_To A. F. de Navarro._
Lamb House, Rye.
December 29th, 1900.
Dear and splendid Tony!
They are all admirable and exquisite--for I seem to have received so
much from you that "all" is the only indication comprehensive enough. I
came down from ten days in town the other day to find _L'Aiglon_, and
within three or four the beautiful little pocket-diary has added itself
to that obligation. Dear and splendid Tony, let me not even (scarcely)
_speak_ of my obligations. That way lies prostration, the sense of deep
unworthyness (wrongly spelled--to show how unworthi I _am_:) the memory
and vision of a little library of Bond St. booklets that collectors
(toward the end of 1901) will cut each others' throats for: and what do
I know besides? I am more touched than I can say, in short, by your
fidelity in every particular. _L'Aiglon_, now that we at last have the
glittering text, has been a joy to me, of the finest kind, here by the
Xmas fireside. I haven't seen the thing done--and I don't hugely want
to: I so represent it to myself as I go. The talent, the effect, the
art, the mastery, the brilliancy, are all prodigious. The man really has
talent like an attack of smallpox--I mean it rages with as purple an
intensity, and might almost (one vainly feels as one reads) be
contagious. You have given me, by your admirable consideration, an
exquisite pleasure. I wish we could talk of these things: but we are
like the buckets in the well.... Make me a preliminary sign the first
time you pass. For the present good-night. My Xmas letters are still
mainly unwritten and they are many and much. I greet you and Mrs. Tony
very constantly: I wish you a big slice of the new century: and I am
yours ever so gratefully,