_Vailima_, _September_ 1893.
MY DEAR ST. GAUDENS,—I had determined not to write to you till I had seen
the medallion, but it looks as if that might mean the Greek Kalends or
the day after to-morrow. Reassure yourself, your part is done, it is
ours that halts—the consideration of conveyance over our sweet little
road on boys’ backs, for we cannot very well apply the horses to this
work; there is only one; you cannot put it in a panier; to put it on the
horse’s back we have not the heart. Beneath the beauty of R. L. S., to
say nothing of his verses, which the publishers find heavy enough, and
the genius of the god-like sculptor, the spine would snap and the
well-knit limbs of the (ahem) cart-horse would be loosed by death. So
you are to conceive me, sitting in my house, dubitative, and the
medallion chuckling in the warehouse of the German firm, for some days
longer; and hear me meanwhile on the golden letters.
Alas! they are all my fancy painted, but the price is prohibitive. I
cannot do it. It is another day-dream burst. Another gable of
Abbotsford has gone down, fortunately before it was builded, so there’s
nobody injured—except me. I had a strong conviction that I was a great
hand at writing inscriptions, and meant to exhibit and test my genius on
the walls of my house; and now I see I can’t. It is generally thus. The
Battle of the Golden Letters will never be delivered. On making
preparation to open the campaign, the King found himself face to face
with invincible difficulties, in which the rapacity of a mercenary
soldiery and the complaints of an impoverished treasury played an equal
part.—Ever yours,