to H. B. Baildon

Vailima, January 30th, 1894.

MY DEAR BAILDON,—‘Call not blessed.’—Yes, if I could die just now, or say in half a year, I should have had a splendid time of it on the whole.  But it gets a little stale, and my work will begin to senesce; and parties to shy bricks at me; and now it begins to look as if I should survive to see myself impotent and forgotten.  It’s a pity suicide is not thought the ticket in the best circles.

But your letter goes on to congratulate me on having done the one thing I am a little sorry for; a little—not much—for my father himself lived to think that I had been wiser than he.  But the cream of the jest is that I have lived to change my mind; and think that he was wiser than I.  Had I been an engineer, and literature my amusement, it would have been better perhaps.  I pulled it off, of course, I won the wager, and it is pleasant while it lasts; but how long will it last?  I don’t know, say the Bells of Old Bow.

All of which goes to show that nobody is quite sane in judging himself.  Truly, had I given way and gone in for engineering, I should be dead by now.  Well, the gods know best.

. . . I hope you got my letter about the Rescue.—Adieu,

R. L. S.

True for you about the benefit: except by kisses, jests, song, et hoc genus omne, man cannot convey benefit to another.  The universal benefactor has been there before him.