to W. E. Henley

[Chalet La Solitude, Hyères, May 1883.]

DEAR HENLEY,—You may be surprised to hear that I am now a great writer of verses; that is, however, so.  I have the mania now like my betters, and faith, if I live till I am forty, I shall have a book of rhymes like Pollock, Gosse, or whom you please.  Really, I have begun to learn some of the rudiments of that trade, and have written three or four pretty enough pieces of octosyllabic nonsense, semi-serious, semi-smiling.  A kind of prose Herrick, divested of the gift of verse, and you behold the Bard.  But I like it.

R. L. S.