_Vailima_, _Samoa_, _December_ 3_rd_, 1893.
DEAR RUSSELL,—I have to thank you very much for your capital letter,
which came to hand here in Samoa along with your mother’s. When you
‘grow up and write stories like me,’ you will be able to understand that
there is scarce anything more painful than for an author to hold a pen;
he has to do it so much that his heart sickens and his fingers ache at
the sight or touch of it; so that you will excuse me if I do not write
much, but remain (with compliments and greetings from one Scot to
another—though I was not born in Ceylon—you’re ahead of me there).—Yours
very truly,