Fiction > Book editions > London, 1885 - Prince Otto

vi DEDICATION ^ ^.
completely, you may remember the fortune he was to
earn, the journeys he was to go upon, the delights he
w\as to enjoy and confer, and (among other matters) the
masterpiece he was to make of Prince Otto !
Well, we will not give in that we are finally beaten.
We read together in those days the story of Braddock,
and how, as he was carried dying from the scene of his
defeat, he promised himself to do better another time :
a story that will always touch a brave heart, and a
dying speech worthy of a more fortunate commander.
I try to be of Braddock's mind. I still mean to get
my health again ; I still purpose, by hook or crook,
this book or the next, to launch a masterpiece ; and I
still intend — some how, some time or other — to see
your face and to hold your hand.
Meanwhile, this little paper traveller goes forth
instead, crosses the great seas and the long plains and
the dark mountains, and comes at last to your door in
Monterey, charged with tender greetings. Pray you,
take him in. He comes from a house where (even as
in your own) there are gathered together some of the
waifs of our company at Oakland ; a house — for all its
outlandish Gaelic name and distant station — where
you are well-beloved.
R. L. S.
Skerryvore,
Bournemouth.