected. And it was only taken up, when the proposed
volume, BEACH DE MAR, petered out. It petered out thus: the
chief of the short stories got sucked into SOPHIA SCARLET -
and Sophia is a book I am much taken with, and mean to get
to, as soon as - but not before - I have done DAVID BALFOUR
and THE YOUNG CHEVALIER. So you see you are like to hear no
more of the Pacific or the nineteenth century for a while.
THE YOUNG CHEVALIER is a story of sentiment and passion,
which I mean to write a little differently from what I have
been doing - if I can hit the key; rather more of a
sentimental tremolo to it. It may thus help to prepare me
for SOPHIA, which is to contain three ladies, and a kind of a
love affair between the heroine and a dying planter who is a
poet! large orders for R. L. S.

O the German taboo is quite over; no soul attempts to support
the C. J. or the President, they are past hope; the whites
have just refused their taxes - I mean the council has
refused to call for them, and if the council consented,
nobody would pay; 'tis a farce, and the curtain is going to
fall briefly. Consequently in my History, I say as little as
may be of the two dwindling stars. Poor devils! I liked the
one, and the other has a little wife, now lying in! There
was no man born with so little animosity as I. When I heard
the C. J. was in low spirits and never left his house, I
could scarce refrain from going to him.

It was a fine feeling to have finished the History; there