to W. E. Henley

[Trinity College, Cambridge, Autumn 1878.]

MY DEAR HENLEY,—Here I am living like a fighting-cock, and have not spoken to a real person for about sixty hours.  Those who wait on me are not real.  The man I know to be a myth, because I have seen him acting so often in the Palais Royal.  He plays the Duke in Tricoche et Cacolet; I knew his nose at once.  The part he plays here is very dull for him, but conscientious.  As for the bedmaker, she’s a dream, a kind of cheerful, innocent nightmare; I never saw so poor an imitation of humanity.  I cannot work—cannot.  Even the Guitar is still undone; I can only write ditch-water.  ’Tis ghastly; but I am quite cheerful, and that is more important.  Do you think you could prepare the printers for a possible breakdown this week?  I shall try all I know on Monday; but if I can get nothing better than I got this morning, I prefer to drop a week.  Telegraph to me if you think it necessary.  I shall not leave till Wednesday at soonest.  Shall write again.

R. L. S.