We have given a ball; I send you a paper describing the event. We have two guests in the house, Captain-Count Wurmbrand and Monsieur Albert de Lautreppe. Lautreppe is awfully nice—a quiet, gentlemanly fellow, gonflé de rêves, as he describes himself—once a sculptor in the atelier of Henry Crosse, he knows something of art, and is really a resource to me.
Letter from Meredith very kind. Have you seen no more of Graham?
What about my Grandfather? The family history will grow to be quite a chapter.
I suppose I am growing sensitive; perhaps, by living among barbarians, I expect more civility. Look at this from the author of a very interesting and laudatory critique. He gives quite a false description of something of mine, and talks about my “insolence.” Frankly, I supposed “insolence” to be a tapu word. I do not use it to a gentleman, I would not write it of a gentleman: I may be wrong, but I believe we did not write it of a gentleman in old days, and in my view he (clever fellow as he is) wants to be kicked for applying it to me. By writing a novel—even a bad one—I do not make myself a criminal for anybody to insult. This may amuse you. But either there is a change in journalism, too gradual for you to remark it on the spot, or there is a change in me. I cannot bear these phrases; I long to resent them. My forbears, the tenant farmers of the Mures, would not have suffered such expressions unless it had been from Cauldwell, or Rowallan, or maybe Auchendrane. My Family Pride bristles. I am like the negro, “I just heard last night” who my great, great, great, great grandfather was.—Ever yours,
R. L. S.
To J. H. Bates
The next is to a correspondent in Cincinnati, who had been the founder of an R. L. S. Society in that city, “originally,” he writes me, under date April 7, 1895, “the outcome of a boyish fancy, but it has now grown into something more substantial.”
Vailima, Samoa, March 25th, 1894.
MY DEAR MR. JOE H. BATES,—I shall have the greatest pleasure in acceding to your complimentary request. I shall think it an honour to be associated with your chapter, and I need not remind you (for you have said it yourself) how much depends upon your own exertions whether to make it to me a real honour or only a derision. This is to let you know that I accept the position that you have seriously offered to me in a quite serious spirit. I need scarce tell you that I shall always be pleased to receive reports of your proceedings; and if I do not always acknowledge them, you are to remember that I am a man very much occupied otherwise, and not at all to suppose that I have lost interest in my chapter.