Your query about an opera-subject which suggested my lines about Rabyah, also inspired me to make the story a poetical sketch in my best style, which I sent to _Harper's Bazar_; and perhaps, when you read it, you will think again more favourably about the theme. I am going one of these days to make a study on the romance of Rabyah's courtship and marriage, which is very pretty in the rendering of the old Arabian chronicles. I understand exactly what you want; but not having any accurate idea of stage-necessities and theatrical exigencies, I fear you must always remain the one to determine the worth of any operatic suggestion possible to make. Now, for example, I can't understand why Rabyah's death could not be _mounted_, etc. You will like the _colour_ of my sketch for the _Bazar_, to which I gave the title of "Rabyah's Last Ride." I have adopted the Arabic names, in preference to Lyall's or Muir's, unpronounceable at sight.--It seems to me that you can devise a splendid piece of gloomy beauty from the "Kalewala."
I am going to the West Indies as soon as my book is out. It will be a tiny 16mo, with Chinese figures.
I made a mistake in writing you about Hindola and Kabit; they represent poetical measures, or styles of chant, not instruments. See how my memory failed me.
DEAR MISS BISLAND,--More than two weeks before receiving your most welcome letter, I wrote to Messrs. Roberts Bros. of Boston to send you, as soon as published, a copy of "Chinese Ghosts," which will appear in a few weeks. It opens with the story of the Bell--the legend of the Great Bell of Pekin, or Pe-King;--and you will also find in it the "Legend of the Tea-Plant:" both in better form than that which you first saw.... If you watch the _Harper's Bazar_, you will find in it a little pre-Islamic story--"Rabyah's Last Ride,"--which I expect will please you.
I am under so many obligations to you that I can't attempt to thank you _seriatim_; but I am especially grateful to you for the pleasure of knowing something of Mrs. Alice W. Rollins. All the nice little things you have written about me and said about me, I can only hope to thank you for _as I should like_, when I am better able to prove what I feel.