PRINCE OTTO - A ROMANCE

TO NELLY VAN DE GRIFT

(MRS. ADULFO SANCHEZ, OF MONTEREY)

AT last, after so many years, I have the pleasure of re-introducing

you to 'Prince Otto,' whom you will remember a very little fellow,

no bigger in fact than a few sheets of memoranda written for me by

your kind hand. The sight of his name will carry you back to an old

wooden house embowered in creepers; a house that was far gone in the

respectable stages of antiquity and seemed indissoluble from the

green garden in which it stood, and that yet was a sea-traveller in

its younger days, and had come round the Horn piecemeal in the belly

of a ship, and might have heard the seamen stamping and shouting and

the note of the boatswain's whistle. It will recall to you the

nondescript inhabitants now so widely scattered:- the two horses,

the dog, and the four cats, some of them still looking in your face

as you read these lines; - the poor lady, so unfortunately married

to an author; - the China boy, by this time, perhaps, baiting his

line by the banks of a river in the Flowery Land; - and in

particular the Scot who was then sick apparently unto death, and

whom you did so much to cheer and keep in good behaviour.

You may remember that he was full of ambitions and designs: so soon

as he had his health again completely, you may remember the fortune

he was to earn, the journeys he was to go upon, the delights he was

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

PagesTo menuNext>>