Good-bye just now: I must take a turn at my proofs.
_N.B._—Even my wife has weakened about the sea. She wearied, the last time we were ashore, to get afloat again.—Yours ever,
_Union Club_, _Sydney_, _August_ 19_th_, 1890.
MY DEAR MR. SCHWOB,—_Mais_, _alors_, _vous avez tous les bonheurs_, _vous_! More about Villon; it seems incredible: when it is put in order, pray send it me.
You wish to translate the _Black Arrow_: dear sir, you are hereby authorised; but I warn you, I do not like the work. Ah, if you, who know so well both tongues, and have taste and instruction—if you would but take a fancy to translate a book of mine that I myself admired—for we sometimes admire our own—or I do—with what satisfaction would the authority be granted! But these things are too much to expect. _Vous ne détestez pas alors mes bonnes femmes_? _moi_, _je les déteste_. I have never pleased myself with any women of mine save two character parts, one of only a few lines—the Countess of Rosen, and Madame Desprez in the _Treasure of Franchard_.
I had indeed one moment of pride about my poor _Black Arrow_: Dickon Crookback I did, and I do, think is a spirited and possible figure. Shakespeare’s—O, if we can call that cocoon Shakespeare!—Shakespeare’s is spirited—one likes to see the untaught athlete butting against the adamantine ramparts of human nature, head down, breach up; it reminds us how trivial we are to-day, and what safety resides in our triviality. For spirited it may be, but O, sure not possible! I love Dumas and I love Shakespeare: you will not mistake me when I say that the Richard of the one reminds me of the Porthos of the other; and if by any sacrifice of my own literary baggage I could clear the _Vicomte de Bragelonne_ of Porthos, _Jekyll_ might go, and the _Master_, and the _Black Arrow_, you may be sure, and I should think my life not lost for mankind if half a dozen more of my volumes must be thrown in.
The tone of your pleasant letters makes me egotistical; you make me take myself too gravely. Comprehend how I have lived much of my time in France, and loved your country, and many of its people, and all the time was learning that which your country has to teach—breathing in rather that atmosphere of art which can only there be breathed; and all the time knew—and raged to know—that I might write with the pen of angels or of heroes, and no Frenchman be the least the wiser! And now steps in M. Marcel Schwob, writes me the most kind encouragement, and reads and understands, and is kind enough to like my work.