to W. E. Henley

Bonallie Towers, Bournemouth, [Winter, 1884].

MY DEAR LAD,—Here was I in bed; not writing, not hearing, and finding myself gently and agreeably ill used; and behold I learn you are bad yourself.  Get your wife to send us a word how you are.  I am better decidedly.  Bogue got his Christmas card, and behaved well for three days after.  It may interest the cynical to learn that I started my last hæmorrhage by too sedulous attentions to my dear Bogue.  The stick was broken; and that night Bogue, who was attracted by the extraordinary aching of his bones, and is always inclined to a serious view of his own ailments, announced with his customary pomp that he was dying.  In this case, however, it was not the dog that died.  (He had tried to bite his mother’s ankles.)  I have written a long and peculiarly solemn paper on the technical elements of style.  It is path-breaking and epoch-making; but I do not think the public will be readily convoked to its perusal.  Did I tell you that S. C. had risen to the paper on James?  At last!  O but I was pleased; he’s (like Johnnie) been lang, lang o’ comin’, but here he is.  He will not object to my future manœuvres in the same field, as he has to my former.  All the family are here; my father better than I have seen him these two years; my mother the same as ever.  I do trust you are better, and I am yours ever,

R. L. S.