_Vailima_, _January_ 30_th_, 1894.
MY DEAR BAILDON,—‘Call not blessed.’—Yes, if I could die just now, or say
in half a year, I should have had a splendid time of it on the whole.
But it gets a little stale, and my work will begin to senesce; and
parties to shy bricks at me; and now it begins to look as if I should
survive to see myself impotent and forgotten. It’s a pity suicide is not
thought the ticket in the best circles.
But your letter goes on to congratulate me on having done the one thing I
am a little sorry for; a little—not much—for my father himself lived to
think that I had been wiser than he. But the cream of the jest is that I
have lived to change my mind; and think that he was wiser than I. Had I
been an engineer, and literature my amusement, it would have been better
perhaps. I pulled it off, of course, I won the wager, and it is pleasant
while it lasts; but how long will it last? I don’t know, say the Bells
of Old Bow.
All of which goes to show that nobody is quite sane in judging himself.
Truly, had I given way and gone in for engineering, I should be dead by
now. Well, the gods know best.
. . . I hope you got my letter about the _Rescue_.—Adieu,