_Steamship Cleopatra,
The next morning._
My dear Mademoiselle Hummingbird,
In your negligée you looked like a humming bird and I do not know your
real name, so may I call you this? Here I am writing to you, weak,
weak man that I am. I have no other helper than my dictionary, and it
takes me a long time for the writing in English, but I feel you will
like it better.
Did I fish[2] much for you last evening? Fishing is not good for going
in the Heaven, they say, but I did one good action. The devil pushed
me very strongly to kiss you when you came into my cabin, but I bowed
you out. That was meritorious. (You can say, “Beautiful, indeed!” as
said Wellington, seeing the charge of the French Imperial Guards at
the battle of Waterloo.) I hope how God will give me good mark for
that in his golden book.
[2] Intended for flirt.
I am reading much today, trying to forget you. The language in the
French books is very instructive to the mind but destructive to the
moral. The vice of the French or the bragging virtue of the
English--which is better? I finish this letter by begging you to walk
with me again in the moonlight. Send me a line if you will. I say
goodbye till tonight.